The Wall Street Journal's Emma Tucker on audience-first publishing

Emma Tucker was named the editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal (and Dow Jones Newswires) in early 2023. She was brought in with a mandate to shake up the Journal in a media market that Emma describes as changed “beyond recognition.” The Journal itself has its own challenges: an aging subscriber base that’s pushing 60, a stodgy internal culture and often convoluted editing process that’s exacting yet hard to square in the current realities of publishing. Like other publishers (and companies), it also has a restive workforce.

Emma and I discuss the changes she’s instituted since joining, from the small bore like doing away with honorifics (RIP, messrs) and putting a cat on a front page to the more substantial changes in top personnel and overhauling the WSJ’s DC bureau. Her moves even led to a New York piece that wondered, “Who is going to get Tucked next?” (Her deputy is apparently known as an “angel of death,” which is a catchy LinkedIn endorsement.)

Some key takeaways from our conversation:

Transitioning from a “print ethos.” Print still gives publications heft, and I suspect that will become more valuable in a world filled with synthetic content, much of it utter crap. But that role is more of being a “shop window,” Emma told me the Journal needs a “definitive move away from print” to serving digital audiences rather than seeing the newspaper as a central distribution channel.

Adopting an audience-first mindset. It sounds obvious, but the challenge for many publishers is adopting audience-first strategies rather than trying to be all things to all people (and all algorithms). That was the main takeaway from a content review Emma commissioned soon after taking on the top role. Those exercises are usually preludes to organizational change. The main theme highlighted in the review: being an “audience-first publication for people that mean business.” Translation: more investigative pieces, less filler content, more “constructive journalism” that serves audience needs instead of winning Twitter/X.

Engagement is the new uniques. The traffic era of publishing has ended. Nobody brags about their ComScore uniques anymore; engagement is the new North Star. That’s particularly true in subscription models, which are natural outgrowths of audience-first strategies. With subscriptions, churn is the boogeyman. I found it telling Emma didn’t cite traffic numbers but highlighted that the Journal had decreased churn by 6% in the past year. The Journal has a newsroom dashboard that measures KPIs like guest visits, conversion rates, female readership, and young readership. 

Other topics we discussed:

• Why American journalists are prone to navel gazing
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• Balancing the need to attract younger readers without alienating the old codgers
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• How to prepare for the “seismic changes” of AI
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• The need to focus on what makes you irreplaceable
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