The Dow Jones Special Committee, established as part of the acquisition of Dow Jones & Co. by News Corp in late 2007, has elected Melanie Kirkpatrick to succeed Tom Bray.

Kirkpatrick, an author and retired journalist who spent most of her career at The Wall Street Journal, will serve out Bray’s term ending Dec. 31, 2029, at which time she would be eligible for reelection to a five-year term.

The committee earlier elected member Lawrence Ingrassia in December to succeed Bray as board chair. Ingrassia, a retired journalist who worked as a senior editor at The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, joined the committee in 2020.

Bray is retiring from the committee after 18 years as chair since its inception. Bray said he was honored to serve on the committee and help preserve The Wall Street Journal's well-deserved reputation for fairness in reporting the news as well as the newspaper's longstanding Opinion section motto "free markets and free people.”

Kirkpatrick, who worked for The Wall Street Journal from 1980 to 2009, held a number of senior editing positions for the newspaper’s Opinion section, including as op-ed editor; a member of the editorial board; and deputy editor of the editorial pages.

Kirkpatrick is the author of three books: “Lady Editor: Sarah Josepha Hale and the Making of the Modern American Woman;” “Thanksgiving: The Holiday at the Heart of the American Experience” and “Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia’s Underground Railroad.” She received the 2001 Mary Morgan Hewett Award for Women in Journalism from the Friends of the East-West Center for her decades-long work and commitment to journalism.

Kirkpatrick received a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a master’s degree from the University of Toronto. She is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; a member of the advisory council of the George W. Bush Institute; and a director of the America for Bulgaria Foundation.

The five-person Special Committee is an independent body charged with safeguarding the editorial independence of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones, as well as monitoring their adherence to the highest ethical and professional standards. It operates under an agreement between the former owners of Dow Jones and News Corp, and the committee’s approval is required for the appointments of the Journal’s Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Page Editor.

In addition to Ingrassia and Kirkpatrick, the other members of the committee include secretary Louis Boccardi; Cynthia Glassman; and John Tefft.

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