[upbeat music] Given that we don't know the shape of what the future's gonna look like, think about what we can control. One thing we can really think about is what are the things that make us irreplaceable?
And okay, one of those things is the trust that's tied up in, in The Wall Street Journal. You know, that's really, really important in a world where misinformation is out there. AI could turbocharge that misinformation.
So having that trust, I think, is one thing that makes us irreplaceable. I think number two, having that focus around business in the broadest possible sense, how it affects people's lives.
If we can really own that space, then, you know, we become irreplaceable. There's no point trying to second guess the way in which AI is gonna change us. Mm-hmm.
But if we do s- if we really focus on what makes us essential, then that will put us in good shape for the future.
[upbeat music] Welcome to the Rebooting show. I'm Brian Morrissey.
This week I have a conversation with Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker. Emma was named the editor-in-chief in February twenty twenty-three.
Prior to that, she had been the editor of The Sunday Times in London.
Soon after joining the Journal, the Journal conducted a content review to understand how it could further adapt to the many changes in the media business.
I always find these types of exercises, and the innovation report of The New York Times a decade ago is the preeminent example, as the forerunner to catalyzed change.
I mean, you don't do these kind of things without change coming soon thereafter.
And of course, since the content review was completed, the Journal has seen plenty of turnover, including a vast restructuring of its DC bureau.
There was also a cat on the front page and an ending of the honorifics, and I will miss, for one, reading Messrs. in the Journal.
I don't know what the future holds, but I do suspect that The New York Times will be the last to give up on honorifics, probably sometime in twenty-fifty.
But more seriously, we discussed the difficulties of organizational change because it's never pleasant. No matter what people say, they don't appreciate change, and it is very disruptive.
Emma also has spoken of making the Journal into an audience-first publication for people that mean business. We talk about what that means in the particulars.
She's also spoken very plainly about the vast changes in the media industry, as well as the ones further to come, particularly as AI becomes yet another existential threat to the media business.
The Journal is in an envied position to, to go with these changes because it's a business publication with a large and growing subscriber base. That's admittedly a bit, to use a Britishism, pale, male, and stale.
Seventy-five percent of Journal subscribers are male, and the average age is fifty-nine. Emma and I discuss how the Journal can appeal to new audiences without becoming an awkward dad on the dance floor at a wedding.
Hope you enjoy the conversation. Please send me your feedback at bmorrissey@therebooting.com.
And as a reminder, please remember to sign up for the Rebooting membership program for full access to TRB content, as well as invites to exclusive member events.
We're holding a new growth agenda event next week in New York City, and several of our members are participating. You can find out more about memberships at therebooting.com.
And for podcast listeners, there's a twenty-five percent discount if you use the link in the show notes. Now on to my conversation with Emma. [upbeat music] Emma, thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast.
Well, thank you very much for having me on, Brian.
And actually, I do just wanna say I'm a big fan of the Rebooting 'cause I think it's really important that, you know, the way you're driving forward the debate around the news industry because, you know, in a way that we never really had to do with print because things were fairly settled.
But it's such a jungle out there now.
I think, you know, we, we all need to be thinking about the news industry, its future, how it gets delivered, how it gets paid for, how we, how we engage people, and, you know, you know more than anyone, there, there aren't that many- Yeah.
-easy answers. No, but we'll figure it out in the next- [laughs] -forty minutes, I'm sure. So you were named, I guess, in, in early twenty twenty-three, and, you know, since then there have been many changes.
We were just talking about the cat ended up on the front page of the newspaper. The honorifics went out the window. No more RIP Messrs. I always liked Messrs. And some more substantive changes.
There have been a lot of, a lot of people have, have exited the organization. There have been cutbacks to different areas. There, there is a lot going on in the media business now. Explain to me what, what are you doing?
What is the [chuckles] what is the overarching goal? Because, I mean, I've seen it, I've seen and I've heard you describe it as becoming audience first, but let's, like, sort of peel the layers back. Yeah.
First of all, I just should say you're, you're right.
I've been here just over a year now, and, you know, obviously, I was incredibly honored to be asked to take the helm of such an esteemed organization as The Wall Street Journal.
And for all the changes and everything that's going on, everything I've seen so far tells me that the Journal definitely deserves that reputation. So I feel very optimistic about the future.
And then in terms of what I'm doing, I think when I got here, it seemed to me very clear that this was the moment to sort of make a d- a definitive sh- move away from print.
But I don't mean that in a practical sense, because obviously, practically speaking, that's already happened, but more in terms of our, of our ethos.
So the ethos of print was very established and it very much defined the way we thought about our journalism.
But I thought i- you know, m-my view was it's time now to move away from that and really, really think hard about the expectations ofDigital audiences which are very different from print audiences.
So that means really thinking hard about our journalism, how we deliver it, when we deliver it, the format we use to deliver it in and, and asking ourselves constantly are we adding value to our audiences or to our readers?
Are we, are we giving them something that's worth their time? So, you know, I don't need to tell you [laughs] it's such a sort of cluttered environment out there.
The Journal has to be, has to be offering something distinctive and, and that was what was behind this new strategy that I set out last September which was to be reader first or audience first either, which seems pretty obvious.
You know, shouldn't we all be reader first, audience first? Shouldn't we be really thinking about our audiences?
But the truth of the matter is I think a lot of established news brands do a lot of things in a habitual way.
This is what we've always done, but actually what you really need to do is by asking yourselves all the time, what value are we adding to readers? What do audiences want from us in this new digital landscape?
And so that was, that was the kind of thinking behind the new strategy. Well, I mean, I think for... I would think from the outside that The Journal would have that nailed already, right?
Because the, it's, it's a business publication. There's a lot going on with general interest news publications spent a generation in many ways chasing Buzzfeed I think really. [laughs] The Journal never had that.
Maybe, maybe the opposite actually. What did you see with... Is it, is it a, is it a cultural change?
I think reading between the lines of some of the things in a, in my, my research, I got the sense that y- you thought that it was a little pale, stale, and male if you will [laughs] like that it was just a little behind the times.
And like I always think everyone's like strong suits ends up being their, their, their weak points, and I just know journalists always had a reputation for being incredibly rigorous in its processes, and that can sometimes work against you.
But what, what did you, what did you see within the organization?
Because you have been enacting a lot of changes and, and, and, you know, it's clear anytime you enact changes, there's gonna be some people who are uncomfortable with them- Mm...
and some people who, who will end up leaving the organization. So when I got here, I did, I talked to a lot of people across the newsroom, and the, the, the thing I heard more than anything... Okay, I heard two things.
Number one, people at The Journal are very proud of The Journal, and they're very proud of its, its integrity and, and everyone holds that dear. Well, that's obviously a very good thing and, and I do as well.
The other-- because I think it's our bedrock, that trust, the trust that's tied up in our masthead is hugely important and possibly our biggest asset and one that we would never, ever undermine.
The other thing I heard over and over again was that The Journal was getting in the way of itself, that somehow or other it, the apparatus was s- it was structured in such a way that it was getting in, it was hindering, it was, it was stopping, or it was preventing the newsroom from doing its absolute best work.
So everything that I've done since I got here is to c- is to clear that path.
Now, I've also set out a new strategy, this reader first strategy, really thinking about what is it we can add to people, what, what value can we add to readers' lives.
And so I've s- I'm restructuring the newsroom to support that strategy.
That means making sure we've got structures that are logical and make sense, making sure that we're putting our resources where they have most impact, making sure that we're bringing in the new skills into the newsroom that we need.
And yes, that has meant some people have left, and that's never a nice thing to have to go through. Mm-hmm.
I completely understand that it's, people never like to see people they've been working with leave a business, but it would be...
I wouldn't be doing my job if I sat here and took the path of least resistance because it's clear that, that The, The Journal, The Journal's got a great future, but it needs to get in shape for that future to make sure that it doesn't just survive but it thrives.
And my view is we should do that now while the sun is shining rather than wait until our back is up against the wall and we're having to do something in a panic because we've realized that we haven't made the changes structurally and internally that we need to make in order to, to sort of make the most of this new digital landscape at a time when, you know, with AI coming down the line, we really need to know that we've got, that we're nimble enough to deal with, to cope with this changing landscape.
So you've said that like digital rewards specialism, and I think nowadays we hear about niche if you say it the American way or I have to say it niche over here. [laughs] Niche.
Otherwise people make fun of me or they take my phone when [laughs] I say niche. [laughs] But, and, and we, we hear more about niches and, and usually the...
It used to be like that just meant small and insignificant, but, but obviously now being general interest is not really where you wanna be. What does The Journal need to do more of?
'Cause I would guess you can just go deeper into the story of, of American capitalism that's almost- Sure... global capitalism. But what does that mean you wanna do less of?
Well, I mean, first of all, having American capitalism as your niche is just a great, great niche to have. It's a big one. [laughs] It's a big one.
And, and it's, it's, it's huge, and you can interpret it in so many ways. Now, I, I think it's hugely to our advantage that we have that, that niche, business, finance, economics, geopolitics, and rather...
And I think it, it works so much to our advantage because it gives us a lens through which to approach the world, and that's in, as you say, in digital means we can stand out.
You know, if you're interested in business, you need to read The Wall Street Journal. Now, obviously business is, especially here, isn't just something for Wall Street bankers, lawyers.
It touches everybody's lives, and that, you know, there's, just because you're young or because you're, you live outside the US or you come from a, a diverse background, why does that mean you wouldn't be interested in, in business, finance, economics, all the things that The Journal touches on?
So whether you're somebody who's working on Wall Street, whether you're somebody who's just starting out on their career, whether you're a retired person, whether you're a student thinking about your future, you need to re- my view is that I want to make sure-People feel the need to read the Wall Street Journal because of the way business affects their lives.
You know, it's everything. It's everything from the big, big obvious stories in our core to personal finance. I, I think you can take, take our niche and interpret it very broadly in a way that reaches new audiences.
But you don't... I, I think, the way I interpret the market positioning is the Times might wanna do gaming and, and a lot of that.
I mean, you guys will do your own version of, of commerce, although that's outside of the newsroom the way I understand it. Mm-hmm. But that you're not gonna try to be a lifestyle brand. No.
I mean, there's always gonna be elements of that when it comes to getting luxury advertisers, let's be real. But that you're not going to...
You're positioning yourself pretty na- like, not narrowly, I'm saying, but because you have that, that big niche, you're not gonna do what, what the Times is doing.
And, and the way I look at the Times, it's like they're gonna build a lifestyle brand for a certain type of, of usually upper middle class progressive person. [laughs] Yeah. No, I think...
And, and it, it, it's clearly, it's a great model for them, but it's, uh, it's not what we're going to do.
I think, I think having this, this lens as a, you know, business, finance, economics, geopolitics, that plays to our strengths. And there's, there's much more that we can do around that that works to our advantage.
So no, we're not going to- [laughs]... about, about to go down a lifestyle route. Yeah. I mean, that doesn't mean we can't have... I mean, you know, for example, we have very, we have a wonderful sports department.
I mean, we're not going to, people aren't gonna kind of automatically go to the Wall Street Journal for sport, but we know that our subscribers absolutely love our sports section.
It's a sort of, it's a lovely thing for them to have- Mm-hmm... once they're in. Right. But I mean, the key is to be distinctive in that, and then that's just- Yeah...
I mean, it's kind of like, you know, people were doing sports scores for a while, and that you don't- Yeah... we don't need to do that. No.
But when you have, particularly with, you know, the business of sports, there's a ton of- Yeah... opportunities there.
One of the things when you came in, it seemed like you were, uh, you were saying, I don't put words in your mouth, that the writing was too boring. What, what, what did you come... 'Cause I mean, there is a difference.
I mean, I've been, I've been here in the UK for a week, so I'm, I'm very familiar now already with UK journalism. There's a lot of differences between the two. Maybe we just back up. Okay. What are the...
You hadn't worked in the US before. What was, what surprised you about, quote unquote, "American journalism" versus British journalism? There are definitely distinct differences.
I mean, I think perhaps my, the most, the most remarkable thing I noticed was that there's, the, the British media scene is, it, you know, it's a small island with a lot of newspapers. It's very, very competitive.
Like a lot of European media, the, the, the chill winds of competition have, I think, came earlier to Europe than, than here in the US.
And I think, you know, the Journal is a hugely successful newspaper, and it's got the whole of America to, to sort of rely on.
And so it, it, it felt, uh, I think American journalism hasn't been subjected to the same level of competition that Europe has, for a start. Then I think there's, there are cultural differences as well.
I think, okay, on the p- on the plus side, on the, on the, let's say you take the British media. On the plus side, people, they get on with it. It's, it's competitive, it's lively.
Sometimes that competition has led to, you know, excesses which have been widely documented, but equally, it makes for a very scrappy environment, which can lead to governments falling.
You know, it, there are a lot of benefits- Yeah... the British press has kept. Um- It's more feral from an outsider, I would say [laughs] like here. Like [laughs] Feral, yeah. I think it's less, less reverential maybe.
I think, I think American journalism- Yeah, that's what I mean... it's more serious, it's, and as a result, I think the actual reporting is more rigorous.
And so the upside is you get very good reporting here, very, it's very, very, uh, rigorous.
The, the downside is that I think possibly American journalists, journalism spends too much time worrying about its place in the world and not enough time about the [laughs] stories.
But, you know, and, and that's partly a cultural difference. I mean, there's an upside to that as well. I think, I think the importance with which journalism is held in America is, is really impressive.
People know that it matters here, and they talk about the fact that it matters, and they think about it.
But it does mean, I think, that, that if you could get a happy marriage between the two, the sort of competitiveness and the excitement of the British model with the sort of rigor and seriousness of the American model, and as...
Then, then perhaps that, you know, that would be the ideal place to land. Yeah. Do you consider yourself a, a traditionalist with journalism? Because, I mean, journalism is not like a... There's no license, right?
It's not like a licensed field, and it's not like law- Yeah... or sci- I mean, but I think sometimes it's treated that way, at least in America. It, yeah. I think- And it's like, no, that's not what it is.
It really, it depends on what you mean by traditionalist. So it's, it's, it's so interesting because in one sense I'm not a traditionalist because I think, you know, we have to adapt to this future environment.
And if we, if we kid ourselves that if we carry on doing things the way we've always done them, we'll die. So in that sense, I'm not a traditionalist.
But the really interesting thing is the stuff that we know, the, the journalism that we know our readers love best is in many ways quite old-fashioned.
It's investigations, it's scoops, it's great revelatory enterprise style reporting. It's lifting the lid. It's, you know, g- telling people things they didn't know.
So in a weird way, in that sense, I am a traditionalist because I think at the end, you know, in the end- Yeah... great stories are what really matters.
But the challenge for us is getting those great stories out to this new digital audience in a way that they want to consume it. So asking ourselves, you know, let's say we get a great story, how do we tell this story?
In the old days, a, you know, a thousand words and a picture, a thousand words of text and a picture. Nowadays, we have to ask ourselves, is there a better way for us to tell this story?
And actually, to go back to your point about the writing, if we're being truly reader first, writing matters. People don't wanna read boring text. They wanna read- No...
stories that are lively.And interesting and I, I, I think the journal can do that without, in any way undermining its, its integrity, its, its ethical standards, its balance.
I don't think the two are, are mutually exclusive [laughs] Yeah. So how do you... Let's talk about the age thing, right?
So I, I think the, the joke, I don't even know if it's an open joke, it was about how the, the journal, the most often way it loses subscribers is they die.
[laughs] And I think the average age, I saw in a Times story about it, is like it was fifty-nine of a, of a subscriber. And as I get older, I'm very in favor of catering to the older population [laughs]...
just to be clear here. I have a stake in it, so stay there. But, you know, I was at a event earlier this week, the INMA event, and Tony Gallagher was talking from, from the Times.
And he brought up the you, you don't wanna be your dad dancing in the disco a- analogy when it comes to getting on TikTok and, and trying to be, trying to be hip with the kids.
How, how important is, is that aging down and reaching new audiences? So they knew that was a part, at least from what I've, I've, I've read of, of your remit at the Sunday Times.
And how do you pull it off without alienating the core? That's always the- Mm... the, the question. I think there are, there are, there are two things to consider there.
Number one, when we commission journalism, thinking about younger audiences, what we tend to find is, so perhaps w- we're catering to the needs of young professionals or people starting out on their, on their professional lives, or we think, yeah, w- w- we commission consciously with a sort of younger audience in mind.
What we tend to find is that everyone, you know, it... the older audiences love it, too. It definitely does... You, you... It's possible to cater to a younger audience without, in any way, annoying your older readers.
They, they tend to engage with it too. Because if it's... Now if you're, if you're thinking about a digital audience, you're, you're, you're tending to sort of commission more thoughtfully anyway.
So it stands to reason that, that it gets a wide, wide audience that doesn't just cater to the, to the youth audience.
The other thing I think is, and when I say youth, you know, for us, it's important for us to get these young professionals, people in their 40s, 30s and 40s, not so much the sort of 18 to 24-year-olds, although, you know, I'm happy for them- Right...
to be reading the journal too.
The other thing is we've, we've got some really brilliant young reporters at The Wall Street Journal, and they are, they've been given license to really think about how they deliver their news.
You know, we've got this, uh, I mean, one example, this wonderful markets reporter who she, she spent a weekend playing with a new financial investment vehicle that was really sort of taking off in a sort of viral way with retail investors.
And she wrote up, and she's, she's in her early 30s, and she wrote up this experiment, and then she did a sort of, obviously, she did the video to go with it. This, this, this went down really well.
But funnily enough, it wasn't just with younger audiences, it was the older audiences who, who engaged with it as well, because it's good journalism.
And, you know, on, on that front, in terms of you, you mentioned, you know, people churn when they die.
In- since in- since we've started being more ambitious and more experimental and bringing a bit more life to our journalism- Mm...
our, the conversion rate on, on The Wall Street Journal in one year has gone up by 78%, which is, you know, I'm obviously very- Mm. I'm delighted about.
But even more exciting than that is the churn rate, which, as you know, for any subscription business is the, the bit that everybody's really focused on. That has gone down by six percentage points in a year.
And so people are spending more time with us. They are churning at a slower rate, and that can... You know, that, that obviously includes a younger cohort of readers. Yeah. And churn is, it's so critical.
It doesn't get talked about- Yeah... enough. I think everyone likes to talk about bringing people in the front door. And we see this with subscription programs.
You know, obviously Netflix and the streamers deal with, you know- Yeah... people coming in and out, and the norm is very steep discounting for deals and, and- Yeah...
you're gonna have higher churn when, when you have that. And I think churn, to me, getting churn down, it is a test of whether you're delivering, right? You can do- Yeah...
a lot of things to market, and you can make people call to cancel. We can do a whole different episode of that.
But it is, uh, the best, I think, business KPI about whether you're actually delivering what people value at the end of the day. Yeah. No, uh, you're, you're completely right. I mean, and you're right.
You mentioned the word churn, and you sort of see people's eyes glaze over, but it is so important. And interestingly, it's, it's the metric that I'm asking, or rather I'm asking the...
I feel as though churn is, is something that we as a newsroom have some, we have some influence over it. So I'm asking the newsroom to focus on engagement, not traffic, not, not, you know, clicks, but engagement.
How long are people spending reading- Mm... our journalism? How much ti- how often do they come back to us? Because that is the, the one thing that we can control.
We can't control how much traffic gets sent to us from Google, Facebook, whatever.
But one thing we can do is make sure we're giving the people who are paying for us what they really want, so that they create habit and that they don't, that, you know, they come back to us, and they don't cancel their subscription.
That doesn't mean we're not- Yeah... constantly thinking about growing our audience. We are.
But it's, but the newsroom itself, I'm saying, you know, think about how we engage our, the people who are already paying for us and make sure they're happy. Every day you go wake up, make sure they're happy. Yeah.
How do you, how do you feed that back to them, right?
Because I think we're also coming out of an era in which a, a lot of, a lot of people went too far, probably, with the wrong kinds of data and feeding it back in- [laughs]...
whether it was Chartbeat data a- and traffic data. But to get people to understand that data can be a useful guide as far as how, you know, whether you're delivering to, to the audience.
Well, we've recently rolled out a new analytics dashboard for the whole newsroom, and I was very clear from the start this is for everybody. This isn't raw data in the hands of a few editors.
This is contextualized data dashboard for the newsroom, which gives, allows everybody, reporters, editors, to look at how pieces are performing.
And it, but it, but what it does is it, it enables them, it gives them insights into our readers' behavior. And-It gives them a me...
It's all contextualized so it gives a measure for subscriber interest, subscriber engagement, it looks at guest visits, conversion rates, female readership, young readership and it's, it's, it's there in order that reporters and editors can look and, and, and glean insights into how our readers are behaving.
It's not there to tell them what to commission or what to write about.
It's, it's there to a- to, to, to give insights into, into how it is that people want to read about us, about, you know, how people want to consume The Wall Street Journal.
Yeah, because I mean, we came out of a period where everyone was looking at, at, at what was trending on Facebook. Yeah.
And when I remember the, the, sitting through one of the pitches for one of those dashboards and I was like, "Doesn't everyone else have this dashboard? Won't they be doing the same thing?" Yeah.
Like, that by definition [laughs] is a race to, like, zero- Yeah... at the end of the day. But also, and we can't control it. We, we, you know, we can't control who's sending us...
You know, the, the, the platforms are clearly deprioritizing news. So obviously, you know, we need- Yeah...
uh, my, my view is we need to really work hard on the relationship, the direct relationship that we have with our subscribers.
And, and to that end, you know, as I say, I'm getting the newsroom to really think hard about engagement. Yeah. Uh, you had said, and, and I it was quoted in The Times of you didn't want to be the German car industry.
What did you mean by that? [laughs] Well- I like Mercedes... with, with huge a- huge apologies to my great German- The big German car industry-... friends and colleagues... the audio setup in the show has.
[laughs] Well, yeah, I, I sort of think maybe that wasn't such a good analogy because- This is a safe place, Emma. You can say what you want about- Yes.
[laughs] Well, what I was trying to say was is it goes back to what I said earlier, you have to make hay while the sun shines. Yeah. You, you know, we have to get it...
Listen, the news landscape is changing beyond all recognition, and I think what's gonna happen now with AI, I mean, don't ask me to predict, but I think it's going to be more of a seismic change than even than the shift from print to digital.
So we have to get... It's not enough to just keep up, we, we have to actually get ahead.
And so my point there was, you know, whether it, you talk about Blockbuster Video or the German car industry or, or Kodak, the, you know, the, the old, the, the example that gets trotted out in business case studies, we have to be ahead.
We have to be in shape to make sure we don't get done in by these, these, these huge changes. So as I said, everything I'm doing is to make sure that we're, we're, we're strong enough- Yeah...
to withstand what's coming our way. Okay. Because it's a podcast, I have to ask you the AI question. And it's like- [laughs]... 'cause I feel like 'cause it's like the...
it's the ultimate podcast thing because there's... you can just sort of make a lot of stuff up because there's not a lot of there- Yeah... there yet. Is there any way to plan ahead for whatever is coming?
Because, I don't know, I try to keep up on it, and I, I talk to a lot of people who are far smarter than me, and to me, like, the only thing that comes out is you have to be completely adaptable because- Mm...
it literally could, yeah, change everything. Is there anything, like, structurally you can do to prepare for whatever AI ends up becoming as related to the news industry?
Well, I think first of all, making this definitive shift away from print that I mentioned right at the start is, is- Yeah... obviously goes without saying.
And as I say, that's not just about the practicalities, it's about the mindset. So I think, listen, because we don't know how it's going to affect us, I think the best thing is to really, really focus on the audience.
What are the audience needs, and are we in, are we in good shape to meet them?
And AI will come along, and if we've got a, a, a newsroom that's very, very attuned to what, what it is people want from us, we should be able to adapt quite quickly.
So part of that also means making sure you've got the right skills in the newsroom. You know, have you got the right audience people? Have you got the right data journalists? Have you got the right visual storytellers?
You know, we, we need to sort of make sure we're, we're fully equipped on that front. And then, you know, we're advertising for a head of AI in the newsroom, somebody who can look at what AI means for us as a newsroom.
You know, I think, think one way to prepare yourself for AI is to use it yourself so that you get used to the idea of, of wh- of what value and advantages it can bring.
And, you know, and then I think the other thing is to make sure that journalists, reporters, editors are out there listening to podcasts like yours, Brian, but also, you know- I agree. Thank you...
li- seeing what other, other newsrooms are doing and making sure that we're not just talking to ourselves, but are really open to, you know, what other newsrooms are doing, and a lot of them are, you know, doing some very interesting things.
And I think, I think one other thing is, given that we don't know the shape of what the future's gonna look like, what can... You know, think about what we can control.
One thing we can really think about is what are the things that make us irreplaceable? What is it about The Wall Street Journal that will keep it critical in the future?
And okay, one of those things is the trust that's tied up in, in The Wall Street Journal. You know, that's really, really important in a world where misinformation is out there. AI could turbocharge that misinformation.
So having that trust, I think, is one thing that makes us irreplaceable. I think number two, having that focus around business in the broadest possible sense, how it affects people's lives.
If we can really own that space, then, you know, we become irreplaceable. So I think, you know, you could y- there's no point trying to second-guess the way in which AI is gonna change us. Mm-hmm.
But if we do s- if we really focus on what makes us essential, then that will put us in good shape for the future. Yeah. So when you talk about, like, changing the print mindset- Yeah...
like, what does that mean organizationally? Because I think it was one thing to shift the business away from reliance on print advertising. That's already taken place, right? Mm.
And I think what you're getting at a little bit is it's still celebrated to, to... Anyone who works for The Wall Street Journal celebrates the first time that their story is, is on the front page.
Like, they get it, like, framed. I don't care if they spent their entire life in digital. They might be like 28 years old, they celebrate it. And, uh, it still means something, right? So but it... What is...
I mean, I've seen interviews of you before and, you know, print is obviously, it's gonna continue. My parents still are print subscribers to, to The Wall Street Journal.
They do live in a retirement community in Florida, however [laughs] I must say. I hope they're gonna be print subscribers to The Wall Street Journal for many, many, many, many years.More years.
But how do you, e- e- explain to me the, the, how you sort of make that a reality organizationally, and is that sort of what you're referring to? Is, is, because I mean, print is still...
It, it is just, it is a distribution channel at this point. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I...
Well, so first of all, on, on print, you know, as a shop window, it's still invaluable, and actually we had a really good example of that a few weeks ago when we, I'm sorry to say, had to mark the one-year anniversary since our journalist was arrested in Russia.
And we did a, uh, a wrap of the newspaper, the print product, which had a great big empty space on it. Our point being this was a story that- Yeah... Evan Gershkovich couldn't write.
That wasn't something that we could replicate in digital. It just didn't work, but it made a huge impact. I mean, interestingly, the image of this print wrap was circulated widely on social media.
But, so, so look, in terms of actual kinda shop window, print is, still has a function. It's a great, it's a great shop window for us. It's a marketing tool, if you like. I mean, it matters.
But I, I wonder about your, your point about people celebrating being on page one. I, I wonder whether it's... I don't know. I mean, I wonder whether that's still true.
I mean, we've got very young reporters in the newsroom. Mm. I spoke to her initially. She's 24. She's great. [laughs] She's got a great future ahead of her.
I, I'm gonna have to get back on- Has she been on the front page? See, see, see what happens when she gets on the front page I'm pretty sure she has been. I'm gonna go back and ask her. [laughs] Okay.
No, I think, I think it goes back to what I was saying. It's like, you know, everybody knows, even my head of print, he's fully up- he's fully on board with the fact that, that the future is digital. He gets it.
He's actually very digitally- Yeah... minded. But it's about the mindset. It's about thinking about where we sit in that digital ecosphere.
What is it about, what can the Journal be offering in a, in a, this hugely cluttered environment where people...
You know, we're competing not just against other news providers, we're competing against everything, Netflix, YouTube, you name it, you know, messaging, whatever it is. We have to be offering something distinctive.
So I'm saying t- what I want the, the newsroom to really think about is what does that look like for the Wall Street Journal?
You know, this irreplaceable journalism from The Wall Street Journal, how does that, how does that grab these, these, these digital readers who have got different expectations? So don't worry about page one.
Think about, about a story that's going to play well in digital, that's going to engage our subscribers, that's going to reach new audiences, that's going to stand out as distinctive quality journalism that matters.
I mean, who doesn't love that if they're a journalist? That as a message. Yeah, exactly. Um- And I think that's where, that's where our strength lies. Yeah, for sure. And I think...
I, I wonder also, I mean, we're coming into, obviously the election is, is starting. There- I don't know if it's different from the UK. There's a lot of like civil wars that are going on in like- Yeah...
American newsrooms. There's a lot. Like, every, every day there's like a march on, on someone's office or something. I don't know if it's, if it's less calm here. I haven't told, uh, seen yet. What is...
Is, is this a generational thing? I mean, 'cause I think that there is a... I don't wanna be the old guy, like, who's- [laughs] But like, there is... But I'll play that role if I have to. There is...
I just sense there's more of like an activist streak of, in, in a generation of, of, of journalists that, I'm not saying it's right or wrong- Mm...
I'm just saying that I have observed it more, uh, it being more prevalent than, than I remember. Do you see that at all?
And how do you end up having a newsroom that is, that is responsive to the fact that you do have this very talented 24-year-old and- Yeah... and, and people of different, like, generations, and they're...
Any new generation brings new ideas and, and they make sure you hear [laughs] their, their ideas. Well, you know, you're absolutely right that, that there's a feeling that there's activist tendencies out there.
The thing that's really impressed me at the Journal has been the, the, the extent to which the newsroom buys into the values of the Journal, which is rigorous reporting, balance, fairness, you know, uh, obviously [laughs] adhering to the facts.
That's i- i- and this, this, it's very, it's very ingrained in the newsroom, and obviously as you bring new people in, and you're bringing people in with different skills, the people with these new skills don't always come from a journalistic background.
They haven't all been to Columbia School of Journalism or whatever. So it's really important that you kinda spread that, that, that DNA, that, that- Mm... that integrity.
And to that end, we have very rigorous onboard training for people. We talk about it in the newsroom about the importance of, of, of balance and objectivity.
I have obviously, you know, I'm asking the newsroom to be more ambitious, to take some risks, but to, and to that end, I've appointed, you know, one of our m- most senior editors as my head of standards because I want to be sure that as we think about how we reach or, or appeal to digital audiences, and that we are a bit more ambitious, that, that none of that undermines the integrity of the Journal.
Mm. So that's why I've appointed her and, you know, I take it very important, you know, obviously I take it very seriously. But I think it's interesting how that, that, that sense gets passed down, as it were.
You know, we've got this very broad newsroom. We've got people of a certain age, and then we've got the 24-year-olds.
But what's, I mean, interestingly, this 24-year-old, she sit next, she sits next to our, a very senior experienced- Seasoned... journalist. Seasoned would be the proper- Seasoned. Seasoned.
[laughs] And I see them, in fact, funnily enough- It's a good euphemism. Saying how someone's old in a story.
[laughs] The first, the first time I saw them in, the first time I saw them, it, she sits next to him, and I thought it was bring your daughter to work day [laughs] 'cause- [laughs]... I assumed she was his daughter.
Far from it. But what, what's really great is the way they, they, they work with each other.
So he-You know, she's, she's learning the, the, the sort of integrity, the values from him, and frankly, he's learning a lot about digital from her. So I think the wa- the Journal's very, very...
I'm very conscious, the head of standards is very conscious, we're all very conscious as a newsroom that those- Mm-hmm... values of fairness and objectivity- Mm...
and balance get passed down and, you know, we're just very alive to the fact that in this polarized- Yeah... world as well, these values are really, really important. Do, do you get concerned?
'Cause, I mean, I, I try not... Uh, Twitter is not real life and I, I, I understand that, and neither are podcasts, to be honest with you.
But there is more backlash against quote unquote the media, it seems like, in power circles in, particularly in tech, but also in business and tech. I don't know if you sense that. I mean, there's a... Anytime...
Uh, there's a lot of delegitimizing of quote unquote the media that used to be more confined to politicians working the refs. We're in what I call, like, a chaotically information space- Mm...
and we have, we have things like the All-In podcast, whereas before, they would be talking to reporters sort of on background and trying to massage things.
Now they're, like, influencers unto themselves, and we're seeing a lot of people, particularly in, in, in business, who are building their own platforms. Mm.
I mean, how do you think that changes the role of, of, of a pu- a publication like the Journal? Or does it not? Well, I... It's, it's a really... It's such an interesting question.
I think in some ways it means we have to double down on those values I was talking about, and we have to shout about the fact that that's who we are and that's what we believe in, and that if you read a s- a story from The Wall Street Journal or you watch a video from The Wall Street Journal, it comes with these rigorous values behind it.
The challenge is how do you, how do you convey to a gene- the next generation, people who've grown up, first of all, g- not paying for news, and also who have got used to an environment where the truth isn't as, perhaps doesn't matter as much.
You know, if, as... I, I spoke to a, a 28-year-old reader, he does actually subscribe to The Wall Street Journal, the other day, and he said, but most of his news he gets from his friends.
It's, you know, they share things together. And I said, "Well, how do you know that what you're getting is true?" And he said, "Well, I, I don't." And he said, "But I don't really care.
If we're talking about it, we're talking about it." So I think it's a challenge for us in, you know, these, the established news brands, is how do you- Mm...
how do you, how do you explain the importance of facts and factual reporting and, you know, the, the importance of holding people to account or the importance of establishing what we- what's really going on?
I think, I think perhaps we haven't been very good at doing that as an industry.
Do you buy into a lot of the, I mean, trust is talked about a lot, declining trust, and, and you can, if you can look at the Pew surveys and, and- Pew... trust in institutions has declined overall.
I- is this something that can be, quote unquote, fixed, and how much of, if there is a problem, how much of it lies at the feet of how the journalism itself has been done?
Because, I mean, if, if this is, if th- if, if these figures are correct, and this is, is the audience that news organizations are creating their product for, then they need to change the product. Yeah.
I think we need to think really, it goes back to what I've been saying, y- you really need to think if people aren't reading us, if people are disengaging from the news, we should be asking ourselves why, why is that?
If we think news matters and people are losing interest in it, then, then that's on us. You know, we need to find a way of making it compelling. I think we should think about providing people with solutions.
I mean, I'm sure you know about the whole solutions-based journalism, so don't just talk about- Mm-hmm... don't just set out the problems. If you're gonna set out some problems, think about the solutions as well.
And, you know, we, we find at the Journal when we take a, a big societal problem like homelessness or, I don't know, gambling or things that are, uh, generally pretty negative subjects, if you can frame them in a way that shows where people, uh, are, are seeking to solve that problem, people are more engaged with it.
They don't wanna come- Yeah... away feeling utterly hopeless. I mean, and that- Yeah... that's not about sort of sugaring the b- the pill. It's, but it's about finding ways to, to, to make news matter to, to people.
I s- I saw a video where you talk about constructive journalism, um, and it's an interesting concept because, um, and I think it, it goes by a different, a, a bunch of different terms, but I think- Mm...
at the root of it is how do you make this more tangible and useful to- Yeah... to people's lives? Yes. Because there's a real, and I think it's actually kind of real, the negativity bias.
I would say the one bias that most news should probably cop to is a negativity bias, and there's all sorts of different- Yeah...
cultural reasons for it and just reality of, of, of the business, but I think it can be an a- antidote to, to that negativity that, you know, if it bleeds- Yeah... it leads. That's always been- Yeah. I mean-...
how it is... I mean, we, we, we find that sometimes, you know, one thing that really engages readers is when you, you, you give people a voice. So I, I mentioned gambling earlier, and it, it's, it's a huge issue.
It's a big... It's a business story, but it's also got, you know- Yeah... impacts on society.
But for whatever reason, and I didn't, I don't just find this here, I used to find it back in the UK as well, that people don't wanna read about it, but we, but we know it's an important subject.
People don't wanna read about gambling? Well, they don't wanna read about- Or about the downsides of it? The da- the, yeah, the dark side of gambling and the sort of- Yeah...
addiction problems and, you know, what are the companies doing and... But we, we did a piece- I think we legalized too quickly. That's my take. Well, it, uh, that's why it's such an important issue in the US.
You know, you legalized very quickly and now you're, you're sort of picking up the pieces.
People could have, you know, [laughs] if you'd been awa- aware of what was going on in other countries, you might not have done so so quickly.
But we did a piece about thinking about, well, how do we get people, how do we make sure that people are interested at all or engaged in this subject?
We found, one of our reporters found a ps- uh, she, she was actually a trained psychiatrist-Who became addicted to gambling herself. And we told the story through this woman.
So but, but in the process of doing that, we touched on the companies involved, the money involved, the impact that it was having on society.
And, and so you touched all the important business points about it, but at the same time, it was this fascinating story of this woman who, a psychiatrist herself, she could see what was happening to herself, but she became addicted.
And that was one of our... It was a hugely successful piece of journalism that, hugely... A very high engagement, lots of people came in to read it.
So I think we just have to be really, think really, really hard about how we tell our stories. Mm. And yeah, how, if people are turning away from us, we gotta make them turn back to us, but that, that's on us- Yeah...
to figure out. So final question is around getting, getting talented young people to come into the profession.
'Cause I think one of the things I, I worry about is, I think it's good to have honest, open discussions about the challenges that face the, this, this business, 'cause they're real, and, and everyone pretending they're otherwise is not gonna make them go away.
And there's all different reasons, and hopefully that'll give me things to talk about on this podcast. But [laughs] th- there is an upside to, to the extinction event.
[laughs] And I don't think it's gonna be an extinction event.
But I do wor- worry about people wanting to come into a, a field that every time you hear about it, it's about, it's about it being in collapsed or, or a, a dumpster fire.
What, what do you, what advice do you give to a young person who's considering this as a career choice? Because all the signs points to it being a terrible idea. [laughs] I think it's a fantastic career choice.
[laughs] But you have to go into it, you know, with... And, and believe you me, we have no shortage of people, young people wanting to come and intern here and get jobs here. So it's clearly still got a huge appeal.
But I, I- Okay... I think, you know, I... So on that front, I don't worry about it. I think the one thing I would say to people thinking about coming to journalism is don't just think about big J journalism.
You know, think about as well about how... Think about the industry. Think about journalism doesn't, you know, the, the money for journalism doesn't grow on trees. We have to find a way of sustaining journalism.
So part of your job as a young reporter, young person wanting to go into journalism, isn't just think- you know, you should be thinking about stories and reporting and, and, and how, you know, all the sort of stuff that I was trained to do, but you should also be thinking, be curious about the industry.
Because I think we all need to... And that's why, again, you know, why I think this, your podcast is so good. I think we need to be thinking about it.
We need to figure out the future for an industry that is, you know, it's got [laughs] it's in a, it's a, it's a pretty- Yeah... beehive stage at the moment. Yeah.
Well, there has been a major change i- of how the editorial side used to be sort of almost, like, proudly ignorant of how the business- Mm-hmm... worked. I don't know [laughs] how to describe it, but it was like- Yeah...
"No, I'm not gonna sully my... That would be, that would be against my some sort of ethical code." But again, I'm like, where is this code? There's no licensing. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah.
And I think that's changed a lot- Yeah... probably by frequency. I, yeah.
I think, I think it's, it's, it's, it's clear now that newsrooms have to align with the overall, you know, business goals of an organization, that, you know, there's nothing controversial about saying that.
And y- you know, 'cause if you don't, [laughs] you're not gonna survive.
But I also think, so for example, some of the roles that, that y- that we have, like head of visual storytelling, you know, audience strategists, they are there to help take the newsroom o- on that journey and make sure that the, the newsroom is, is, is thinking a- alongside the business with where the audience growth is or who the audiences are.
You know, we, we, we work, I work very closely with our head of marketing. I mean, she's there to help get the journal's journalism out there. So yeah. Mm-hmm. I think, I think it's, it's all for the best. Yeah.
And getting those parts to work together, it, it sounds, like, obvious- Mm... but it, it's, it's difficult within a lot of organizations. Yeah.
And, and a lot of that is, look, there's a lot of upsides to legacy, and some of the downsides aren't actually seen, and they're organizational downsides. And, you know- Yeah...
the way journalism organizations were done was designed to be siloed to a degree. Yeah. And most businesses can't operate that way these days. No. At all. Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, y- I completely agree with that.
And some of that is about making sure that we, we're skilled enough in the newsroom to be able to, to, to, to, to shape, you know, the strategy and, and work alongside the, the business side, the, the marketing side, even while, you know, obviously maintaining these, these, these absolutely core principles that, that, that keep the, the Wall Street Journal's journa- journalism so sort of rigorous and, and impartial.
But, you know, we're, we're bringing new skills into the newsroom, skills like visual storytelling, data journalism, audience strategists.
You know, they're all, th- th- they, they're changing the metabolism of what we do as well. Perfect. Okay. Emma, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time. Not at all. Thank you very much.
I hope I got all my points over. [laughs] I think you did. [outro music]