WSJ assistant editor Beckett is departing

Wall Street Journal assistant editor Paul Beckett is leaving the publication after 34 years.

He most recently oversaw the newspaper’s efforts to secure the release of reporter Evan Gershkovich from a Russian prison.

Prior to this role, Paul was the Washington bureau chief, responsible for news across politics and government, economics, national security, the Supreme Court, financial regulation and the intersection of business and Washington.

Before taking the helm of the bureau in 2017, Beckett was Asia editor, in charge of the Journal’s print and digital editorial operations across the region.

He moved to Hong Kong in 2013 after six years as South Asia editor, based in New Delhi, where he started WSJ’s India Real Time blog and its India news website, india.wsj.com.

In 2008, Beckett and the bureau won an Overseas Press Club award for their India coverage. In July 2013, he was co-author of the HarperCollins book “Crimes Against Women: Three Tragedies and the Call for Reform in India,” a compilation of WSJ’s reporting on women’s issues in 2012 and 2013.

Born and bred in Scotland and a graduate of Edinburgh University, he joined Dow Jones in 1990 at the Daily News of Newburyport, Mass., then part of Dow Jones’s community newspaper chain.

He joined Dow Jones Newswires in 1993 and reported from New York, London, Mexico City and Washington, D.C. He joined the Journal in 1998 in New York, where he covered banking. In 2003, he moved to London as bureau chief and European finance and markets editor.