Politico: WSJ has laid off five foreign reporters

The Wall Street Journal has now laid off five foreign reporters, current and former Journal staffers told Politico reporter Daniel Lippman.

Lippman reports, “ALASTAIR GALE in Japan, LUCIANA MAGALHAES in Brazil, JUAN MONTES in Mexico and ERIC SYLVERS and FRANCIS X. ROCCA in Italy all were let go earlier this week, according to the sources. Emails sent to several of the reporters’ old WSJ addresses bounced back this morning; Rocca tweeted yesterday his Vatican and global religion beat ‘has been discontinued.’

“With POPE FRANCIS facing some recent health issues, ‘they could have an election for the pope later this year, and we won’t have a Vatican correspondent,’ griped one current staffer. WSJ editor EMMA TUCKER did not send out a memo announcing the cuts, according to two current staffers.

“‘We are devastated that more of our colleagues at WSJ have been laid off this week across our World team & 13 union members were cut from non-News departments last week — all despite Dow Jones posting record profits in FY2023,’ Dow Jones’ union tweeted out this morning.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.