WSJ names two new DC deputy bureau chiefs

Wall Street Journal Washington bureau chief Paul Beckett sent out the following announcement on Wednesday:

All: I am delighted to announce two new appointments in the Washington bureau: Jeanne Cummings and John Stoll are named Deputy Bureau Chiefs.

They will help all of us in our common goal of constantly improving our journalism and ensuring that we are at the forefront of changes happening at the Journal and elsewhere in the industry, including the WSJ 2020 mobile-first transformation. Once both are in place — John will be moving with his family from Detroit in the coming months — we will more clearly define their respective responsibilities in the context of our current structure and in line with our bureau objectives. To recap:

–The best reporting on the topics our readers care about most that we cover from the Washington bureau. That includes, of course, the Trump administration but also our specialties of economics, finance, business, taxes, technology and the implications of Washington decisions for our readers in the U.S. and around the world.
–A renewed push for high-impact enterprise reporting across all of our subject areas.
–Positioning the bureau to be quick to adapt to changes taking place as part of the mobile-first transformation of the WSJ.
–Using our collective creativity and interest to boost the visual content of our storytelling using state-of-the-art graphics and video.

John joined Dow Jones in 2005 as an automotive reporter in Detroit. GM’s bankruptcy and the meltdown of the Motor City’s Big Three kept him more than busy for a few years. In 2012, he moved to Stockholm as the Nordic bureau chief and took a brief assignment covering the conclave in Rome and the appointment of Pope Francis. In late 2014, he returned to Detroit and oversaw our coverage of various corporate scandals and the industry’s prominent role on the political stage. Autonomous vehicles, Tesla Inc. and a host of other moonshots have emerged as dominant story lines on the auto beat. He has been teaching journalism since 2008 as a hobby at Oakland University, his alma mater. He started his career at Automotive News, and other stops included AFP, Reuters, Ford Motor Co. and AutoWeek. From the Department of Family Lore we hear that his great-grandfather sold a Packard to Al Capone.

Jeanne Cummings is our Political and White House editor, who has led us fearlessly and peerlessly through the campaign, the election, and the first few months of the new administration. She worked at the WSJ for 10 years covering the White House and money and politics before stints as a founding member of Politico and political editor at Bloomberg in Washington. She won the Aldo Beckman Award for excellence in daily White House coverage during the Clinton administration and was a National Press Club finalist for her coverage of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s ethics scandal. She has covered seven presidential campaigns. And from the Department of Work-Life Balance: she has convinced the Washington bureau to ditch the NBA and the NCAA in favor of following the fortunes of her daughter Ruth’s “Wildcats” high-school basketball team.

Please join me in congratulating Jeanne and John. I am confident they will make huge contributions in their new roles, working alongside our team editors and our digital news desk led by Deputy Bureau Chief Tim Hanrahan.