MARTIN WOLF

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD RECIPIENT

By Lionel Barber
Editor, Financial Times

Like the colour pinik and the fabled Lex column, Martin Wolf is indelibly associated with the Financial Times. From the day he joined the FT 32 years ago, his commentary and columns have set the gold standard for authoritative economic and political writing.

Martin is one of the most versatile writers I have known. He has the intellect of a university professor-cumcentral bank governor, and an insatiable curiosity. This is what makes him such a formidable journalist and commentator.

It has been a personal delight to watch him in action these past three decades, latterly as editor. We’ve sat around the same tables, with the rich, famous and not so famous. It’s always been immensely stimulating because Martin is fearless, willing to entertain new ideas but always confident of his core beliefs. Indeed, he has taken consistently brave decisions on the big issues of the day, from Brexit to the Iraq War, and latterly on the future of capitalism and globalisation.

Martin’s mid-career move into journalism was not obvious. After graduating from Oxford, he worked at the World Bank as an economist before joining the Trade Policy Research Centre (London) as director of studies in 1981. His pithy letters to the FT aroused the attention of then-editor Geoffrey Owen, who invited him to join the leader writing team as chief economics leader writer. It was a masterstroke.

Within three years, Martin had become an associate editor. In 1996, he succeeded the legendary Sir Samuel Brittan as chief economics commentator, a perch he still occupies today. His influence on global macroeconomics remains paramount — Larry Summers called him “the world’s preeminent financial journalist“ — but his method and range have extended exponentially.

Just as the FT has transformed over the past 15 years from a newspaper into a multimedia global news organization, Martin has moved with the times, engaging with readers on every digital platform imaginable. While he has always been a formidable performer on television, Martin has also adapted to video and podcast with aplomb. Never shy of his own opinions, he has also learnt to interact with readers, even if the odd, impertinent critic has come out limping after a robust exchange of opinions.

Martin’s contribution to public debate is enormous. He has written numerous columns (and a couple of books) about the legacy of the global financial crisis. Why Globalization Works, published in 2004, was a much-acclaimed persuasive text. Fixing Global Finance, published in 2008, was a warning written before the global financial crisis. The Shifts and the Shocks, a post-crash follow-up, absorbed and developed many of the lessons of the financial crisis for modern capitalism.

His insights into the developing world, especially China and India, remain must reading. His empathy and his understanding of America sets the bar for the rest of us at the FT. As a trained economist and trade policy expert, he can go toe-to-toe with the world’s finest minds. His economics columns are invariably challenging, but the force of argument is unmistakable, invariably supported by charts and data.

Occasionally, and often to devastating effect, Martin does stray into pure politics. His critique of President George W. Bush’s decision to pursue a war of choice against Iraq in 2003 still resonates, especially the label “rogue nation.” His columns on Brexit, first warning of the dangers and now examining the consequences, have been models of rational debate, spiced with a heartfelt commitment to the liberal internationalist tradition. In the age of national populists — or, as Martin once labelled them, “charismatic despots” — this tradition has increasingly come under assault. As the son of political refugees from continental Europe in the 1930s, Martin has a visceral antipathy to political extremes. But he is not one to represent the soggy center. His advocacy of competition, his contempt for rent-seekers, his denunciation of muddle-headed economic decisionmaking and the consequent dangers to democracy are among the positions of principle he has taken over many years, the result being a consistent editorial line that sets the FT apart from the pack.

Martin still attends the daily leader conference in London when he is not travelling overseas. His contributions are often entertaining, always invaluable. He can act as well as any stage performer. More important, he can advocate as persuasively as any barrister, no more so than when he called for unconventional monetary measures to combat deflation in the wake of the financial crisis, a position vindicated by the actions of the Federal Reserve under Ben Bernanke.

Some colleagues may at times feel a little intimidated in his presence, but they know, as I do, that Martin has always been generous in terms of mentoring the younger generation. He has been responsible for nurturing some of the most gifted journalists at the FT, several of whom, such as Ed Balls and Stephanie Flanders, have gone on to distinguished careers elsewhere. He also has an eye for unconventional talent, a vital quality in a news organization. I would be remiss not to mention Martin’s role as a public intellectual beyond the confines of the FT. In 2010, he was invited to join the Independent Commission on Banking set up by the U.K. government to examine remedies for the banking sector in the wake of the global financial crisis. The report’s conclusions, in particular the recommended higher capital requirements for banks, have had a lasting impact. Martin has also been the face of the FT at numerous prestigious international conferences, from Bilderberg to Davos to the China Development Forum. Combative but (almost always) courteous, Martin is a big draw — though I worry on occasion about the number of air miles he racks up every year.

The Loeb Lifetime Achievement Award is a fitting tribute to Martin, but it also speaks to his role in helping the FT to reach its landmark of 1 million paying readers, a milestone in terms of our success in building a sustainable commercial operation to support our independent, public service journalism.

Over the past decade or more, all newspapers have struggled to reinvent their business models in the age of the internet. My view has always been that the best way to survive (and thrive) is to develop the strongest possible bench of columnists, who become intrinsic to the brand. That way, media can make the case for paid-for content. There is no finer example to sustain this argument than Martin Wolf.

Joann S. Lublin found her calling early — and stuck with it.

The Ohio native first worked at The Wall Street Journal as an intern in the summer of ‘69. That was when Joann wrote her first Page One story — which was eclipsed by news of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. Joann joined the Journal full time in 1971 as a reporter in its San Francisco bureau after completing her master’s degree at Stanford University. It was the beginning of what became a storied career. Over the subsequent five decades, she covered the Enron scandal and broke huge stories on the decline of General Electric. She interviewed disgraced Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski in prison and helped break the news that Steve Jobs had a liver transplant. She wrote more than 3,000 stories for the Journal — more than 260 of which ended up running on Page One. She won numerous awards and earned many honors over her career, including being a member of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for coverage of corporate scandals and being a Loeb finalist in 2007.

Joann built her legend not with one or two huge stories or prizes, but by relentless, daily shoe-leather reporting. Her unmodulated voice, constantly working the phones with her source list of several thousand, became one of the most familiar sounds in the Journal newsroom. In pursuit of a story, she would call the office, the cell phone, the home, a spouse’s cell phone, an assistant, even a vacation house. Any calls that went unanswered simply led to more calls, texts and emails. “I knew sources of hers who said when Joann called you took the call because if you didn’t she would never stop calling,” says Carol Hymowitz, a former senior Journal editor and columnist. “She would call an executive 20 times until they talked.” Joann was relentlessly efficient. She would begin emailing sources and colleagues before sunrise, before her long bus ride to the office, peppering them with conversational abbreviations like “IMHO” or “Pls” and usually signing them, simply, “J.” She would work the phones until late at night. She became such a relentless tester that one retired CEO and board member changed her name in his cell phone contacts to “Do Not Answer.”

“Why so much shorthand?” asks Dan Fitzpatrick, a Journal editor on the investing team who has co-bylined at least 45 stories with Joann. “I imagine it’s designed to save her precious seconds so she can try that elusive source for the 30th time. No scoop is too small, no source is too unimportant for her to put forward maximum effort. ‘Shall I pursue him?’ she will ask. You know that she means it.”

But while Joann chased every scoop, she also set an example for all, as an unselfish and collaborative colleague who always shared bylines and over time worked with and taught, literally, thousands of reporters at the Journal. “Sitting next to Joann Lublin is like attending a master class in source management, and also time management,” says telecom reporter Ryan Knutson, who sat next to her for more than four years. Adds Loeb board member Paul Steiger, managing editor of the Journal from 1991 to 2007: “Year after year, she has kept the WSJ on top of changes in key leadership positions in corporate America. She does it by relentless sourcing … and by generous collaboration with her colleagues.” Joann earned respect through dogged reporting, fairness and bluntness. She never socialized with her sources. But they learned that when she called, she likely knew something they didn’t. They also knew she’d be straight.

“When you get a message that she called, it’s time to take a couple aspirin and drink three Coca-Colas before you call her back,” says Paul Kranhold, a managing director at Sard Verbinnen & Co., who often advises companies and boards in crisis. “She may not necessarily be the person I want to be dealing with every day, but the nice thing about her is she doesn’t even pretend like that. When she calls, it’s just like, ‘Here’s what it is. This is what I need, and I need it in three seconds, so call me back right away.’”

Says Michael Bonsignore, former chairman and CEO of Honeywell: “She was inquisitive, professional and fair. No matter what the subject, I never felt that she was loaded with ‘gotcha’ questions. And her reporting was complete and unbiased.” As time passed, Joann didn’t slow down a bit, frequently out-hustling — and out-producing — colleagues half her age. “Joann was able to get a source — I believe around 5:00 a.m. on a Friday morning — to tell her that General Electric was dismantling its finance arm and would sell most of its GE Capital assets,” recalls Dana Mattioli, one of the Journal’s M&A reporters. It was just one of several GE scoops the two collaborated on that week.

Even time off didn’t slow Joann down. Over the years, she broke scoops from the poolside with her grandchildren and stepped away from a James Taylor/Carole King concert with her husband at Madison Square Garden to phone in a story. “A few years ago, while we were on a trip to Key West, Florida, Joann happened to look at her BlackBerry while we were sitting on a beach,” says her husband, Mike Pollock. “It’s a brilliant, warm day, the water beckons and Joann is mildly annoyed that right at this exact moment, an investigative reporter named Mark Maremont needs to consult with her about a story. But she calls him immediately and spends about a half hour batting around ideas for how to approach it.”

As one of the first women at the paper who wasn’t a secretary, Joann was a pioneer. Calling sources in her early years, she was sometimes mistaken for a subscription saleswoman. When she won an honorable mention from the San Francisco Press Club for a Page One story about the short tenure of big-city school superintendents, she wasn’t allowed to join the then all-male club.

Eventually, Joann worked in Chicago, Washington, London and New York, while also raising two children.

“She wasn’t just one of the first women reporters at the Journal, she was one of the first women who decided to have children and stayed and balanced her family life with a very rigorous career,” says Hymowitz.

Joann became been a strong advocate for her colleagues and fought to prove women deserved a place in the newsroom and America’s workforce. She is a tireless public speaker, traveling to dozens of events hosted by women groups to share her life lessons and advice. She wrote her first book, Earning It: Hard-Won Lessons from Trailblazing Women at the Top of the Business World, in 2016. Right up to the end of her career, she still was sometimes mistaken on a call for a Journal subscription saleswoman.

The best advice she can give other women, Joann says, is this: “At the end of the day, you have to believe in yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself, others won’t either.”

Joann became a model for everyone in journalism with her devotion to reporting, her tirelessness, her nose for scoops, the impact of her stories and her integrity. She never sought accolades, but she worked hard because that was her job and she was good at it. She embodies the best of the profession and the high standards of the Loeb Awards.

Joann retired in April 2018, nearly 50 years after her first byline. Since then, as a freelancer, she has had four more.

When Walt Mossberg started his career in tech more than two decades ago, he began his first "Personal Technology" column with this prescient sentence: "Personal computers are just too hard to use, and it isn't your fault."

Hard to use. Yep. Isn't your fault. Double truth.

With those simple and forthright words, the most significant career in tech journalism was launched. It has changed the way most of us think about all the gadgets and digital change that has overwhelmed our lives ever since.

Throughout this digital invasion, Walt has been an unfailingly ethical, fair and savvy guide, leading his readers through a complex landscape and putting them at the center of everything he does. That's no small thing. Tech journalism had long been (and still is) littered with fanboy writers who can only seem to cheerlead everything that emerges from Silicon Valley. Even if it was too often not fully formed, and not nearly ready for the average consumer to use. Walt has never done that. Speaking with respect and in plain English to those who have relied on him over the years, he never made the mistake of descending into cynicism or its ugly sibling, snark. When Walt didn't like something, he said so; when he did, he didn't hide his enthusiasm for good work well done. That balance is harder to strike than you might imagine. Being loud and opinionated too often seems to win over an opinion based on rigorous reporting, analysis and, most of all, experience.

We have all benefited from Walt's experience, which has grown and become more profound and valuable over time. I know I have. When I met him, I was a pretty green reporter working on a book about the then-nascent internet (it was so early that it was actually called "online services"). He was one of the few people who clearly understood what was about to happen, and quickly grokked its implications. As a longtime supporter of emerging talent, Walt was unfailingly generous with his time and wisdom, and more. He was the one who got me a job at The Wall Street Journal, even ovewr resistance, to cover this new digital beat.

To say that Walt changed my life is a massive understatement. I moved to San Francisco from Washington, D.C. and began a long journey, as the tech world became the most influential sector of business and, really, our whole culture. All along that way, Walt has been a mentor, an advisor, a business partner, a co-editor, a co-producer and, most of all, a true friend. I can count on my hand the number of times we have truly disagreed, and there are not enough stars in the sky to number the times he has helped me be a better journalist and person.

Lots of people know Walt - trying to walk with him down the corridors of CES, nearly trampled by admirers who want to say hello and thanks, is what I imagine it must be like to be a rock star - but here are some things I know that you might not:

He is a huge Star Trek fan, and can tell you the plot to every one of the shows, even if you didn't ask. (Don't ask!)

He loves to visit battlefields for reasons I have yet to understand lo these many years.

He smokes cigars, even if he shouldn't, at a cigar store I have never been invited to, ever.

He has been a champion of women his entire career. Once, he wouldn't let me invite Howard Stern to one of our events because he didn't like the way Stern talked about pretty much everyone, especially females.

He orders some sort of wacky Trenta Starbucks coffee that I still never get right after all this time.

He walked me down the aisle for my wedding, was my first visitor after my son was born, and has been present for pretty much every major event since, in good times and bad.

That is perhaps the most important thing you need to know about Walt Mossberg. He's a mensch, a very good man, and the kind of colleague and friend that is both rare and so very valuable to find. And he's always right: technology is still just too hard to use, and it still isn't your fault.

Ingrassia's career path looks quaint in the era of blogs and social media. He began with a gig at a college paper, progressed to a job on a newspaper in a small city where he was able to tackle big subjects on a small platform, and finally worked his way to a national newspaper, The Wall Street Journal.

Ingrassia was not, and is not, a revolutionary by nature. But he saw the importance of revolutions going on around him, and throughout his career sought to illuminate the forces - and the people - driving upheaval. In 1969, the University of Illinois football team had a perfect season - no wins, and 10 losses. It was an ignominious first for a school where football mattered. Ingrassia interviewed some of the seniors on the team, who - once granted anonymity - unloaded in detail what had gone wrong and how they felt about playing for such a losing side. "They have a story to tell - a starkly human story. It is a story of hopes dashed, of turbulent events, of joy, of pain, of bitterness, and disgust," Ingrassia wrote. His instinct that losers also have stories to tell would serve him well later, when the losers in question were the top of executives of the world's largest auto maker. The University of Illinois campus was rocked by sometimes violent anti-war protests during Ingrassia's junior and senior years. Ingrassia, then the paper's editor, confronted police who raided the Daily Illini's offices, demanding film the paper's photographers had shot of the demonstrations. Some of those shots showed a protestor who had jumped the city's police chief and was pummeling him. Ingrassia was unsure what to do with the pictures, fearing the protestor would be identified and arrested for his act. "We just ran the photo," Ingrassia said. "The kid was arrested. It's what you do." By the time Ingrassia graduated from the University of Illinois in 1972, what had started as a means-to-an-end interest in reporting had become a deeper commitment. By 1976, he had landed a job in the Chicago bureau of The Wall Street Journal. In 1985, he was assigned to take over the Journal's bureau in Detroit.

It wasn't immediately obvious, but he had landed in the middle of another revolution - and a turning point in his life. When Ingrassia arrived in Detroit, the conventional view of the U.S. auto industry's story was this: Detroit's Big Three were booming in the Reagan recovery. The Japanese auto makers? Merely an annoyance. U.S. government import quotas and the return of cheap gasoline would see them off. Ingrassia embraced Detroit, making friends among the automotive executives, lawyers and suppliers. He did not, however, embrace the auto industry's group think. Most memorably, in April 1992, General Motors issued a press release announcing that the company's president, Lloyd Reuss, would be replaced. There were other changes at the top, though the company's then- CEO was left in place, and GM declared he had the full support of the company's board. In the days following the announcement, Ingrassia sought out the losers in the shakeup and pursued his hunch that what had happened at GM was nothing less than a coup by the company's outside directors. He persuaded some of the stunned insiders to talk - as he had done with the traumatized members of the Illinois football team years before. This was the era of the imperial CEO. It was unheard of for outside directors at a Fortune 50 company to confront a chief executive, let alone take control of the company. That article, and others about GM's 1992 crisis, led Ingrassia to a Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting that he and I shared in 1993, and a Gerald Loeb Award the same year. It also led to Ingrassia's first book deal, and the first of three books about the auto industry he would write in the following years. In 1994, Ingrassia moved into a senior role at the Dow Jones News Service - the "ticker" that was then a revenue engine for the company that owned The Wall Street Journal. He was responsible for hundreds of reporters across a myriad of beats. But he still found time to weigh in on stories, land interviews and attend the Detroit Auto Show. After leaving Dow Jones in 2007, Ingrassia's plan was to downshift and work on a fun book about American cars that captured the spirit of their times. That plan went to hell along with the auto industry in 2008, and Ingrassia saw that the book he had to write was one that dissected the collapse of General Motors and Chrysler into federally funded bankruptcies.

That book, "Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry's Road from Glory to Disaster," was published in January 2010 and became the first book to chronicle the story behind the auto bailout. (The fun book, "Engines of Change: A History of the American Dream in Fifteen Cars," had to wait until 2012.)

Ingrassia's effort to escape daily headlines veered off course again in 2011 when he was recruited to join Reuters as managing editor overseeing a worldwide organization of 2,500 journalists covering everything from famine, flood and war to soybean prices and interest rates. Reuters presented a different scale and a different culture from Dow Jones, but Ingrassia did not change his methods. "Paul didn't know how to open a spreadsheet. But he did know how to talk about news," said Richard Mably, the Reuters editor in charge of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. "Staff were surprised to find an editor was actually reading their stories - seemingly every day and at any time of day. And sending them notes when they wrote good ones." Ingrassia instituted a daily global call that, for the first time, gave Reuters editors in Asia, Europe and the Americas a regular forum to talk with each other about the news of the day. He was a reporter first, and when he saw a memorable story, he'd just go ahead and write it. Attending a dinner with Russian President Vladimir Putin shortly after the annexation of Crimea, Ingrassia drew inspiration from the menu. "You can't say Vladimir Putin lacks a pointed sense of humor. The entrée at the Russian president's dinner for news agency editors on Saturday night was 'Crimean flounder.' No kidding," Ingrassia wrote as the lead to his story about the meal. Ingrassia's position at the time did not require him to write anything. He wrote because he enjoyed it and to show journalists who worked for him that "news" is not just the spinach of communiqués and formal policy. It is also the stuff that makes you laugh. Now officially retired, Ingrassia is considering another book project and working with car collector Miles Collier to develop a multimedia publishing operation at an automotive think tank and museum near Naples, Florida. The Revs Institute has an extensive library of automotive literature, a digital archive of classic car photographs and a museum of over 100 vehicles, including Duesenbergs, Bugattis and a Trabant, parked next to a Volkswagen Beetle. Yet again, Ingrassia has found the perfect vehicle for his talents.