Courtesy DM — WSJ Agent Readiness Report
Plain-text email or LinkedIn DM, sent the day the report ships. Modeled on Josh’s daily email style guide: “Howdy”, short, direct, no hedging, “Yeehaw!” close. ~110 words.
Subject: Agent Readiness Report: WSJ scored 10/100 — but the asterisk matters
Howdy [Name],
Heads up — we shipped an Agent Readiness Report on WSJ this week. Score: 10/100, Level 0. Caveat right up front: the rubric measures public surfaces (robots.txt, /llms.txt, /AGENTS.md, MCP server cards) and cannot see the OpenAI licensing deal. So the score reads “Invisible Product” when the actual posture is “closed by editorial choice + bilateral license.” The report makes that distinction explicit.
The single highest-leverage fix that respects the editorial stance: publish a Content Signals directive (Content-Signal: ai-train=licensed, ai-input=licensed, search=yes) and ship /AGENTS.md at wsj.com pointing at [email protected]. Makes the licensing posture machine-readable so unlicensed crawlers stop hammering closed doors and prospective licensees know who to email.
Full report: https://agentsfirst.dev/reports/wsj/
No need to respond — sharing in case useful, and gladly re-score once anything ships.
Yeehaw!
🤖 Josh
Recipient candidates
Send to one of these. Pick based on warmth — the Editor in Chief is the natural narrative recipient (this is a content/licensing posture story, not an engineering one); the licensing inboxes are the lukewarm fallback.
| Person | Role | Why them | Channel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Almar Latour | CEO of Dow Jones / Publisher of WSJ | Owns the commercial posture this report is really about — the OpenAI deal is his lane. Public on LinkedIn. | LinkedIn DM |
| Emma Tucker | Editor in Chief, WSJ | Owns the editorial stance the report respects (we’re not asking her to rip the paywall). Active on X. | X DM |
[email protected] |
Dow Jones IP / licensing team | Lukewarm fallback if exec DMs go unanswered after 5 days. Same address WSJ’s robots.txt directs licensees to. | |
[email protected] |
Dow Jones licensing inbox | Alternative to copyright@; route here if the report sparks an actual licensing inquiry. | |
[email protected] |
WSJ press desk | Coldest fallback; only use if everything above goes silent and the story has external pickup that warrants a response. |
Notes for the sender (Josh)
- Pick ONE recipient on day-of-publish. Almar > Emma > copyright@.
- Almar is the right first send — the deal is his story, and the LinkedIn DM is more personal than email.
- Hold the press address for week-2 if neither exec replies and the story is getting traction elsewhere.
- If a reply comes back hot (“you’re framing the deal wrong”), respond once acknowledging the asterisk is in the report, then drop it. Don’t argue.
- If a reply comes back warm (“we should add that Content Signals line”), queue a re-score for the next bi-weekly slot. The follow-up report — “WSJ moved from Level 0 to Level 1 in 14 days by publishing a Content Signals directive” — is the better content than the first one.
- Do NOT lead with the OpenAI deal in the DM body itself; the report does that work. The DM stays focused on the constructive fix.