Better to Read Wall Street Journal or New York Times
Inside the Fight for the Future of The Wall Street Periodical
A special team led by a high-level manager says Rupert Murdoch's paper must evolve to survive. But a rivalry between editor and publisher stands in the way.
As of December 2020, The Journal had 2.46 one thousand thousand digital-merely subscriptions. It aims to double that number past June 2024. Credit... Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times
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The Wall Street Journal is a rarity in 21st-century media: a paper that makes money. A lot of coin. But at a time when the U.S. population is growing more racially diverse, older white men however brand upwards the largest chunk of its readership, with retirees a shut second.
"The No. 1 reason we lose subscribers is they die," goes a joke shared by some Journal editors.
Now a special innovation squad and a grouping of virtually 300 newsroom employees are pushing for drastic changes at the paper, which has been part of Rupert Murdoch'due south media empire since 2007. They say The Journal, often Mr. Murdoch's start read of the day, must move away from subjects of interest to established business leaders and widen its scope if it wants to succeed in the years to come. The Journal of the future, they say, must pay more attending to social media trends and cover racial disparities in health care, for example, as aggressively as it pursues corporate mergers.
That argument has nonetheless to convince executives in the top ranks of the company.
The Journal got digital publishing right earlier anyone else. It was one of the few news organizations to charge readers for online access starting in 1996, during the days of dial-up internet. At the time, almost other publications, including The New York Times, bought into the mantra that "information wants to be gratis" and ended up paying dearly for what turned out to exist a misguided business strategy.
Every bit thousands of papers across the country folded, The Periodical, with its nigh ane,300-person news staff, made money, thanks to its prescient digital strategy. While that inoculated The Periodical against the ravages wrought by an assortment of unlikely newcomers, from Craigslist to Facebook, it also kept the paper from innovating further.
The editor leading the news arrangement every bit it figures out how to attract new readers without alienating loyal subscribers is Matt Murray, 54, who got the top job in 2018. He has worked at The Periodical for ii decades, and his promotion was welcomed past many in the newsroom. Before long subsequently, he assembled a strategy team focused on bringing in new digital subscribers. To oversee the group, Mr. Murray hired Louise Story, a journalist whose career included a decade at The New York Times.
She was given a sweeping mandate, marking her equally a potential future leader of the newspaper. She commands a staff of 150 as main news strategist and principal product and engineering officer. Her team helped compile a significant audit of the newsroom's practices in an effort to heave subscribers and at present plays a cardinal part in the newsroom as audience experts, advising other editors on internet-search tactics (getting noticed by Google) and social media to help increment readership.
As the team was completing a report on its findings last summer, Mr. Murray institute himself staring down a newsroom defection. Soon after the killing of George Floyd, staff members created a private Slack channel chosen "Newsroomies," where they discussed how The Periodical, in their view, was behind on major stories of the 24-hour interval, including the social justice motion growing in the aftermath of Mr. Floyd's death. Participants too complained that The Periodical's digital presence was not robust enough, and that its conservative opinion department had published essays that did not see standards practical to the reporting staff. The tensions and challenges are similar to what leaders of other news organizations, including The Times, have heard from their staffs.
In July, Mr. Murray received a draft from Ms. Story's team, a 209-folio blueprint on how The Journal should remake itself called The Content Review. It noted that "in the past five years, nosotros have had vi quarters where we lost more subscribers than nosotros gained," and said addressing its tiresome-growing audience chosen for meaning changes in everything from the paper's social media strategy to the subjects it deemed newsworthy.
The report argued that the paper should attract new readers — specifically, women, people of color and younger professionals — by focusing more than on topics such as climate change and income inequality. Among its suggestions: "We also strongly recommend putting musculus behind efforts to feature more women and people of color in all of our stories."
The Content Review has not been formally shared with the newsroom and its recommendations have not been put into effect, merely information technology is influencing how people work: An impasse over the report has led to a divided newsroom, according to interviews with 25 current and former staff members. The company, they say, has avoided making the proposed changes because a brewing power struggle betwixt Mr. Murray and the new publisher, Almar Latour, has contributed to a stalemate that threatens the futurity of The Journal.
Mr. Murray and Mr. Latour, 50, represent two extremes of the model Murdoch employee. Mr. Murray is the tactful editor; Mr. Latour is the brash entrepreneur. The two rose within the arrangement at roughly the same time. When the moment came to supplant Gerry Baker every bit the top editor in 2018, both were seen equally contenders.
The ii men have never gotten along, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Or equally an executive who knows both well put it, "They hate each other." The digital strategy written report has only heightened the strain in their human relationship — and, with it, the management of the crown precious stone in the Murdoch news empire.
Their longstanding professional rivalry comes down to both personality and approach. Mr. Murray is more deliberative, while Mr. Latour is quick to deed. But the core of their friction is notwithstanding a mystery, according to people familiar with them.
Dow Jones, in a statement, disputed that label, saying at that place was no friction betwixt the editor and publisher. It also cited "record profits and tape subscriptions," which information technology attributed to "the wisdom of its current strategy." Both Mr. Murray and Mr. Latour declined to be interviewed for this article.
About a month after the report was submitted, Ms. Story's strategy team was concerned that its work might never meet the calorie-free of 24-hour interval, three people with knowledge of the affair said, and a typhoon was leaked to ane of The Journal's own media reporters, Jeffrey Trachtenberg. He filed a detailed article on it late terminal summer.
But the first glimpse that outside readers, and most of the staff, got of the document wasn't in The Journal. In October, a pared-downwards version of The Content Review was leaked to BuzzFeed News, which included a link to the document as a sideways scan. (Staffers, eager to read the report, had to plough their heads ninety degrees.)
The leak angered Mr. Murray, people with knowledge of the matter said. But he offered an olive branch at the same time. "I'thou very proud of the work existence done by the strategy squad across the newsroom," he said, according to a recording of a meeting obtained by The Times. He added that the report'southward recommendations — "some of which I disagree with" — required debate.
If subsequent debate has led to revisions or an updated strategy, the staff hasn't been told. The Journal's own story past Mr. Trachtenberg on The Content Review still has non run.
'A broad cultural fear of modify'
Image
The Journal isn't the simply media arrangement whose leaders accept been challenged by its employees. Editors at The Times, The Los Angeles Times and Condé Nast have faced tough questions from staffers on how they have handled race coverage or issues of bias or problematic editorials.
What's unusual about the recent events at The Periodical is the public nature of the grievances. The Times, past contrast, is known for how its internal spats become public. At The Journal, workplace gripes tend to stay inside the family. Mostly. (None of the people interviewed for this article work at The Times, which has recruited a sizable number of Journal employees.)
The Content Review didn't pull whatever punches. "We accept a wide cultural fearfulness of change and we overweight the possibility of alienating some readers, compared to our opportunity price of not changing and growing," it read.
Alter in whatsoever news organisation is difficult. When Mr. Murdoch bought the newspaper in 2007, the newsroom was on tenterhooks, worried he would destroy its culture. That didn't happen. Instead, he expanded its coverage to compete more directly with The Times. But over time, the paper has retrenched. Now it's more than of a chimera; part punchy Murdoch, part old-school Journal.
News Corp, the parent visitor of Dow Jones, the publisher of The Journal, has put force per unit area on the newspaper to double the number of subscribers. Merely to run across that goal, it must "reach a sustained 100 million monthly unique visitors" by June 2024, according to the report, noting that its site has never attracted more than fifty million readers for more than a few months.
Dow Jones disputed that figure, saying that the site averaged about 55 million, with a summit of 79 million last March. (The Journal temporarily gave readers gratuitous access to its coverage of the coronavirus pandemic when it striking the Usa more a year ago.)
Earnings filings show The Periodical had 2.46 million digital-simply subscribers at the end of 2020, including 106,000 who came aboard in the year's final quarter.
Early final year, equally Ms. Story'due south team was months abroad from making its recommendations, Mr. Murray was sanguine that its eventual report would be well received by Will Lewis, who was then the Dow Jones chief executive and The Journal's publisher, according to several people who worked in the newsroom. Merely final leap Mr. Lewis suddenly stepped down. He was replaced in both jobs past Mr. Latour, who had won praise inside the visitor for his digital know-how as the publisher of Dow Jones's Barron's Group.
Mr. Murray was non happy to learn of Mr. Latour'due south date, according to five people with knowledge of the thing. That's when his mental attitude toward the strategy team's efforts changed, the people said.
They added that Mr. Murray was concerned that the grouping'south report, coupled with the staff unrest, would be taken as an indictment of his leadership, and that Mr. Latour might utilize its findings against him. The document called out Mr. Murray in one instance in which it observed that the traffic goals accept "not been articulated well enough in the newsroom," and added, "Unless Matt is abandoning that goal, it needs to be announced and explained robustly."
Dow Jones disputed that characterization of Mr. Murray'south concern and said that he and Mr. Latour had gotten along and discussed the team's work.
Mr. Latour had his own idea of how to goose The Journal's readership, one built on more common traffic tactics that he had employed at the sis titles Barron's and MarketWatch. A few people on the business organisation side and some pinnacle editors who had seen the assay past Ms. Story's team dismissed it as a "woke" strategy, given its emphasis on appealing to underrepresented readers, the people said.
In a statement, Ms. Story said she was proud of her team'south work and their collaborative efforts across the newsroom, which "has led to cracking results."
Leadership tensions stymie progress
Epitome
News Corp looks like nearly aging media businesses: It'due south shrinking. It recorded a $1.one billion loss concluding yr, and news revenues, with the exception of Dow Jones, proceed to fall. Dow Jones operates The Periodical and several other titles such as Barron'south and MarketWatch, but non News Corp'due south Australian and British newspapers, which haven't performed as well. (The company likewise owns a real estate listings business organization, TV stations in Australia and the volume publisher HarperCollins.) News Corp recently hired the consulting firm Deloitte to work on a project to consolidate its many divisions, according to three people with directly cognition of the affair. That would mean cost cuts and could lead to the loss of a significant number of jobs, the people said.
The Journal'south ambitious subscriber target is very much function of News Corp'south mission to stem the bleeding and find new areas of growth. But its editor and publisher, opposite in many means, appear to have arrived at nearly opposite conclusions well-nigh the best way forwards.
Mr. Latour, who grew up in the minor village of Welten, holland, was known to have clocked more Page 1 stories than almost anyone else at the paper when he covered the European telecommunications industry. A graduate of Indiana Academy of Pennsylvania, he started his journalism career as an intern at The Washington Times, and exhibited the kind of scrappy drive prized by Mr. Murdoch.
Mr. Murray, who grew up in Bethesda, Physician., is laid-back, affable and sometimes bad-mannered, colleagues said. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Northwestern, is fascinated by the entertainment industry and is a Talking Heads fan.
Their strained relationship has gotten in the way of progress, people familiar with the matter say. In a mid-Nov meeting, people saw that firsthand when a disagreement flared up betwixt Mr. Murray and Mr. Latour and ane of his lieutenants, Dan Shar, two people with knowledge of the meeting said.
Mr. Shar described his strategy for increasing the number of monthly readers, a plan that differed significantly from the one laid out past Ms. Story'due south team. At one point, the two people said, an exasperated Mr. Murray interjected: "But I'm the editor." Mr. Shar laughed. Mr. Latour kept a directly face.
A spokesman for Dow Jones said in a statement that meeting participants did not recall that exchange.
The third graphic symbol in the ongoing Journal drama is Ms. Story. She has tried to advisedly nudge both Mr. Latour and Mr. Murray toward her vision, people around her say.
In her decade at The Times, Ms. Story covered the 2008 financial meltdown and was part of the 12-person group behind the Innovation Report, a 2014 manifesto that laid out the strategy that has helped The Times to thrive and the main reason Mr. Murray hired her to run The Journal'southward audit.
Ms. Story has recently been in discussions about an editor in chief part at both Reuters and The Washington Mail, according to ii people with knowledge of the thing. Ms. Story declined to annotate.
What is The Wall Street Journal?
Prototype
One of the fundamental bug outlined in The Content Review was the need to retain younger readers. For years, The Journal attracted college students by offering them a reduced price; but once those offers expired, they quit the publication at a higher charge per unit — over 70 pct — than any other group, the report said.
To assistance solve that effect, Ms. Story's squad launched Noted, a monthly digital magazine designed to entreatment to readers nether 35.
Noted was besides partly the brainchild of Grace Murdoch, ane of Rupert Murdoch's daughters, who had interned with Ms. Story's team in summer 2019 while in loftier school, according to two people familiar with the thing.
"We need to movement across perceptions and embrace bodily data about younger audiences, and that is what WSJ Noted volition be providing," the study read. This included "tailoring content" for younger readers; last yr, a staff of 10 reporters, editors and designers were hired to start working on features well-nigh inequality in education, educatee debt and related topics.
The project ran into trouble once Mr. Murray saw the re-create, according to four people with noesis of the matter. He line-edited stories himself, rare for a top Journal editor. An commodity almost a college campus motility to abolish sororities and fraternities in an try to combat racism and homophobia was spiked, according to the people. Mr. Murray objected to terms such as "trans-phobia," which was not in the paper's style guide, referring to them as "jargon-y woke-isms," they said. Dow Jones said that Mr. Murray and Ms. Story decided not to publish that commodity because other outlets had covered the topic.
Noted switched gears. Based partly on a suggestion from Mr. Latour, information technology focused entirely on applied pieces, such as "how to update your résumé" or "how to approach a job interview." 2 Noted editors left in the concluding week of March, and now there are only 4 people on its staff.
One goal put forth by The Content Review seemed more accessible to many inside the paper than conjuring millions of new subscribers overnight: a greater effort to appeal to readers of color. In a meeting between the strategy team and high-level editors, Ms. Story spoke about trying to track the racial multifariousness of people quoted in Journal coverage. Near of those gathered for the give-and-take were white.
Everyone at the meeting said they agreed that The Journal should include more diverse voices. But how? Should they survey subjects virtually their groundwork? A senior editor expressed concern about such a tack, co-ordinate to two people who were briefed on the effect, saying he was worried the paper might be sued if it came out that its reporters were passing over white people to quote Black people. (The visitor disputes the label of the meeting.)
Such comments illustrate how hard information technology will exist rewiring the staff to more modernistic methods of news gathering.
In a Feb. 22 memo to the staff, Mr. Murray endorsed including a wider diversity of people in The Periodical's coverage, pledging to "properly capture the diversity of our guild and speak to as wide an audition as possible."
Mr. Latour has also been talking about the need for change. In a series of companywide meetings that started final summer, he emphasized the importance of The Journal'due south digital transformation, but repeated a phrase that many took to mean he wanted a continued focus on business organization leaders and Wall Street elites. "We need to be excavation into the brand," he said, co-ordinate to several staff members.
Mr. Latour never asked for a copy of The Content Review, according to 2 people familiar with the matter. It'due south even so unclear if he's read it.
If he has, he would know that one key message contradicts the very arroyo he'south favoring: "We tin't think we've got a comfy base of digital subscribers who will be satisfied if we just keep doing what nosotros're doing."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/10/business/media/wall-street-journal-murdoch.html
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