How Barber was a success at the FT

Lionel Barber

Andrew Gowers, who preceded Lionel Barber as editor in chief of the Financial Times, writes about why Barber was a success.

Gowers writes, “He had a good run as FT head honcho — certainly much better than my briefer one that went before. He strengthened the pink ’un’s journalism and authority after wobbly times following the end of the dot-com boom. He advanced its international reputation — notably in the US — while maintaining its slightly challenged niche in the UK. Over time he charted a winning course for the FT as a digital news organisation with more than one million paying subscribers online and in print. The scoops (exposing massive fraud at Germany’s Wirecard to name the best) and must-read interviews (Putin’s attack on the idea of liberal democracy) with which he marked his last year or two werea fitting coda.

“As important for the FT’s long-term future, he took the lead in embracing new owners after it was sold to Japan’s Nikkei. Though Barber is too diplomatic to say so, Pearson under Scardino, for all her luvvy tendencies, was a wretched owner and had no idea what it wanted to do with the FT. Nikkei, with its focus on business journalism, deep pockets and appetite for digital change, was a much better bet.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.