This morning's Wall Street Journal, the one shaped like a Holiday Inn bath towel (I'll call it the Towel), breached the separation between the news and editorial pages by keeping the biggest news story of the day off of its front page. The Towel should have plastered the front page with a deep analysis of the wide ranging implications of Apple Computer, Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone. But I think the editorial page editors' rage at Al Gore and Steve Jobs kept that from happening.

To be fair, the Towel did have many stories about the iPhone. Apple Storms Cellphone Field [subscription required] graced page A3. Apple Shines Tech Shares As Stocks Sag led on page C1; Apple May Justify Hype trailed on C14; and Apple's iPhone: Is It Worth It? filled out much of page D1. This is quite a bit of coverage for Apple -- but I can't imagine why it decided to lead with a story on how Towel publisher, Dow Jones & Company Inc.'s (NYSE: DJ) competitors are trying to sell national advertisements through a joint venture with Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO).

These stories are besides the point. The real action in the Apple coverage is on the Towel's editorial page. Apple's Gore was Holman Jenkins's pointless rumination on his internal conflicts about the success of Apple's business, his unspoken frustration about how Democrats Al Gore and Steve Jobs are benefiting from it, and his angst that the backdating scandal -- which he feels is much ado about nothing -- has left Jobs unscathed. And Should Steve Jobs Go To Jail? hints that just as Jobs got off for backdating, so should the authors' client, Brocade Communications Systems Inc.'s (NASDAQ: BRCD) former CEO, Gregory Reyes.

The irony of this is that publisher, Gordon Crovitz, recently crowed about how Towel reporters uncovered the backdating scandal last year. But I guess the Towel couldn't decide how to handle all the internal conflict created by Apple's iPhone announcement. As a result, the Towel's dirty laundry kept it from plastering the front page with what could turn out to be one of the biggest business stories of 2007.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm, and a Professor of Management at Babson College. He subscribes to the Wall Street Journal but doesn't have any financial interest in Apple, Brocade, Dow Jones, or Yahoo.