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Emma's Beat Retreat

At The Wall Street Journal, Editor-In-Chief Emma Tucker blew up the tech team to move away from beat reporting—now sources tell Status she’s doing a quiet 180 as morale on the team hits a nadir.

Author

Oliver Darcy
May 08, 2025

The Wall Street Journal editor Emma Tucker. (Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images)

When Emma Tucker announced in early March that The Wall Street Journal would lay off much of its San Francisco-based technology team, the rationale was pitched as forward-looking. In a memo to staff, Tucker described a reimagined tech reporting desk—one that would move away from covering individual tech companies and instead focus on the broader role of technology in society. “The time has come for us to put in place a structure that fully acknowledges tech’s all-encompassing role in the economy and our lives,” she wrote at the time. Specific company beat reporting, it seemed, was out. Something more thematic and cross-industry was in.

But now, just two months later, the newsroom appears to be resurrecting the very structure it dismantled. Indeed, I've learned from multiple people familiar with the matter that…

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