The strategy behind FT’s U.S. growth

Ken Doctor of Nieman Lab interviewed Financial Times CEO John Ridding about the company’s strategy, particularly in the United States.

Here is an excerpt:

DOCTOR: In the U.S., how would you describe your plan? How specifically is the Nikkei ownership helping you do things here in terms of that strategy that you couldn’t do before?

RIDDING: There’s a number of things.One is a confident focus on differentiation. We’re not going to plant 20 or 30 reporters outside the White House. Our view is what makes the FT different and special is that global coverage, and it’s that independent voice at a time where media is, as you know better than anyone, increasingly polarized. In the U.S., obviously, that’s been a big theme, though it’s not just the U.S.
So I think our opportunity there is to be an independent voice, a balanced voice, and a global voice at a time when a lot of media is becoming more domestically focused. Certainly, that’s the feedback we’ve had from readers and research.

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.