Brad DeLong and Felix Salmon both point to evidence that the Murdoch effect is degrading the Journal’s news coverage. Indeed.

Frankly, there was a time when I thought the Journal was better on business/economic news than the Times. But no longer; and it’s not just things like referring to the estate tax as the “death tax” in news stories. Overall, coverage is getting cruder, with more tendency to report opinions as if they were news, and substitute prejudices for real analysis.

And this bad news is good news. There’s a pretty good chance that we will end up with only one great national newspaper. And I know which paper that should be …

Update: I suppose I should explain that a single national paper isn’t what I want — but it’s the way things seem to be going, so it matters who ends up as the last paper standing.