Former FT editor Gowers looks back

Former Financial Times editor Andrew Gowers, who is now in public relations for Lehman Brothers, talked to the Independent about his new job and why he left the financial newspaper at the end of last year.

The article notes, “Gowers’s strategic differences with FT owners Pearson revolved around his perceived failing to shore up the UK circulation while concentrating efforts in launching overseas editions and developing the online version FT.com.

“When he left the FT he questioned whether newspapers had a future in the digital age, an attack which was interpreted by some as sour grapes from a man who had just lost his job. ‘So much for what passes for media commentary in Britain is written by people whose lives have been built around dead trees and they can’t see the wood for them,’ he says, unrepentant. ‘The point I was trying to make, in admittedly rather colourful language, was the same point Rupert Murdoch has been making, which is that newspapers have to do far more to embrace the internet in order to be relevant in the next 20 years.’

“He does accept that newspapers have ‘a great thing in their favour’, namely their established brands. ‘Many of the best newspapers in this country can boast that; one or two can’t. Translating those brands into the online world and making them pay as well is the biggest challenge facing the industry.'”

Read more here.