Inside the fight for the future of the Wall Street Journal

hank

Following appears to be a reprint from the NYT.

“The Wall Street Journal is a rarity in 21st-century media: a newspaper that makes money. A lot of money. But at a time when the U.S. population is growing more racially diverse, older white men still make up the largest chunk of its readership, with retirees a close second.

“The No. 1 reason we lose subscribers is they die,” goes a joke shared by some Journal editors.

Now a special innovation team and a group of nearly 300 newsroom employees are pushing for drastic changes at the paper, which has been part of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire since 2007. They say The Journal, often Murdoch’s first read of the day, must move away from subjects of interest to established business leaders and widen its scope if it wants to succeed in the years to come. The Journal of the future, they say, must pay more attention to social media trends ...”
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Holy cripes. - It’s about the only thing left I find worth reading. Could do without the excessive conservative tilt in the editorial and letters sections. But they have some of the finest writers out there. Generally, news articles are in-depth, on top of stories first, objective, and comprehensive to a fault. If it ain’t broke ... please don’t “fix” it.

SOURCE

Crash

Agreed, @hank.

carew388

+1

Old_Joe

Their excellent reporting is the only reason that we've print subscribed for some forty years.

LewisBraham

I think it's worth reading this article in its entirety before passing judgment. A lot of important insights into the situation.

hank

LewisBraham said:

I think it's worth reading this article in its entirety before passing judgment. A lot of important insights into the situation.

I hadn’t read it completely before posting. Having now done so, much of the issue seems to stem from (unsubstantiated) personality clashes at the top along with a desire by some in the news room to broaden the range of stories to reflect a more liberal / progressive bent. A newspaper needn’t aspire to be all things. If you want those types of stories read the NYT or WP. (The latter seems to have accomplished the feat at the expense of comprehensiveness and objectivity.) I can’t say definitively that climate change has been front / center there. However, there have been numerous articles on related subjects like green-investing, electric autos and wind generation.

The above argument notwithstanding, I suspect there’s more to the issue. I’ve watched as CNN went from a respected news source at inception to a shallow often sickening caricature of its early self. Even Larry King bought into the process. Having listened to him on radio before joining CNN, I know him to have been a much deeper and more intelligent person than the new dumbed-down CNN format (pull in viewers at all costs) allowed him to be.

Where the rubber meets the road: The nice thing about the Journal is that it appeals to a highly educated audience. That readership allows for the depth and comprehensiveness of the stories we enjoy. I think the elephant in the room here (which no one is talking about) is that to pull in additional readers you by necessity need to dumb down the content and steer it more in the direction of click-bait journalism. How about, instead of weakening the Journal‘s content, NewsCorp start an off-shoot publication (probably web-based) which would appeal more directly to those possessing an overall lower literacy level / knowledge base? Call it - “WSJ - Lite“.

Here’s the link again SOURCE

LewisBraham

@hank

I think the elephant in the room here (which no one is talking about) is that to pull in additional readers you by necessity need to dumb down the content and steer it more in the direction of click-bait journalism. How about, instead of weakening the Journal‘s content, NewsCorp start an off-shoot publication (probably web-based) which would appeal more directly to those possessing an overall lower literacy level / knowledge base? Call it - “WSJ - Lite“.

Nowhere in the article does it say that. In fact, I think Louise Story's presence and background are interesting. Here are the demographic expectations:

Here is what the article says about Louise Story's efforts:

The editor leading the news organization as it figures out how to attract new readers without alienating loyal subscribers is Matt Murray, 54, who got the top job in 2018. He has worked at The Journal for two decades, and his promotion was welcomed by many in the newsroom. Soon after, he assembled a strategy team focused on bringing in new digital subscribers. To oversee the group, Murray hired Louise Story, a journalist whose career included a decade at The New York Times.

She was given a sweeping mandate, marking her as a potential future leader of the paper. She commands a staff of 150 as chief news strategist and chief product and technology officer. Her team helped compile a significant audit of the newsroom’s practices in an effort to boost subscribers and now plays a key role in the newsroom as audience experts, advising other editors on internet-search tactics (getting noticed by Google) and social media to help increase readership.

As the team was completing a report on its findings last summer, Murray found himself staring down a newsroom revolt. Soon after the killing of George Floyd, staff members created a private Slack channel called “Newsroomies,” where they discussed how The Journal, in their view, was behind on major stories of the day, including the social justice movement growing in the aftermath of Floyd’s death. Participants also complained that The Journal’s digital presence was not robust enough and that its conservative opinion department had published essays that did not meet standards applied to the reporting staff. The tensions and challenges are similar to what leaders of other news organizations, including The Times, have heard from their staffs.

In July, Murray received a draft from Story’s team, a 209-page blueprint on how The Journal should remake itself called The Content Review. It noted that “in the past five years, we have had six quarters where we lost more subscribers than we gained” and said addressing its slow-growing audience called for significant changes in everything from the paper’s social media strategy to the subjects it deemed newsworthy.

The report argued that the paper should attract new readers — specifically, women, people of color and younger professionals — by focusing more on topics such as climate change and income inequality. Among its suggestions: “We also strongly recommend putting muscle behind efforts to feature more women and people of color in all of our stories.” ....

....News Corp., the parent company of Dow Jones, the publisher of The Journal, has put pressure on the paper to double the number of subscribers. But to meet that goal, it must “reach a sustained 100 million monthly unique visitors” by June 2024, according to the report, noting that its site has never attracted more than 50 million readers in a given month.....

....The third character in the ongoing Journal drama is Story. She has tried to carefully nudge both Latour and Murray toward her vision, people around her say.

In her decade at The Times, Story covered the 2008 financial meltdown and was part of the 12-person group behind the Innovation Report, a 2014 manifesto that laid out the strategy that has helped The Times to thrive and the principal reason Murray hired her to run The Journal’s audit.

Story has recently been in discussions about an editor-in-chief role at both Reuters and The Washington Post, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. Story declined to comment.

One of the key issues outlined in The Content Review was the need to retain younger readers. For years, The Journal attracted college students by offering them a reduced price; but once those offers expired, they quit the publication at a higher rate — over 70% — than any other group, the report said.
To help solve that issue, Story’s team launched Noted, a monthly digital magazine designed to appeal to readers under 35.

Noted was also partly the brainchild of Grace Murdoch, one of Rupert Murdoch’s daughters, who had interned with Story’s team in summer 2019 while in high school, according to two people familiar with the matter.

“We need to move beyond perceptions and embrace actual data about younger audiences, and that is what WSJ Noted will be providing,” the report read. This included “tailoring content” for younger readers; last year, 10 reporters, editors and designers were hired to start working on features about inequality in education, student debt and related topics.

hank

@LewisBraham -

I should have said “unspoken elephant in the room”. I agree that’s not mentioned in the article. It is, however, my overarching fear of what may come of attempts to make the content more appealing to a wider audience. Thanks for correcting me. As you suggested earlier, people should read the entire article and form their own impressions wherever that might lead.
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As you highlight the racial implications in your attached chart, to the extent it’s an issue consider some possible other reasons beyond the Journal’s choice of stories, formatting or style: (1) The price of the WSJ is high. Income disparity between whites and non-whites may play a part. (2) Whites on average enjoy a longer life expectancy than blacks and most other minorities. Since the Journal attracts older readers, life expectancy may factor in. (3) The Journal‘s core appeal is to investors. Since a higher proportion of whites own stocks to begin with than persons of color, it also helps account for their outsized representation among the paper’s readership.

None of the above excuses the racial inequality that exists in income, health care or stock ownership in this country. I decry the inequality as you do. The resultant disparities are, however, real and are likely reflected in reader base when examined statistically. An examination of the Journal‘s current demographic appeal along racial lines if undertaken, ought to consider as many aspects of that complex equation as possible.