Tucker named WSJ editor in chief; Murray to take on new projects

Emma Tucker has been named the next editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, succeeding Matt Murray, who will take on new projects in a senior role at News Corp.

Tucker, who will become the first female editor of the 133-year-old paper, will assume her new position Feb. 1, 2023, with Murray assisting her in the transition until March 1, 2023, when he will begin his new News Corp. role.

“Matt is a superb journalist and leader who has overseen a peerless editorial team that fashioned success for the Journal during an era of extreme vulnerability for media companies and journalism,” said News Corp CEO Robert Thomson in a statement. “Matt’s principled leadership has ensured that the Journal is charting an auspicious course for the future and remains a beacon of trust in the midst of the modern media maelstrom. I look forward to Matt’s sagacious and shrewd counsel as he takes on a significant advisory role at News Corp.”

Murray was named editor-in-chief of the Journal and Dow Jones Newswires in June 2018. During his tenure, the Journal won the Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting in 2019 and published the influential Facebook Files series and consequential investigations involving GameStop, TikTok, PG&E and the financial conflicts of interest of federal judges and other government officials. The Journal won its first Emmy Award in 2020.

Since 2018, digital-only subscriptions to the Journal doubled, growing from approximately 1.6 million as of the quarter ending June 2018 to nearly 3.2 million as of the quarter ending September 2022.

During Tucker’s editorship, she led The Sunday Times newsroom through the COVID pandemic, with their coverage scrutinizing the government’s pandemic response winning awards. In 2021, The Sunday Times was named Sunday Newspaper of the Year at the UK Press Awards.

Under Tucker’s leadership, The Sunday Times experienced substantial growth in subscriptions, with digital readership more than doubling. The Times and The Sunday Times have achieved record profitability, and digital subscriptions grew from 320,000 as of the end of 2019 to approximately 450,000 by the end of September 2022, an increase of more than 40%, and, in the most recent quarter, the titles saw a 23 percent increase in digital subscriptions.

“Emma is a champion of independent journalism and high journalistic standards,” said Dow Jones CEO Almar Latour in a statement. “She brings strong experience in international and digital journalism and an impressive track record in leading journalists and coverage at The Sunday Times, The Times of London and the Financial Times. I look forward to working with her to continue to expand the Journal’s reach and impact.”

Tucker became editor of The Sunday Times in January 2020. She joined The Times in 2007 as associate features editor, and the following year she became Editor of Times2, an awards-winning daily features supplement to The Times. In 2012, she was promoted to editorial director. In 2013, she was appointed Deputy Editor of The Times.

Prior to The Times, Tucker was with the Financial Times, where she began as a graduate trainee, spent four years as UK economics reporter, worked out of the Brussels and Berlin bureaus and returned to London in 2001, where she served in several leadership positions.