Categories: OLD Media Moves

CEO’s departure adds uncertainty to Dow Jones

The resignation of Dow Jones & Co. CEO Les Hinton on Friday brings uncertainty to the parent company of The Wall Street Journal, Marketwatch.com and Barron’s, writes Russell Adams of The Journal.

Adams writes, “The departure of Mr. Hinton, the former head of News Corp.’s News International unit who became chief executive of Dow Jones & Co. after its 2007 takeover by News Corp., is the most senior casualty yet of the turmoil unfolding in London and the starkest sign that the tremors at the media company are reaching beyond the United Kingdom.

“It also injects uncertainty at one of News Corp.’s most important U.S. properties.

“Mr. Hinton took over Dow Jones on the cusp of historic revenue declines across the newspaper industry. News Corp. executives on Friday credited him for stabilizing the company financially and averting the deep cuts that hit many of its competitors. ‘In the most turbulent of times for ‘old’ media, Les steered us back into profitability and made us a digital force around the world,’ Robert Thomson, the editor in chief of Dow Jones and managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, wrote in a note to staff. Dow Jones & Co. is publisher of The Wall Street Journal.”

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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.