A four hour flu at the Wall Street Journal?

Every morning reporters from across the country file into work at their local office of the Wall Street Journal and begin the task of tracking leads, writing copy, and sorting through the plethora of press releases that came in the night before. This morning was a different story. According to a recent post on Poynter, the news staff at the Journal took part in a sick-out in protest over recent contract disputes and the threat of Dow Jones being sold to the highest bidder.

It's unclear whether the strike will have any impact at the journal, and it seems that the action is largely symbolic. According to the release, the news staff will be coming in to work this afternoon. In other words, the reporters will be working twice as hard today to get a full day's work in half the time, and the impact on the strike will be almost non-existent. While I understand the reporter's commitment to the Journal's reputation and their subscriber's needs, I still feel that the sick out would've been more effective if tomorrow's paper simply didn't show up at homes across America as a result of today's strike.