When Almar Latour came to Indiana in 1990 from the Netherlands, he meant to spend only one year in the United States but ended up staying until his graduation with bachelor of arts degrees in journalism and political science from IUP in 1994. “I went through the Fulbright Center Campus Scholarship Program and chose to study at a college in America,” Latour explained, “and the campus happened to be IUP.”
Describing himself as a “child of the Cold War,” Latour said he always had an interest in history and the role of the United States in the world. “Growing up in Western Europe, that loomed large.”
When choosing a major, Latour was deciding whether he wanted to become a diplomat, a politician, or a journalist. “I was always interested in Washington affairs and public policy,” he said, “so studying both journalism and political science was a way to understand more about the workings of the West.”
His first journalism class at IUP was taught by David Truby, and Latour said Truby had a major impact on his decision to become a journalist. “Dr. Truby was terrific, with drive and passion for the field, although a bit of a drill sergeant,” Latour said with a chuckle. “He was rigorous in his demands, but that was what I needed.”
Studying at IUP while still learning English was challenging, he said, but by the end of his first semester, “I was doing well in my classes.”
Truby told his students that they were professional journalists once they received their first paycheck, so being paid for a newspaper story became an objective for Latour. He realized that ambition when he wrote a story about student protests in Harrisburg, and the piece was published in the Greensburg Tribune-Review. “I credit Dr. Truby with pushing me to achieve that goal.” While at IUP, Latour also worked as features editor for the Penn.
Recently named publisher and executive vice president for Dow Jones Media Group, Latour oversees the growth of consumer and business brands including Barron’s, MarketWatch, Financial News, and Mansion Global, which, along with various digital start-ups, are part of the Wall Street Journal Digital Network. He is responsible for the group’s editorial operations as well as its profit and loss.
In a career at Dow Jones spanning seven countries on three continents, Latour has consistently bolstered the company’s digital depth and global breadth. He editorially oversaw two major redesigns for the Wall Street Journal’s website, launched numerous successful international and US blogs, revamped the Chinese Wall Street Journal, and kicked off the Wall Street Journal in Japan.
Before his promotion to publisher, Latour was executive editor for the Journal and Dow Jones, responsible for unifying the editorial staff into a single global newsroom and transitioning the Journal into a digitally driven news operation.
Latour was also editor in chief for the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires in Asia, where he expanded the publishing company’s digital footprint. Before his time in Asia, he was managing editor of the Wall Street Journal Online. In that position, he expanded coverage of business and markets, personal finance, sports, travel, and multimedia storytelling and oversaw a major redesign of the site in September 2008.
Latour served as bureau chief and deputy bureau chief at the Journal’s technology group in New York. In March 2005, he won the World Leadership Forum’s business journalism award for Best Story of Business Leadership for his coverage of the oil industry.
He worked as a staff reporter for the Journal in New York and as a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal Europe in London, Stockholm, and Brussels. He has covered Central and Eastern Europe, the Internet bubble, and numerous other topics and has written for one of the Wall Street Journal Europe’s magazines. He started his career at the Journal as a news assistant at the Washington, DC, bureau.
In addition to his IUP degree, Latour earned a master’s degree from American University in Washington, DC. He lives in New York City with his wife, Abby, also a journalist, and daughters Maude and Merel. The family enjoys traveling together and “making use of everything Manhattan has to offer,” he said.
Profile published on 4/11/16