By Dawn Chmielewski and Helen Coster
(Reuters) -News Corp named Sunday Times editor Emma Tucker the new editor of the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires on Monday. She becomes the first woman to lead the 133-year-old business publication.
She replaces Matt Murray, whose four-year tenure at the top of the newspaper's masthead has been marked by ambitious coverage, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into former U.S. President Donald Trump and the Facebook (NASDAQ:META) Files series.
Murray will take on new projects in a senior role at News Corp (NASDAQ:NWSA), reporting to Chief Executive Robert Thomson, the company said in a news release.
The Journal and the Sunday Times are both News Corp publications.
Tucker will begin her new role on Feb. 1, 2023, with Murray assisting her in the transition until March 1, 2023, when he will begin his new position at News Corp. In his new role, Murray will take on “several critical growth projects supporting News Corp,” the company said.
Tucker was named editor of the Sunday Times in 2020, and in published interviews talked about building digital growth and working to broaden the publication's audience beyond its core older, affluent and middle-class readers.
That vision appears to align with that of the Journal's publisher and Dow Jones chief executive, Almar Latour, who is credited with leading the digital transformation of the publication, which now boasts more than 3 million digital subscribers.
Tucker's career has tracked the trajectory of News Corp's Thomson, who spent 17 years at the Financial Times, where they worked together, and served as editor of The Times before taking over as editor-in-chief of the Journal.
She joined The Times in 2007 as an associate features editor, and the following year she became Editor of Times2, a daily features supplement to The Times. In 2012, she was promoted to editorial director.
“Emma is a brilliant, inspiring editor, with digital nous and the highest standards of integrity,” Thomson said in a statement on Monday. “She has been a thoughtful custodian of The Sunday Times and will bring verve and virtue to Dow Jones. Her global vision and experience will be particularly important at a time of immense international opportunity for The Wall Street Journal.”
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and Murdoch-controlled Fox Corp are considering a proposal to recombine nearly a decade after splitting up.