Warren Phillips Papers

Warren Phillips was born on June 28, 1926 and raised in Forest Hills, New York. Early on, he demonstrated an affinity for reporting – at the age of twelve, he collected news items and created a home newspaper, “The Snoopy Scoop.” He attended Queens College from 1942-1947, which was briefly interrupted by his enlistment in the armed forces after American entry into World War II. The war ended before he could be deployed, and upon his return, he began to devote himself to a career as a “newspaperman”, as journalists were then called.

Although he had difficulty gaining admittance to graduate journalism programs, he was able to secure a position as a proofreader at The Wall Street Journal. In 1949, he briefly left the Journal to work for the United States Army newspaper Stars and Stripes, stationed in Germany. He continued to submit freelance pieces to the Journal during this time, and soon returned as its official German correspondent. He covered events there as well as in Greece and Turkey. In 1950, he was transferred to London, where he became London Bureau Chief and met Barbara Thomas, whom he married in 1951.

Also in 1951, he was promoted to Foreign Editor, working out of New York. In 1954, the year his first child, Lisa, was born, he was appointed the second Managing Editor of the Journal’s Midwest Edition in Chicago. His second child, Leslie, was born two years later, followed by a third daughter, Nina, in 1962. In 1957 he was promoted to Managing Editor at the paper’s New York headquarters. Events at the time such as the onset of the space race and the Civil Rights era urged Phillips and the Journal to take on news coverage of sociopolitical events in addition to its largely financial perspective, a decision that proved instrumental to the paper’s expansion.

He became Executive Editor in 1965 and subsequently led Dow Jones’ expansion into global markets, including Asian and European editions of The Wall Street Journal, a partnership with the Associated Press to create an international news service, and agreements with various publishing companies in Japan, China, Singapore, and Malaysia. Phillips went on to become Vice President and Editorial Director in 1970, and finally President and CEO of Dow Jones two years later. In the early 70s, he also became involved in outside organizations such as the American Council on Education for Journalism (president 1971-73), the American Society of Newspaper Editors (president 1975-76) and the Pulitzer Prize Board (1977-1987).

In 1972, he was part of a press delegation to the People’s Republic of China, the first since diplomatic relations were established following President Richard Nixon’s visit in February of that year. He met with Premier Zhou Enlai and regular Chinese citizens, producing some of the first articles on culture and policy to come from Western sources inside the PRC. Other international visits in the 1980s included trips to the Soviet Union and the Middle East. At home, he continued to promote the company’s growth and led efforts to promote equal opportunity for women, minorities and other marginalized groups at the Journal. Dow Jones became an early adopter of digital technologies, ranging from electronic news delivery to online editions.

Warren Phillips retired from his duties at Dow Jones in 1991, to be succeeded by longtime colleague Peter Kann. He and his wife Barbara went on to found a publishing house, Bridge Works Publishing. In 2011, at the age of 85, he completed and published his autobiography, Newspaperman: Inside the News Business at The Wall Street Journal.