WSJ’s Baker: We will eliminate pay inequality

Gerard Baker

Wall Street Journal editor in chief Gerard Baker sent out the following to the staff on Thursday:

You will have seen Will Lewis’s note yesterday about pay and gender and racial equality at Dow Jones. As he stated, the company is currently conducting a thorough review of the issue and we expect to have more information soon.
For the newsroom, I want to reiterate and amplify the message Will articulated: insofar as there is any pay inequality, or indeed any disparity of remuneration or opportunity that is ascribable to gender or race, I am personally committed to eliminating it as a matter of urgency. We have the finest journalists in the world and I am anxious to ensure that we reward them properly and equitably. I want Dow Jones to be a workplace that attracts and advances the best individuals of all backgrounds and we should not – and I will not – tolerate any conditions or practices that make that unattainable.

Lewis and Baker are responding to a report from the union representing Dow Jones journalists that women make less than men in similar jobs.

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.