Emma Tucker brought fresh eyes to the Wall Street Journal
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From the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is Channels with Peter Kafka. That is me. I am the Chief Correspondent at Business Insider, where I cover tech and media. And today I'm talking to one of the biggest names in media. That is Emma Tucker, the Editor-in-Chief of the Wall Street Journal. The Murdoch family brought in Tucker to run the journal in early 2023, so she's been there nearly two years. And as we discussed, her mandate seems to be make the journal more lively, make it younger. And she's been there nearly two years.

and also change the way it is staffed. Not everyone loves those changes, as we discuss, but a lot of people seem pretty pleased with it. Subscriptions are up 7% in the last year. But let's hear Tucker explain what she's doing in her own words. Here's me and Emma Tucker.

I'm here with Emma Tucker, who is not quite two years into her new job as Wall Street Journal's editor-in-chief, but you're coming up close on it. February 2023, is that right? That's correct, yeah. Came out of the Sunday Times. What was your pitch to the folks at News Corp and the Murdochs about what got you the job? What did you tell them you wanted to do when you came to the Journal? Well, I felt that the Journal was in a very good place.

but could be more ambitious with its appeal to new digital audiences. And I think my feeling was that in a world of very fractured news and lots of noise and confusion and misinformation,

A brand like the journal, which number one has incredible trust, but number two has got a very kind of good niche focus of business, finance and economics, could be doing even more to get its fundamentally excellent journalism to a wider audience. So my feeling was let's help take this wonderful institution down.

to the next stage in a landscape of news that is changing extremely quickly. Digital audiences, I read as you wanted to make the journal's audience younger. Is that a fair...

translation? Yes, absolutely. Because it goes without saying that we need to attract the next generation of newsreaders. But it was also, could we bring in a broader global audience? Is there an untapped female audience out there? I mean, really just when I think about expanding audiences, I don't necessarily, I don't automatically think about younger audiences. I just think about

people who love news, people who are interested in what's going on, people who could get value from reading the kind of journalism we do, how do we bring them in and keep them? And so how do you think about doing that? Is that story selection? Is it headlines? Is it stories you're choosing to no longer cover? I mean, I'm assuming it's all of the above, but when you wake up in the morning, what are you thinking about to sort of make it more global, make it younger, attract different demographics?

Well, you're right. It's all of the above, but it starts principally with thinking really hard every morning, every day about our audiences.

and asking ourselves, you know, what does the audience want from us? What can we give them that is useful, that adds value to their lives, that's interesting, useful to know, it impacts them directly maybe? You know, what is it that they want? So we start by thinking about the audience and everything flows from that. So we're doing things to make our audiences engaged, that they feel that what we're giving them is useful, rather than thinking about this is how we do things or...

I think there has been a tendency in established news brands who for a long time had it all their own way in terms of owning the news to do things the way they think they should be done rather than truly putting themselves in the shoes of the audience and thinking, well, okay, what's going to be useful for them today? So you don't think your predecessors were thinking what's useful to our subscribers who are paying us money? I mean, it seems like they would be consumed with that.

Can you get a little more granular about how your approach is different and how that actually works in the real world? The way it works is there's a tendency for established news organizations to think they have to cover everything or all news events. And I think as the news landscape evolves, we're understanding that

That's not necessarily the case. So some of what we're thinking about is what do we not do anymore? What's not useful to news consumers or Wall Street Journal readers or subscribers? We are thinking all the time, are we using all the tools at our disposal to tell stories in the most engaging way possible? Because I think the current digital audiences have very different expectations from what they want to see from us. Words and pictures are

was the default for a long time. But now we have to be much more creative about how we're telling stories. So I want the editors and reporters to be thinking, what's the best way of telling this story rather than, you know, just defaulting to what's always been done. You mentioned not covering stuff. What's stuff that your predecessors were doing that you decided there's no need for us to do this kind of reporting or coverage anymore? There are no edicts. I don't issue edicts on stop doing this. But I mean...

For example, we have, and you know, there are some stories that we have to cover because we're the Wall Street Journal and people have expectations about what we cover. But for example, we're experimenting around, you know, stories that you might describe as commodity news, earnings reports, economic statistics, for example. Is there a more digestible way where people who expect us to cover that come to us, they simply need the news. Is there a way that we can give them that in a very digestible format that perhaps they

we wouldn't have used before. So in fact, around earnings reports, we are now doing that. We're giving sort of briefing style notes that are very short and to the point. And we think we're doing that because it meets the user need.

Netflix earnings are out today. Here's a couple sentences if that's all you need to know about Netflix earnings. If there's something more significant, we can do a longer story. Exactly. So Netflix, it's a good example. That's one where I think we wouldn't just, because Netflix is a big and interesting company. I haven't actually seen the earnings. I don't know if they're out yet. They're coming out in a few hours from now. Yes, that's right. So, you know, there may be something in there that's really interesting. So we're always flexible.

But it's like I said, you know, we're always thinking, OK, what does the audience want from us? What do they expect? If there's something really interesting in the Netflix earnings, we will obviously spend more time on that, bring our expertise to help explain what's going on there and give the context. We'll be right back with Emma Tucker. But first, a word from a sponsor. Support for this podcast comes from Stripe.

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Yes, the thing you're listening to right now. Well, it's increasingly being produced directly by companies like venture capital firms, investment funds, and a new crop of creators who one day want to be investors themselves.

And what is actually going on with these acquisitions this year, especially in the AI space? Why are so many big players in tech deciding not to acquire and instead license tech and hire away co-founders? The answer, it turns out, is a lot more complicated than it seems. You'll hear all that and more this month on Decoder with Nilay Patel, presented by Stripe. You can listen to Decoder wherever you get your podcasts. Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home.

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And we're back. I want to read you an email I got from a journal subscriber. And the subject line is new style for WSJ. And then there's question mark, question mark, question mark. The content of the email is a link to a story that you guys ran this summer. Headline is luxury real estate world rocked by rape allegations against star brokers.

The person who wrote that to me is my father, who is a longtime journal subscriber, many, many, many decades, probably around Joe Biden's age. I should know his precise age, but it's somewhere in the Biden age bracket. And I don't think he's going to leave the journal, but it seems to me that he represents, I'm just guessing here, a class of readers who you want to keep, but

At the same time, you're trying to balance that against this new audience you're trying to reach. How do you think about balancing those two constituencies? Your dad picked a very specific example there, but I have to say that that was fundamentally a real estate story.

And we know our subscribers, our readers, they absolutely love stories about real estate. So this was a good example of one where, you know, you could tell it in a more creative way. But one of the interesting things is that, I mean, your dad aside, I hope he doesn't unsubscribe. We find that when we sort of are creative about how we tell stories with new audiences in mind, the existing audiences tend to love it.

It's like at the end of the day, it's just better. It's better storytelling. I mean, any kind of change in any kind of publication, you're always going to have a group that says, I don't like the new whatever it is, whether it's a headline or a font or anything else. I don't like the new table of contents. Are you saying that most readers are not like my dad and they welcome the new punchier headlines and sometimes more salacious story selection? Yeah.

Absolutely. And it's borne out by the numbers. I mean, the amount of time that people spend reading the Wall Street Journal has gone up. I've actually got some figures here.

I know your subscription numbers are up with 11% digital, 7% general. Subscription numbers are up, but actually what I'm interested in is the amount of time that people spend reading us, the number of visits they pay, and crucially, the churn rate is down. And that's a sign that, you know, people are less likely to unsubscribe because they're clearly feeling like they're getting what they need from us. Do you want your journalists spending time thinking about things like churn rate?

Do you want them looking at that data? And do you want them to think about that as they're selecting stories to pursue? I want them to think relentlessly about the reader. That's what I want them to think about. I want them to think about how do we tell this story? What is it that we can give people that they really find interesting and useful? And one of the things that there's a huge focus on in the newsroom is exclusivity. We know from looking at the

the data, people want from the Wall Street Journal things that they didn't know. So the newsroom is very focused on getting scoops and it's very focused on getting exclusive detail that they can put into longer reads. You know, it stands to reason there's a lot out there. People want to get from the journal things that they didn't know. And time and again, you know, if we're telling people something they didn't know,

The engagement on those pieces is extremely high. How do you place the journal in the news landscape? Who are your readers also looking at when they're reading the journal? If they're subscribing to the journal, who might that subscription money come from? Well, I tend to think of it in terms of in the very, very broad sense. I mean,

People now have, I say our competition is time. You know, you can do anything you want now with a phone. You can play games. You can watch movies. You can read books. You can certainly scroll through social media. You can go to other news outlets. What we have to do is be distinctive enough that people find value in what we're offering them. So exclusivity is part of it.

Compelling storytelling is another part of it. Using all the digital tools that are at our disposal is another part of it. So, you know, obviously I read our subscribers and I look at what they're doing. But to my mind, our real challenge is time. Are we doing something that is worth people's time?

I think that's what everyone who sells a subscription these days says. And correctly, right? Whether it's read and not no longer read Hastings, but the folks who run Netflix, if you're running Spotify, you're asking for people's money and for their time. So you're sort of in that mosh pit with everyone else. Yeah. I mean, our big advantage in that mosh pit, I would add, is that we have this niche, you know, and that plays to our advantage in digital business, finance, economics, geopolitics. I think we're lucky to have that.

Yeah, I've heard you describe your niche as American capitalism, which is both specific and super broad. I mean, you could pretty much write anything you want and put that under that. Indeed, as you tell your dad that, that story fell squarely into American capitalism. He is still reading it and still subscribing. You're still getting your money from him. I want to ask you about another story you ran also in June. This headline was Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping.

Obviously, that story was borne out, I think, less than a month later at the debate. At the time, there was a lot of criticism from folks who said, I don't know about the veracity of this. It's really telling that the only on the record quotes you have saying that Biden is slipping are coming from Republicans like Mike Johnson and Kevin McCarthy. I've subsequently seen you say, yeah, we were, you know.

We were vindicated in that story. Have you ever gone back and said, we were right in aggregate, but maybe we could have presented it a different way. Maybe we could have had more skepticism about who was on the record saying that Joe Biden is slipping.

No, not really. I thought the piece was very, very carefully reported. You know, it's going to be tricky to get people to go on the record for a story like that. The reporters involved, they were on that story for such a long time. They were extremely rigorous. And, you know, our standards editor was all over that story. I felt like we had, you know, we had done the work required to break a story of that

nature and I was satisfied with what we did. Can you describe the pushback you got from the White House as you were reporting and then after publishing that story? Well predictably they weren't happy I mean we were sort of yeah inundated but I felt very confident in the story I was confident in the reporting I was confident about the processes and we'd followed and I mean the fact is

It was an important piece of reporting. It was an important piece of journalism, and we were vindicated by it. And, you know, we weren't the only people saying this, but it was very hard to get that story over the line. I think, you know, that's what we do. Sometimes there are these big stories, these challenging stories. You were the only major U.S. outlet to say people are saying he's slipping, to have on-the-record quotes saying it. A lot of other people were nibbling around the edges of it, either didn't want to or couldn't come out and say it. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I mean, I think that's right. I think, you know, you have to be able to challenge the consensus from time to time and look at things and say, well, you know, that was one of those stories which everybody was talking about it, but nobody was reporting it. And so I think there are times where you have to stop and say, well, look, hang on. If everybody's talking about this, shouldn't we be looking into it? And

And we started doing the reporting after the Her report came out when there was a lot of talk about Biden's mental acuity. And that was what led to it. But, you know, sometimes the most obvious stories are staring you in the face, but they're also often the hardest stories to get over the line. And I think that was a good example of one such story. Is there an advantage to you being relatively new to the journal itself?

and being from England that says that you think gives you the freedom to sort of look at something in a different light or say, oh, this thing is obvious. How come no one's saying it out loud? Or would any of editor done the same thing? I think any editor would have done the same thing, but there's always an advantage in fresh eyes, you know? And so we have brought new people into the newsroom who've got fresh eyes and the combination of their fresh eyes with the talent and expertise that we've already got, it raises the metabolism in the newsroom and it's exciting. And, you know, I think

Yeah, I did have totally fresh eyes. So I probably did ask some pretty obvious questions when I got here that probably had people laughing. But, you know, you have to not be afraid to ask the obvious questions. After this coming election, November 5th, there's a decent chance we have a scenario where

Kamala Harris has won. Trump orbit doesn't accept that. And they push false claims of election interference, vote counting, irregularities, et cetera. We've seen this play out before. Have you thought about how the journal is going to cover a scenario like that where there's two sets of competing claims, but one of them seems to be true and one does not? Yes, we have thought about it. You know, it, it,

It seems to me that this story doesn't end on election day. I mean, I think we're all prepared for that. And we've got a number of plans for the different scenarios that might play out. We will bring our usual rigorous and trusted approach to whatever unfolds and make sure that we're explaining what's going on to everyone.

to Wall Street Journal readers. I mean, the journal has a reputation, right? Brand of being sort of down the middle, the news section, nonpartisan. And in the old world, it would be totally reasonable for a major publication to say, here are two sets of competing claims about the election.

But given the likelihood that those claims won't be of equal merit, are you thinking about, you know, yeah, we're not going to describe Donald Trump's claims with the same vigor that we would with Kamala Harris, or we're going to bracket them and say, you know, without evidence, there's all kinds of ways to signal it. Or do you say, nope, our job is not to referee this stuff. It's just to tell you what the two sides are saying. I don't think it's a question of refereeing. I think it's a question of giving context.

and explaining the background, explaining the context. We have got excellent political reporters. We've got people who

steeped in history. They're very well sourced. And then we also have people who understand data. It's uncommon on a news organization, and we know that this is what people want from us, to give, to explain the news as well as tell it. So we will seek to do that in our usual fair and balanced way. We'll be right back with Emma Tucker, but first, a word from a sponsor. Support for this podcast comes from Stripe.

Payment management software isn't something your customers think about that often. They see your product, they want to buy it, and then they buy it. That's about as complex as it gets. But under the hood of that process, there are a lot of really complicated things happening that have to go right in order for that sale to go through.

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And we're back. You mentioned bringing in new people besides yourself who have fresh eyes. You've also let a lot of folks go. Those firings get covered a lot in media world. One of the complaints is not just that there's cuts, it's that these are sort of rolling cuts. Are the cuts over now? Are you done restructuring the paper? Look, as I said right at the start, the news industry is in flux. There's no doubt about it. We've got new challenges. We're still dealing with all the challenges of the last decade.

10, 20 years and now we've got new challenges coming our way in the shape of generative AI, exciting challenge, but also, you know, there are other challenges out there. People are switching off from the news. So newsrooms have to be dynamic just like their audiences are. So what I'm doing is we're continuing to invest in the newsroom.

We've hired a lot of people. We've brought new skills into the newsroom so that we can truly meet the needs of the Wall Street Journal subscribers and future subscribers. So we are a dynamic newsroom, just like the landscape we're seeking to navigate. Sure. But let me re-ask the question. Are you done with that restructuring? Do you think you've moved all the bodies around that you need? I don't think it would be responsible of me to say we're done. You know, it's like I don't know what's coming around the corner.

And we have to be nimble. We've done a lot of things already. We're in a good place. I am mindful, though, that, you know, needs change and the economy changes. All sorts of things do. So I don't, you know, honestly, I don't know is the answer. That's a fair answer. How do you keep morale up? How do you keep everyone rowing in the same direction?

when they have these pretty legitimate concerns saying, I don't, you know, maybe I'm going to be restructured in a week or a month. Emma can't even tell me that my job is safe now. How do you keep people engaged? Listen, the people who are on board are so on board and we've got some incredible people

exciting talent in the newsroom and they really understand what it is we're doing and they're getting... They enjoy the feedback. They enjoy the kind of candor with which we're talking about, how we're going after these audiences, how we're serving our existing audiences. There's excitement. You know, we are a...

high-performing newsroom. We want the best journalists working for us, and the people here who are doing great work are loving it. I want to bounce back to competition. Are you interested at all in the world of Substack and other places where...

journalists slash creators are going and say, I'm going to set up my own shop here. I used to work at a big publication. Now I'm going to do off and do my own thing. I'm going to charge money. People are going to pay me. It seems like there is an audience for that. And some of that audience, I would imagine crosses over with the journal. I'm thinking of Matt Iglesias, who I interviewed a couple of weeks ago. He's doing very well. Barry Weiss seems like a sort of journal centric, uh,

It seems like a lot of our audience would overlap with the journal as well. What are the successive outlets like that, individuals, small groups of individuals tell you about the landscape? Well, I think they're fascinating and they're great. You know, I think it shows that

You know, there's a huge amount of choice now for where people can get their news. And I think as well that they're an indication of the fact that I think people like a bit of voice when it comes to news. And that's not traditionally something that a newsroom like The Wall Street Journal has ever truly embraced. But I think the big difference is that— Do you want to embrace that? Do you want to have voice-y stuff? No.

Not so much voicey, but just sort of make sure that we're approaching stories in a way that people find compelling. And we do, you know, we have allowing our best writers to really kind of write. That doesn't necessarily mean you're bringing it, well, it doesn't mean you're bringing opinion into it, but you are giving people a bit more voice when it comes to how they actually write. But I think, look, there's room for everything. There's room for both in the media world. One thing that we have that

the Substack writers don't have is we have a very well-

resourced newsroom, which is able to do the kind of important investigative journalism that doesn't come cheap, doesn't come easy. I think some of these small groups are doing a really fantastic job. They're giving an audience exactly what it is that they want. They really understand their audiences and they're serving them. What they can't do, though, and that's what, you know, is some of the more ambitious sort of investigative journalism or

journalism that takes time, some of our overseas, you know, the work we do, our foreign network does. These aren't things that somebody, an individual on Substack can do. So I think that it's easy. I think that I think there's a lot of excitement there and I applaud it and I enjoy it. But then there's what we do, which is altogether different. Speaking of overseas, I didn't want to let you go before asking you about Evan Gerskovich released this summer. It's

unjustly jailed in Russia for a long time. Can you give us an update on him? When do you imagine he'll be back at the Journal? He's back. He's back, but he's keeping a low profile. He's very much still part of the Journal. He's doing really well. He's taking time now to gather his thoughts, get himself sort of fully back in

into the world. And he's taking time to write a book as well. Do you imagine when he is writing again for you on a consistent basis, he'll be overseas again? Or do you think that experience has cured him of that itch? We're talking to him about what he does next. But there is a, it's going to be up to him. You know, he gets to decide. And the one thing I can say with absolute certainty is there is a place for Evan at the Wall Street Journal. And he's still a very valued member of our newsroom. He's got, you know, as I said, he needs time now to sort of

rehabilitate, write his book. You may or may not see a byline between now and Christmas, but he's, yeah, he's doing really well.

One last thing on that. As you were campaigning, keeping his name in front of as many people as you could, working behind the scenes on his release, at the same time, at least a couple times this summer, Donald Trump said out loud, if I'm elected, I'll get Evan or this reporter, he sometimes wouldn't use his name, out. But only I can do it and it has to be after the election. Did anyone from the journal reach out to the Trump campaign and say, this is unhelpful, not helpful?

Look, we're just glad Evan's home. The US government were incredible. The lawyers that we had were incredible. The newsroom at the Wall Street Journal did its bit, keeping him in the headlines. And we're glad that at the end result was not just that we got Evan back, but that off the back of this whole hostage exchange, we were able to bring back all sorts of other people, including Russian dissidents.

Have you guys had a big think about how you're going to staff forum bureaus going forward, given that

This seems like something that Putin and other autocrats might continue to do to kidnap Americans. Well, we are fully committed to covering the world and to having reporters on the ground. But listen, you know, as part of, you know, is an important element of delivering free independent journalism. But the safety of our journalists always, always comes first. That means we're having to make some very difficult decisions about where we send people.

But, you know, we will never, ever step away from our commitment to reporting, you know, freely and fairly from around the world. Emma Tucker from The Wall Street Journal. Thank you for your time. I'm going to go relay this information to my dad before this podcast even comes out. Say hi to him. Tell him he can write to me directly. I will pass along your email to him. Thank you. Good. Thanks. Thanks again to Emma Tucker.

Shalani Carter, who edits and produces this show. Thanks to our advertisers who bring it to you for free. Zero dollars and zero cents. We're still doing it. And thanks to you guys for listening. We'll see you next week. Support for the show comes from AT&T.

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