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I found saw a recent image going around on Facebook:

Wallstreet makes two headlines?

The picture shows two copies of the wall street journal that look nearly identical. They feature the same image but have very different headlines. The claim is that both copies were distributed, but to different locations, based on "what you want to hear."

It certainly looks very convincing, but as we know in today's world photos can be easily faked. Additionally the photo may be showing the headline that did run and a headline that almost ran rather than two separate headlines that ran in different locations.

So did the Wall Street Journal run two versions of the story based on location? If it did, is this a common practice, as the claim suggests? How do they decide which subscribers get which version?

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    The first thing I noticed was the 'Loafer steps up.' I wasn't sure what the ruckus was about. :D – J. Allan Sep 03 '16 at 20:35
  • @Jefr Yes, I was wondering how that decision was made too. It does seem a bit odd because the ads seem to target a different kind of person. Typically advertisers don't make two ads for the same market. But if the answer below is correct the markets would be the difference between those who get the paper in the morning and those who get it in the afternoon. That could be a significant difference in type of person. So actually there could be unintended swaying of audience opinions from this story changing practice. Consumer behavior is a very interesting topic. –  Sep 03 '16 at 21:41
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    You’ll notice that the story has been edited, not just the headline. Look hiw many lines are in each paragraph. – JDługosz Sep 04 '16 at 11:35

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The headlines come from different times in the day, not different markets, and reflect changing situations during the day.

Changes like this are normal practice for newspapers.

As usual, Snopes has already answered this.

These opposing headline editions were not distributed to different political or geographic markets, nor were they intended to influence voters.

Colleen Schwartz, the Vice President of Communications at The Wall Street Journal, confirmed that these editions were printed at different times, not in different markets. The edition on the left was published after Trump met with Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto early in the day (and referenced the seemingly cooperative tone of their discussion), and the edition on the right was published after Trump delivered a speech on immigration later in the day (and referenced Trump's reasserting his stance that he would force Mexico to pay for the building of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border):

Print newspapers sometimes undergo revisions throughout their daily runs and typically employ marks to distinguish the various editions — in this case the differing WSJ editions are distinguishable by the number of stars displayed in the masthead.

If there really were regional differences, somebody would have an example that was NOT from a day when a presidential candidate gave two contradictory speeches in a single day.

In answer to a comment, it is clear from the picture that the article has changed, not just the headline.

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DJClayworth
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    Yep. Takes hours to print the paper, especially for ones like the WSJ that are printed all over the country/world. No conspiracy here, just a case of the movie-favorite "stop the presses!" – ceejayoz Sep 04 '16 at 15:59
  • @ceejayoz With a paper as big as the Wall Street Journal they probably have more presses than you can count. And with a circulation as large as theirs they have to run them pretty much all day to meet demand. So when the story changes, as it happens to sometimes, the papers being printed also change. –  Sep 04 '16 at 17:12
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    TBH I'm more surprised that they *don't* change based on geography/political zones. – Kevin Sep 05 '16 at 00:12
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    @Kevin, why's that? National news stations don't film different stories. National magazines don't publish different editions. Why should a national newspaper have different versions of headlines? – Paul Draper Sep 05 '16 at 03:30
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    The New York Times had almost the opposite problem with their online main story for the same events: [they didn't change it throughly enough soon enough, and readers weren't happy](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/02/public-editor/the-news-from-trump-changed-the-main-story-was-slow-to-catch-up.html). Wasn't a good day for big newspapers, I guess. – Cascabel Sep 05 '16 at 03:47
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    @PaulDraper while in theory newspapers should report what we need to know, in practice they need to sell and that means reporting what people want to hear. That obviously changes from place to place, so why wouldn't the headlines change with it? – Kevin Sep 05 '16 at 07:11
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    @Kevin It would make more sense to have a different paper, instead of two versions of the same paper. If you look closely at who owns what papers, you sometimes find that the same owner has a "left" and "right" paper to meet the demand in both markets. –  Sep 05 '16 at 17:05
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    Also at least in Canada national papers have regional versions with local news. Nothing nefarious left/right-wise, just people in Vancouver don't need to know about the bbq festival in Toronto this weekend. – Adam Martin Sep 05 '16 at 17:08
  • @AdamMartin I've never heard of this. Which papers are you talking about, and can you give examples? – DJClayworth Sep 05 '16 at 20:07
  • @DJClayworth This is also common in Germany: The BILD-Zeitung (one of the most read papers that nobody admits to read) comes in [numerous regional editions](http://www.stepmap.de/karte/regionalausgaben-der-bild-zeitung-145968). Intriguingly, it feels as if those papers that are sold nation-wide, but are "only" regional according to their name (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung) either do not differentiate into regional editions, or at least not as prominently. – Hagen von Eitzen Sep 05 '16 at 20:21
  • @DJClayworth My local paper has one for my town and one for the larger town to the east. The only difference I've noticed so far is the name at the top (The [my city] Press vs. The [one town over] Press). I'm sure there's some regionalizing, but there's far more legitimate reasons than nefarious reasons. –  Sep 05 '16 at 21:40
  • @fredsbend Yes, but that's very different from a national paper having different versions for different locations. Canada really only has a couple of national papers and I've never heard of them doing this. – DJClayworth Sep 05 '16 at 21:57
  • @DJClayworth Good for the goose, good for the gander. I meant my comment to show that if small scale sees a need for it, then how much more would large scale? As was mentioned in a comment above, Vancouver readers don't want to see information on the festival in Toronto. –  Sep 05 '16 at 22:58
  • @DJClayworth the globe and mail has some regional sections. The A section is the same, but over time their various inserts have changed depending on region. It's been awhile since I looked at a copy from another region, but I think the TO section only prints in Toronto area regions (the life/arts section used to be regionalized more I think, but now they still print for example showtimes for local theatres). I was also thinking of Metro papers are a(n) (inter)national brand that prints a different copy for different cities. They also have different advertisements (sold by 4 regions). – Adam Martin Sep 06 '16 at 00:13
  • If you only meant regional sections, no problem. As you say, lots of papers have those. Thought you meant different versions. – DJClayworth Sep 06 '16 at 03:08
  • Note that there **can be** a relation between the time when the paper comes off the press and the region where it is distributed. The larger newspaper here in the Netherlands (they usually have only one print factory), the earlier prints go to the regions fartest away. –  Oct 08 '18 at 10:20