Jane Martinson 

Lionel Barber: ‘It’s adapt or die frankly and that’s what we’re doing’

Jane Martinson: FT’s editor talks about his new-look print edition, press regulation – but refuses to be drawn on a possible sale
  
  

Lionel Barber
FT editor Lional Barber:'I am not somebody who has loads of sleepless nights' Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian Photograph: Linda Nylind/Guardian

In 1999, when I worked at the Financial Times’s head office by the Thames, its vast open-plan newsroom, clocks showing different time zones and huge numbers of shirt and tie-wearing men made it seem more like a bank than a “proper” newspaper. Now, most of what was once affectionately known as Fleet Street has aped the Pink ’Un’s open plan and integrated workspace – although there was still a notable absence of women in the early-morning newsroom when I returned at the end of last week.

In other ways too, the FT has mirrored the newspaper industry’s recent trajectory. When Lionel Barber took over as editor nine years ago, the paper sold more than twice as many copies worldwide as the 210,000 sold in August. At the same time, digital subscriptions have grown from 75,000 to 455,000, making a far larger total readership. Yet today Barber is launching a new-look print edition. Amid such signs of decline – just 63,936 copies sold in the UK – why invest in print at all?

“The newspaper is still a very valuable property,” argues Barber, who has been with the paper for 29 years. “We’ve thought very hard about the future of print and we’ve drawn one or two big conclusions. First of all, anybody who said post-dotcom boom that print is dead is wrong. It’s still a valuable advertising proposition.”

Over almost an hour in an office decorated with pictures of Barber and the great and good, he talks about the paper’s continued ownership by Pearson, the catastrophe that an independent Scotland would be (“we don’t think it works, it will cause massive uncertainty”) and his own future (a bit), but it’s journalism in the digital age that is his main topic. “I honestly believe that we pioneered the digital newsroom and led the way by integrating,” he says. “Now we’re leading the way, showing how a modern newspaper is going to be produced.”

Others lay claim to the title of pioneer and the Guardian itself is refreshing its print offering. The new-look FT, meanwhile, boasts a specially-designed font called Financier and introduces a regular sports column on a Monday. But this ostensibly modest “refresh” reflects a huge shift in working practices, which a memo sent out before the summer holidays described as “completing the digital newsroom”. Under the banner “one global newspaper” a single international edition will cover Asia, Europe and the US. The UK and US editions will still be updated but the aim is for the newspaper to be “a quality snapshot in time” while news is updated online. A small team of about 15 people led by FT veteran and former night editor Hugh Carnegy will produce the paper, some of which will have appeared online first. “We don’t want copy being handled by five or six people, that’s not necessary. Website copy will appear in the paper.”

Such changes have had a knock-on effect on the FT’s almost 600-strong editorial staff, especially the four-nights-a-week production staff who were advised to “make informed choices about their careers at the FT and where opportunities lie” in Barber’s “digital first” missive last year. Steve Bird, father of the FT’s National Union of Journalists chapel, says things have improved since a pay dispute two years ago. However, a union meeting on Tuesday is set to discuss the painful process of shifting people away from four-night weeks to web-focused day jobs.

Barber insists that, with more than half of the FT’s readership accessing it on mobiles, the paper has to embrace what he calls broadcast-style publishing schedules, fulfilling peak demand – “It’s adapt or die frankly and that’s what we’re doing”.

The relatively limited £100,000 investment in the redesign comes after FT owner Pearson asked for cost savings. Is Pearson, increasingly dominated by its educational arm, still a good owner? “We’re not sitting here like cuckoos in the nest waiting to be fed. We have a business which is profitable and which has been profitable for nine years and we intend to keep it that way. We’re not looking for handouts. Pearson supports us with investment and that’s important, vital, for a media business today.”

Following his appointment as chief executive in 2012, John Fallon described the FT as a valued and valuable part of Pearson. “I am one of the most privileged journalists in the world because I work for a great news organisation and I enjoy total editorial independence,” says Barber. “Pearson respects and understands that.”

Other owners could be far more meddling, of course, with Michael Bloomberg, newly returned to run his financial news business, among those rumoured to have expressed an interest in buying the FT. Asked what he thinks the much more hands-on Bloomberg would be like as an owner, Barber replies “it’s irrelevant because he’s not the owner”.

Always more at ease schmoozing with global business leaders – whether in Davos or Harvard – than amidst the rough and tumble of the UK press market, his FT has, along with the Guardian and the Independent, remained outside the new industry regulator, the Independent Press Standards Organisation, which started life a week ago today. “We are in a slightly different kind of sandbox,” says Barber, citing the FT’s global business focus. “We will watch with interest how Ipso evolves but it’s not right for us at the moment.”

The FT’s existing complaints system was reinforced earlier this month – just before the discredited Press Complaints Commission’s demise – when an experienced media barrister was appointed as the paper’s complaints commissioner, to step in if the in-house procedures fail to deal with a problem. If Ipso is recognised under the provisions for a royal charter, not likely unless its articles are changed, the FT would be open to reconsidering its position.

Given his prioritising of video and data and new ways of telling stories, does he worry about an ageing readership (the average FT reader is 50) and the competition from flexible digital rivals? “I am not somebody who has loads of sleepless nights,” he says.

Barber refuses to accept my description of newspaper redesigns as “last gasps”. “No no, it’s completely the wrong way of looking at it. I can’t see any finite end and it’s not what I’m focused on. I’m focused on maintaining a vibrant newspaper which is attractive to advertisers and readers. I just don’t take a fatalistic view of the newspaper. We can walk and chew gum here: produce a great newspaper and a great website and content for the mobile era.“

Although Barber retains an almost boyish enthusiasm for the job, next year he will have been in it for 10 years, the same amount of time as Richard Lambert, editor from 1991 to 2001. With both his US managing editor Gillian Tett and James Harding (the ex-FT journalist now running BBC News) tipped as possible successors, Barber is clear that moving on is not on his agenda. “I’m engaged in the most important changes in the newsroom in 20 years. We want to make sure that this new-look FT is a great success and we’ve got to complete the digital newsroom. I’m not giving up halfway through that.

“I’ve got probably one of the most privileged positions in journalism and I don’t plan to give that up anytime soon.”

Curriculum vitae

Age 59

Education Dulwich College; Oxford (St Edmund Hall) German and modern history

Career 1978 reporter, the Scotsman 1981 reporter, Sunday Times 1985 Laurence Stern fellow at the Washington Post 1985 Joined the Financial Times 1992 Brussels bureau chief 1998 London news editor 2000 Continental Europe editor 2002 US managing editor 2005 editor

• This article was amended on 15 September 2014 to make clear that Lionel Barber has been at the Financial Times for 29 years, joining in March 1985

 

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