Could the New York Times next apology be tendered to the Wall Street Journal? If that sounds unlikely, feature the latest news from the newspaper wars. It seems that ten years after the Wall Street Journal was acquired by Rupert Murdoch, the Journal dwarfs the Times in its ranking for trustworthiness. A new study finds the Journal’s trustworthiness is ahead of any other American newspaper — and ahead of the Times by a what passes in polling for a kiloparsec.

What makes this so delicious is that ten years ago, when Mr. Murdoch was buying the Journal, the Times was issuing all the moral opprobrium it thought fit to print. One Times editorial claimed that Mr. Murdoch had “reneged on his promise of editorial independence for the Times of London.” The Times vowed to watch for “any sign” of the Journal slanting news.

Plus, the Times ran a column by Paul Krugman warning that if “Mr. Murdoch does acquire The Journal, it will be a dark day for America’s news media — and American democracy.” Mr. Murdoch’s “people,” Professor Krugman sneered, “rarely make flatly false claims. Instead, they usually convey misinformation through innuendo.”

Perish the thought.

Mr. Krugman asked, “do we want to see one of America’s two serious national newspapers in the hands of a man who has done so much to mislead so many?” The Washington Post “for all its influence, is basically a Beltway paper, not a national one,” sneered he, and the McClatchy papers “still don’t have The Journal’s ability to drive a national discussion.”

Mr. Krugman rued the fact that the FCC lacked grounds to block the purchase. The Times itself hoped that Mr. Murdoch “remembers that The Journal’s respect for its readers and the readers’ trust in The Journal are entwined.” Added it: “Lose one and you lose the other.”

That cataract of condescension began a decade in which the Times lost no opportunity to try to undercut Mr. Murdoch. It piled on during the tabloid scandal at London, in which Mr. Murdoch actually closed one of his most famous titles, the News of the World. That scandal seemed to die away when Murdoch’s top editor and executive in London, Rebekah Brooks, was acquitted — cleared — of any crime.

Lately the Times has been trying to palm off on its noble readers the idea that the Journal is rent by dissension over President Trump. That’s no doubt because the Journal and the Times took different approaches to the epic of Trump. The Times ran a page one column suggesting that old standards of objectivity were passe in the era of Trump.

The Times’ editor said the column, by James Rutenberg, had “nailed it.” The Journal, in contrast, doubled down on classical news standards, covering both sides of the story with hardheaded reporting, and hewing, on its editorial page, to the principles of free people and free markets that have guided it since the 19th century.

And, hey, presto, look what’s happened. Not only has the Journal emerged as the most trustworthy American newspaper. But the Times has tumbled to 17th among major press organs in the survey of trustworthiness by the University of Missouri’s Reynold’s Journalism Institute. Top laurels go to such British newspapers as the Economist and the Guardian and such government backed broadcasters as Public Television, BBC, NPR, and PBS.

Among American newspapers, the Times is reckoned less trustworthy than Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News, Denver Post, Washington Post, Seattle Times, and the Kansas City Star. Not even the non-apology-apology issued by the Times chairman, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., after the 2016 election saved the Gray Lady from this ignominy.

It would be a mistake to make too much of a single survey (one report said respondents in the survey leaned to the liberal side to start with). In its non-apology-apology, the Times did vow to rededicate itself to reporting America and the world “honestly, without fear or favor.” Then it turned around and abandoned the vow in an effort to overturn the very election result it failed to foresee. Maybe it ought to apologize to Rupert Murdoch himself.