The Wall Street Journal appoints Emma Tucker as new editor-in-chief

Reports of Ms Tucker’s possible transfer to the Journal began circulating months ago in the UK media, as well as last month on Semafor, a start-up news site. The company had been looking to replace the publisher for at least a year, according to four people with knowledge of their relationship.

Mr. Murray and Ms. Tucker declined to be interviewed, and News Corp declined to make Mr. Thomson available for an interview.

Mr Murray has frustrated some leaders with his skepticism of the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, according to two people with knowledge of the internal discussions. (The New York Post, another News Corp publication, heavily promoted the story.)

Mr. Murdoch also raised concerns that the newsroom was becoming less objective, according to executives. After the murder of George Floyd, the newsroom called on executives to make fundamental changes to the way the paper covered race and policing.

This caught Mr Murdoch’s attention, the people said. In remarks for an event in early 2021, the mogul condemned “woke orthodoxy” and “cancellation culture” as movements that were stifling society. “This rigorously enforced conformity, aided and abetted by so-called social media, is a straitjacket for sensibilities,” he said.

The Wall Street Journal is one of the few American newspapers to have resisted the decline of its printing business by convincing readers to pay for digital information. The company said in November that The Wall Street Journal had 3.15 million digital-only subscribers, up 13% from the same period last year.

Since taking over as CEO of Dow Jones, the Journal’s publisher, Mr. Latour has grown the division, in part, through acquisitions. Last August, Dow Jones announced that it was buying OPIS, an energy and renewable energy data and information services company, from S&P Global and IHS Markit. In December 2021, Dow Jones announced an agreement to acquire Base Chemicals, a data analytics company, for an undisclosed amount.