Weekly Digest: The Wall Street Journal’s new editor, Revue shutdown

The Wall Street Journal named Emma Tucker as its new top editor, the first woman ever to lead WSJ’s newsroom in the paper’s 133-year history.

Tucker, who is 56 years old, comes from the UK, having previously led The Sunday Times and served in various positions at The Times. She graduated from Oxford University and started her career at The Financial Times.

Both The Sunday Times and The Times are owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns WSJ’s parent company News Corp. As The New York Times notes, “by selecting Ms. Tucker, Mr. Murdoch put in the top job an editor from outside the paper with close ties to his wider media empire”.

Tucker will replace current editor Matt Murray who has led the paper for over four years. According to NYT, he has had disagreements with WSJ’s publisher Almar Latour over the paper’s strategy, and the company has been looking to replace Murray for the past year.

---

67 journalists have been killed around the world in connection with their jobs so far this year, according to the data released by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). This represents a notable increase compared to 47 killings last year, marking “a reversal of the decline recorded in recent years”.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a notable driver of the increase and the biggest source of journalist killings, with 12 reporters and media staff killed while covering the war. Other causes, according to the IFJ, are “the rule by terror of criminal organisations in Mexico, and the breakdown of law and order in Haiti”.

At least 375 journalists and media workers are in jail, the IFJ estimates, which is also in increase compared to the previous years. China, including Hong Kong, is on top of the list with 84 journalists behind bars; other top jailers include Myanmar, Turkey, Iran and Belarus.

Within the CEE region, the two most repressive regimes are unsurprisingly Belarus and Russia – 33 journalists are in prison under the Lukashenka regime, and Russia has jailed 29 journalists (including in occupied Crimea).

---

Twitter officially announced it would shut down its newsletter service Revue. Plans for its shutdown have been reported previously, but this week the company officially confirmed them and announced that the service would be discontinued in mid-January. Authors can download their subscriber lists and other data until then.

Twitter acquired Revue almost two years ago amid the great newsletter boom of 2020-2021 in America. However, the hype over newsletters has cooled off since then (though the technology, of course, remains highly promising and beneficial for publishers), and Twitter was acquired by Elon Musk, who has sought to reshape the company.

Bonus — Three more stories you might want to check out:

• The New York Times: Washington Post Publisher Announces Plan for Job Cuts / Semafor: Washington Post editor Sally Buzbee muses in meeting about leaving the paper
• Adweek: Vox Media Will No Longer License Chorus, Its CMS Software 
• Axios: Bari Weiss reveals business plan for buzzy new media startup 

---