How the FT is a breeding ground for top journalists

Maggie Brown of The Guardian in London writes about how many top journalists today got their start at The Financial Times.

Brown writes, “Future Times editor and News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson was already established at the FT when Harding arrived, having spent the previous decade as Beijing and then Toyko correspondent, and became his mentor.

“In his next job as the FT’s foreign news editor, Thomson assisted Harding’s key move to open a Shanghai office in 1996.

“The following year, Lambert moved to New York for 12 months to oversee the launch of the FT’s US edition, giving further scope for his talented recruits to flourish. Thomson became assistant editor in London. Lambert says: ‘The paper was going well to start with, and then a new opportunity was opening up.’

“If staff wanted to be a foreign correspondent, and report from around the world, they had their chance. Harding seized it. Bell still remembers a piece he wrote from Shanghai: “It was a matter of pride that he impressed with an article on how to cook a snake.”

“Harding went on to become media editor and Washington bureau chief. The FT, with its focus on business, finance, economics and foreign affairs, provides access to very powerful people. That is how Harding first met Rupert Murdoch, and his son James.

“Lambert observes that the US expansion served as ‘a very important pulpit’ to get noticed by the White House for top FT writers.”

Read more here.