Paul J. Ingrassia

Bio

Wall Street Journal (retired)

Paul J. Ingrassia is a Pulitzer Prize-winning financial journalist and author with nearly a quarter-century of experience in writing about the automotive industry in America and around the world.  In December 2007 he completed a 31-year career at The Wall Street Journal and its parent company, Dow Jones, where he served as a reporter, editor and executive. Mr. Ingrassia now writes books, as well as commentaries on automotive issues for the Journal's op-ed page, as well as for Conde Nast Portfolio magazine and the Nihon Keizei Shimbun of Japan. As the Journal's Detroit bureau chief from 1985 to 1994, Mr. Ingrassia won a Pulitzer Prize -- along with his deputy, Joseph B. White – in 1993 for coverage of the prior year's management crisis and boardroom revolt at General Motors.  The two also won a Loeb Award that year for their coverage of GM. Messrs. Ingrassia and White then co-authored Comeback: the Fall and Rise of the American Automobile Industry, which was published by Simon and Schuster in 1994.  The book described the cycle of crisis and recovery at Detroit's Big Three car companies in the 1980s and 1990s. After leaving Detroit, Mr. Ingrassia served as president of Dow Jones Newswires, with global news and business responsibility for a division with about $225 million of annual revenue and nearly 800 journalists worldwide, making it the company's largest news staff. During his decade as president of the division, Dow Jones Newswires earned record profits, and its reporters won more than 30 journalism awards in the U.S. and overseas. He also led the expansion of Dow Jones Newswires into the production of news in 10 non-English languages, including French, German, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese.  In addition to his executive duties, Mr. Ingrassia was a regular contributor to the Journal's op-ed page, and also wrote book reviews for the Journal. Mr. Ingrassia concluded his career with the company as vice president of news strategy. Mr. Ingrassia currently is under contract to write two books about automotive topics.  One will describe how the Detroit auto industry came to its current crisis, and will offer a package of solutions.  It will be published by Random House.  The second book is about the dozen or so cars and trucks that helped to define modern American culture. Titled Engines of Change, the book will be published by HarperCollins.  Mr. Ingrassia also serves as a guest television commentator on auto-industry issues, with appearances on NBC's Meet the Press, CNBC's Squawk Box and Kudlow & Company, and other programs. Mr. Ingrassia began his journalism career in 1973 at the Lindsay-Schaub Newspapers in Decatur, Ill.  He joined The Wall Street Journal in Chicago in December 1976, and was a reporter and editor there for five years before becoming the paper's Cleveland bureau chief in 1981.  He has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a master's degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.  He and his wife, Susan, have three grown sons. His hobbies are fly-fishing and golf.