FT journalists ask Nikkei to guarantee independence

More than 200 Financial Times journalists have backed a call asking the newspaper’s new owners, Nikkei, to guarantee its editorial independence, reports Roy Greenslade of The Guardian.

Guardian writes, “They have signed a letter requesting that executives of the Japanese company meet senior FT staff and representatives of the National Union of Journalists to discuss their concerns.

“The issue was initially raised by three former FT editors in a letter that was published in the FT on 24 July, the day after Nikkei agreed to pay £844m to acquire the FT from Pearson.

“Geoffrey Owen (editor, 1981-1990), Richard Lambert (1991-2001) and Andrew Gowers (2001-2005) wrote: ‘There is nothing at present in the governance structures of the publication to guarantee the continued independence of the editor. Since this is the key to the FT and to what it stands for, Nikkei would do well to put this right.’

“That spurred NUJ journalists, who met on 5 August, to draft a statement in the form of a letter addressed to ‘dear friends at Nikkei’. It said: ‘We would like to work with Nikkei managers to enshrine past and present freedoms in our governance.'”

Read more here.