The Wall Street Journal has seen a sharp increase in readership, some 20%, since it was purchased by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., according to Editor & Publisher.

My former colleagues at E&P report that a Media Audit study finds the sharp increase since the 2007 purchase.

“According to the study, the Journal is read by more than 4.3 million adults in the 80-plus markets it studies,” E&P reports. “The readership amounts to 3% of all adults age 18 and over in those markets, an increase from 2.7% last year and 2.5% in 2007. Media Audit attributed the readership gain to the increase in coverage of politics and general news by the Journal.”

But, as we all know, it is advertising that matters.