L. Gordon Crovitz

Last updated
Crovitz in 2017 Gordon Crovitz (1815493203) (cropped).jpg
Crovitz in 2017

Louis Gordon Crovitz is an American media executive and advisor to media and technology companies. He is a former publisher of The Wall Street Journal who also served as executive vice-president of Dow Jones and launched the company's Consumer Media Group, which under his leadership integrated the global print, online, digital, TV and other editions of The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch.com and Barron's across news, advertising, marketing and other functions. He stepped down from those positions in December 2007, when News Corp. completed its acquisition of Dow Jones. He writes a weekly column in The Wall Street Journal, titled "Information Age."

Contents

Biography

Crovitz is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Chicago. [1] He received a law degree as a Rhodes Scholar from Wadham College of Oxford University and later a law degree from Yale Law School. [1]

In 1981, he started working as an editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal. The following year he became the founding editorial page editor for The Wall Street Journal Europe, based in Brussels. In 1986 he was appointed to The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. He earned a Gerald Loeb Award Honorable Mention for Commentary [2] and the 1990 Gerald Loeb Award for Commentary. [3] [4] In 1992 he became the publisher for the Dow Jones's Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong and in 1996 was named the managing director for Dow Jones Telerate's Asia/Pacific region as well as chairman of Dow Jones in Asia. In 1997-98 he was named vice president of planning and development for Dow Jones. [5]

Since leaving Dow Jones, he has co-founded and sold a start-up technology company and has become a director and advisor to several companies, including technology-based media companies. He is a co-founder of Journalism Online, whose Press+ service enables news publishers to generate subscription revenues for their content on web sites and through tablets, e-readers and mobile devices. [6] Journalism Online, founded in 2009, was sold to RR Donnelley in 2011 for a reported $45 million. [7] Google had launched a product in 2011 to compete with Press+, called Google One Pass, but shut the service down in April, 2012, with Press+ agreeing to grandfather its former customers. [8] Crovitz was an early investor in Business Insider. [9]

While at Dow Jones, he led the redesign of The Wall Street Journal in January 2007, repositioning the print edition to focus on "what the news means," with the web edition addressing "what's happening right now," with the aim of rethinking what a newspaper should be in the Digital Age. He turned around the financial performance of the Journal to become strongly profitable after earlier losing money. He also led the creation of the online news service Factiva, which he chaired for several years, and initiated the acquisition of publicly traded MarketWatch as well as specialist services Private Equity Analyst, VentureOne and VentureWire, London-based news franchise eFinancial News and Frankfurt-based newswire VWD. He oversaw the growth of The Wall Street Journal Online to the world's largest paid subscription news web site, with over one million paying subscribers at the end of 2007. Earlier in his career at Dow Jones, he served as the corporate vice president for planning and strategy; in 1998, he helped sell the Telerate division and helped craft a three-year plan for the company focused on growing Internet revenues. He was editor and publisher of the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong, doubling revenues and aged 22 years, was founding editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe in Brussels.[ citation needed ]

In March 2018, Gordon Crovitz and Steven Brill, partnered to form a new company, NewsGuard , [10] which fights fake news by providing reliability ratings for over 7,500 U.S. websites to help online readers distinguish between legitimate news sources and those allegedly designed to spread misinformation. NewsGuard was launched on August 23, 2018. [11] [12]

He married Anne Alstott (a professor at Yale Law School) on December 7, 1986. [1] He is married to Minky Worden, media director for Human Rights Watch; they have three sons. [13]

Crovitz has written many controversial editorials. In July 2012, he argued that Xerox-Parc's development of the Ethernet protocol meant that the private sector, not the government, created the Internet. [14] Crovitz cited a book by Michael Hiltzik to support this argument but Hiltzik himself rebutted the claim. [15] Crovitz's claims were also rejected as "revisionist" by Vint Cerf, co-inventor of the TCP/IP networking protocols that laid the foundations for the modern internet. [16]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 "Louis Gordon Crovitz Weds Anne L. Alstott". New York Times. 1986-12-06. Retrieved 2009-04-16.
  2. "Historical Winners List". UCLA Anderson School of Management . Retrieved January 31, 2019.
  3. Olson, Walter (September 1, 1977). "Award-Winning Journalism". Manhattan Institute . Retrieved February 5, 2019.
  4. "Two Times business section reporters win Loeb Award". Los Angeles Times . May 22, 1990. p. D2. ISSN   0458-3035.
  5. Gareth Jones (2005-03-17). "Charging ahead". New Media Age. Archived from the original on 2014-04-04. Retrieved 2009-04-16. Alt URL
  6. Media Executives Plan Online Service to Charge for Content The New York Times, April 15, 2009
  7. Kramer, Staci D. (March 24, 2011). "Price Tag For Journalism Online Could Go As High As $45 Million". gigaom.com.
  8. Marshall, Sarah (24 April 2012). "Press+ positioning itself to target Google One Pass customers". journalism.co.uk.
  9. Schiffrin, Anya. "AI Startups and the Fight Against Online Disinformation". German Marshall Fund of the United States, 2019. p. 12. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep21240. Accessed 17 Feb. 2024.
  10. "NewsGuard Technologies". Archived from the original on 2018-07-23. Retrieved 2021-04-29.
  11. Lapowsky, Issue (August 23, 2018). "NewsGuard Wants to "Fight Fake News" With Humans, Not Algorithms. Its own independence is albeit rather questionable". WIRED. Retrieved 24 August 2018.
  12. Fischer, Sara (August 23, 2018). "NewsGuard launches first product with help from Microsoft". Axios. Retrieved 24 August 2018.
  13. "L. Gordon Crovitz: Publisher of the Wall Street Journal". ScribeMedia.org. 2006-11-21. Retrieved 2009-04-16.
  14. "Gordon Crovitz: Who Really Invented the Internet?". Wall Street Journal. 2012-07-22. Retrieved 2012-07-24.
  15. "So, who really did invent the Internet?". Los Angeles Times. 2012-07-23. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  16. Cooper, Charles. "No credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees". CNET. Retrieved 2019-01-23.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dow Jones & Company</span> American publishing and financial information company

Dow Jones & Company, Inc. is an American publishing firm owned by News Corp and led by CEO Almar Latour.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is an American business and economic-focused international daily newspaper based in New York City. The Journal is published six days a week by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp. The newspaper is published in broadsheet format and online. The Journal has been printed continuously since its inception on July 8, 1889, and is regarded as a newspaper of record, particularly in terms of business and financial news. The newspaper has won 39 Pulitzer Prizes, the most recent in 2023.

<i>Far Eastern Economic Review</i> Asian business magazine

The Far Eastern Economic Review was an Asian business magazine published from 1946 to 2009. The English-language news magazine was based in Hong Kong and published weekly until it converted to a monthly publication in December 2004 because of financial difficulties.

<i>Barrons</i> American financial weekly newspaper

Barron's is an American weekly magazine/newspaper published by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp, since 1921.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gerald Loeb Award</span> American journalism award

The Gerald Loeb Awards, also referred to as the Gerald Loeb Awards for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism, is a recognition of excellence in journalism, especially in the fields of business, finance and the economy. The award was established in 1957 by Gerald Loeb, a founding partner of E.F. Hutton & Co. Loeb's intention in creating the award was to encourage reporters to inform and protect private investors as well as the general public in the areas of business, finance and the economy.

<i>The Providence Journal</i> Newspaper published in Rhode Island, US

The Providence Journal, colloquially known as the ProJo, is a daily newspaper serving the metropolitan area of Providence, the largest newspaper in Rhode Island, US. The newspaper was first published in 1829. The newspaper had won four Pulitzer Prizes as of 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walt Mossberg</span> American technology journalist

Walter S. Mossberg is an American technology journalist and moderator.

Paul Joseph Ingrassia was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who served as managing editor of Reuters from 2011 to 2016. He was also an editor at the Revs Institute, an automotive history and research center in Naples, Florida, and the (co-)author of three books. He was awarded the Gerald Loeb Lifetime Achievement Award for financial journalism.

Robert Leroy Bartley was the editor of the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal for more than 30 years. He won a Pulitzer Prize for opinion writing and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the Bush administration in 2003. Bartley, a graduate of Iowa State University, was famed for providing a conservative interpretation of the news every day, especially regarding economic issues. The Forbes Media Guide Five Hundred, 1994 states:

Carol S. Remond is a journalist for Dow Jones Newswires, a subsidiary of Dow Jones & Company, publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

Leslie Frank Hinton is a British-American journalist, writer and business executive whose career with Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation spanned more than fifty years. Hinton worked in newspapers, magazines and television as a reporter, editor and executive in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States and became an American citizen in 1986. He was appointed CEO of Dow Jones & Company in December 2007, after its acquisition by News Corp. Hinton has variously been described as Murdoch's "hitman"; one of his "most trusted lieutenants"; and an "astute political operator". He left the company in 2011. His memoir, The Bootle Boy, was published in the UK in May 2018, and in the US under the title An Untidy Life in October of the same year.

Daniel Hertzberg is a former American journalist. Hertzberg is a 1968 graduate of the University of Chicago. He married Barbara Kantrowitz, on August 29, 1976. He was the former senior deputy managing editor and later deputy managing editor for international news at The Wall Street Journal. Starting in July 2009, Hertzberg served as senior editor-at-large and then as executive editor for finance at Bloomberg News in New York City before retiring in February 2014.

Peter R. Kann is an American journalist, editor, and businessman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Enrich</span> American journalist

David Jules Enrich is an American journalist and non-fiction author. He is currently financial editor at The New York Times and was previously financial enterprise editor at The Wall Street Journal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Craig Forman</span> American businessman

Craig Forman is an American entrepreneur, media executive, and former foreign correspondent who served as chief executive officer of The McClatchy Company. He previously worked at The Wall Street Journal. He is currently a partner at NextNews Ventures, an early-stage private investment fund based in San Francisco. Forman has been a non-resident fellow at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warren H. Phillips</span> American business executive

Warren H. Phillips was an American journalist and publishing industry executive best known as the chief executive officer of Dow Jones & Company from March 1975 to January 1, 1991, and chairman of the board of Dow Jones from March 1978 until he retired in July 1991 at age 65.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jim Friedlich</span> American media executive

James Friedlich is an American media and philanthropy executive. He serves as chief executive officer and executive director of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, a non-profit organization that supports innovative journalism initiatives nationwide and is the owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer. He serves on the board of directors of digital jobs marketplace Dice Holdings, Inc., and is an investor in several digital media and technology companies. Friedlich held senior operating positions at Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal and was a board director of CNBC International. He was a seed investor in Business Insider before its sale to Axel Springer in 2015.

Edward R. Cony was an American journalist and newspaper executive who spent almost his entire career working for The Wall Street Journal or its parent company, Dow Jones. He won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1961.

The Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism is given annually for multiple categories of business reporting. The category "Editorials" was awarded in 1970–1972, "Columns/Editorial" in 1974–1976, "Columns" in 1977, "Columns/Editorial" again in 1978–1982, "Editorial/Commentary" in 1983–1984, and "Commentary" in 1985 onwards.

William R. Clabby was an American journalist and editor for The Wall Street Journal, and an executive for various Dow Jones news companies. He shared the 1961 Gerald Loeb Award for Newspapers.