Episode summary
Dow Jones CEO on AI Disruption, Media Trust and the Future of News | WSJ Leadership Institute
The Journal
· · Hosts: Lane Florsheim, Telis Demos, Miriam Gottfried · Guests: Almar Latour
Summary
Dow Jones has shifted from a print-dependent newsroom into a higher-margin information business built around news, proprietary data, analytics and convening power. Almar Latour says long-term ownership let the company move through the internet, mobile, social and now AI era with patience, and that decision to charge for the Wall Street Journal early on helped redefine the economics of the business. He argues that Dow Jones is still founded on news, but the real value now comes from verticals such as risk, energy and geopolitics, where news is combined with data and analytics to serve specific customer needs.
Latour says AI is an accelerant that helps the company go deeper, go wider and connect information across use cases. He argues the bigger shift is not just experimentation, but commercialization: understanding who uses information, in what context, and what that is worth. He also says reporters are using AI for research, summaries, transcription, translation and larger data analysis, while the company works to preserve direct customer relationships even as chatbots change how people consume information.
On trust, Latour says media faces fragmentation and broad institutional distrust, but the Wall Street Journal has maintained unusual political balance by enforcing a strict culture around engagement and opinion. He says reliable information becomes more valuable as noise rises, and that leadership, like journalism, is ultimately about continuous learning, humility and service.
Key takeaways
- Latour says Dow Jones now derives most profitability from data and analytics, not news alone, after building verticals around risk, energy and geopolitics.
- He argues AI will accelerate Dow Jones by making it easier to go deeper into topics, go wider across verticals and connect products for customers.
- Latour says the Wall Street Journal’s trust advantage depends on strict editorial discipline, including a code of conduct that limits political engagement.
- He says the relative value of reliable information rises when AI and other tools create more noise and easier disintermediation.
- Latour frames leadership as service and continuous learning, saying he expects managers to keep educating themselves throughout their careers.
Notable quotes
“the majority of our profitability at the moment is derived from data and analytics”
“AI is an accelerant for our business, and here is why it accelerates”
“If you do not understand the value of information, you're going to lose this game”
“We have a code of conduct that both of us have signed that stipulates how you interact in a political sphere”
“To me, leadership is about service”
How the episode opens
- To me, leadership is about service. And I think the best managers live in service of the people that are their colleagues and the people that, you know, on paper work for them. - Trust is a critical asset in today's business world, and it's especially important if you're in the news business.
My guest today is this, one of the top CEOs in that business. He's the chief executive of Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, and he happens to be the man who signs my paycheck, Almar Latour. Almar, thanks for doing this.
- Well, thanks for letting me sign your paycheck. I actually no longer sign it. I think it's a digital process these days, but in any case.
- You get all the credit. - Oh, well, thanks so much. You work hard for it.
I think anyone who watches the podcast knows that. - Well, thank you. We have a long history together.
I'll try not to use any inside knowledge during the course of this interview. - Well, I think I encourage you to use everything you've got. - Okay, great.
I'm free to go then, thanks so much. Where I want to start though is, as you know, I was at the Wall Street Journal for a long time. I left 14 years ago.
When I left, this was a struggling business. The disruption of the internet had made it hard for all newspaper-based businesses to survive. And when I came back two years ago, thank you very much for that, it was a very different place.
You look at your latest earnings, you have 28% EBITDA margins, you had a record quarter, strong growth, what happened? - What happened in between? Well, one, I think around the time that you left, a little bit before that, we got new ownership, which meant at that time that with these new owners, News Corp in this case, we could take a long-term view of the business.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- ai disruption
- media trust
- future of news
- nonpartisan journalism
- dow jones stack
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Dow Jones
- WSJ Leadership Institute
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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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