Former Dow Jones CEO Warren Phillips Dies May 10

Warren H. Phillips, a former chief executive officer of Dow Jones & Co., died at his home in Bridgehampton on May 10, 2019. He was 92.

Born in New York City, Mr. Phillips attended schools in the New York area, served in the U.S. Army from late 1943 to 1945 and graduated cum laude from Queens College in 1947, with a bachelor’s degree. He was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree by the University of Portland (Oregon) in 1973 and an honorary doctor of humanities degree by Pace University (New York) in 1982. In 1987, he received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Long Island University and an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Queens College.

While at Queens College, Mr. Phillips was an editor of the campus newspaper, worked weekends as a New York Herald-Tribune copy boy and was a part-time college correspondent for the Tribune and The New York Times. He also contributed feature stories to the Tribune’s Sunday section.

Following graduation in 1947, Mr. Phillips joined The Wall Street Journal as a copyreader in New York and wrote the page-one WorldWide news summary until February 1949, when he went to Germany to work on the copy desk of Stars and Stripes. He continued to contribute to the Journal as a freelance writer. In late 1949, he rejoined the Journal staff as a full-time correspondent in Germany. He covered the lifting of the Berlin blockade, the end of military government and the establishment in Bonn of the first freely elected German government since the 1930s.

In early 1950, Mr. Phillips was named chief of the Journal’s London bureau. He reported on Europe’s recovery under the Marshall Plan, its postwar rearmament and Winston Churchill’s return to power in Britain, as well as other stories in France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey.

At the end of 1951, Mr. Phillips was transferred to New York as the Journal’s foreign editor. He was named news editor in 1953 and assigned to edit page-one stories. The following year he moved to Chicago as editor in charge of the Journal’s Midwest edition. In March 1957, he returned to the Journal’s New York publishing headquarters as managing editor. During his nearly nine years in this post, he helped broaden the paper’s coverage to supplement its basic business and governmental news reporting.

In late 1972, Mr. Phillips toured the People’s Republic of China with a delegation of the American Society of Newspaper Editors at the invitation of Chinese journalistic organizations. The 10 articles he wrote during that trip, plus another six written by colleague Robert Keatley, were published in the book, “China: Behind the Mask.”

In 1958, Mr. Phillips was chosen one of the Ten Most Outstanding Young Men of the Nation by the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce.

He is a former president (1975-76) of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. From 1971 to 1973, he was president of the American Council on Education for Journalism, the body that supervises journalism school accreditation. He served as a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board from 1977 to 1987 and was a director of the American Newspaper Publishers Association from 1976 to 1984. In 1984, he was inducted into the Information Industry Association’s Hall of Fame.

In 1992, Mr. Phillips and his wife, Barbara, founded Bridge Works Publishing Co., a small independent book publisher, based in Bridgehampton, devoted to publishing quality fiction and non-fiction.

He is survived by his wife, Barbara; three daughters, Lisa, Leslie and Nina Phillips; and four grandchildren.