Mr. Kerby's 45-year career with Dow Jones included every major position on the Journal's news side before he switched to the business side. He joined the Journal in 1933 in the Washington bureau, left for public relations for two years, then returned to the Journal. After his retirement, he served as chairman of the executive committee until 1980.
Besides helping to reshape the Journal's front page, including creating what he called "a primitive prototype" of the Journal leder, Mr. Kerby wrote the lead story on the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Ironically, it was the first Sunday the paper had a fully manned composing room and copy desk. Previously, type for Monday's edition was set on Saturday.
In 1961, the Washingtonian, whose father was an admitted Socialist who wrote for Scripps newspapers, was elected executive vice president of Dow Jones. In 1966, he was elected president. As president and later chairman, he presided over the company's diversification into community newspapers, overseas publishing and electronic services.
According to his Journal biography, when his wife, Fanny, once asked him to assess himself, he replied that he was "the best damned newsman of my generation." When she accused him of arrogance, he said, "Well, that's the truth, and if I don't believe it, no one else will."
A graduate of the University of Michigan, Mr. Kerby died in 1989 at 81. In his memoirs, "A Proud Profession," he writes, "perhaps the most satisfying moment of my life came when a Louis Harris poll reported that The Wall Street Journal was America's most trusted newspaper."