Outgoing FT editor Barber: We reinvented the business model

Lionel Barber

Outgoing Financial Times editor Lionel Barber spoke to the Press Gazette’s Freddy Mayhew about his career.

Mayhew writes, “‘I think we reinvented the business model,’ said Barber, who leaves the FT in January having spent 34 years with the title, including 14 as editor.

“‘We went for subscription. We charged for content. We raised prices. We said we’re going to be a subscription model… and I think you’re seeing now the results: 1m paying readers, a growing global audience.

“‘We were never Britain’s business newspaper, we were much more, and I think that decision to go global, go premium, charge for content, has been vindicated…

“‘We’ve gone for quality, we’ve gone for a premium product, and people want to read us.'”

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.