Alan Rusbridger’s email:
Dear all,
It has been an extraordinary 12 months. The Guardian’s ground-breaking investigative journalism has dominated the news agenda around the world. There’s been the successful launch of Guardian Australia and our new global online home at theguardian.com; the tremendous acclaim around Guardian US; significant growth in digital revenues and online audiences alongside increased print circulation; and the sale of Auto Trader, which transformed GMG's balance sheet and should enable the Guardian to continue delivering world-class journalism for generations.
Today I am announcing a series of changes that will not only build on these achievements but will also radically develop our video journalism and multimedia offering, bolster the Guardian’s intellectual heart, and further unlock the talents of some of our most talented journalists and editors.
In headline, the changes are as follows:
Janine Gibson has done an extraordinary job opening and editing Guardian US. She has assembled a first-rate team, pioneered award-winning digital journalism, and helped build a hugely significant audience in the US. The Snowden scoops dominated the news agenda in the US (not to mention the rest of the world) for months, and their impact continues to reverberate. This summer she will return to London as a deputy editor and to take on the role of editor in chief in charge of theguardian.com.
Katharine Viner has done a terrific job in Australia, opening an operation there, hiring a fantastic team of interesting and talented journalists, increasing traffic dramatically, setting the agenda and quickly establishing the Guardian as a force to be reckoned with in Australian journalism. In the summer she will move to New York to be editor in chief of Guardian US, remaining a deputy editor.
Paul Johnson, who has done such brilliant work running the London end of the Snowden story while also overseeing news, will, as deputy editor, be responsible for the day-to-day editing and publishing of the paper Monday to Saturday. Print will remain a crucial part of what we do for the foreseeable future. Paul will be responsible for the strategic position of the paper in a changing media environment.
Jonathan Freedland will become executive editor, Opinion - with overall responsibility for leaders, the Comment pages, Comment is Free and a new review space – online and in paper – for longer reads. He will also oversee a new editorial board, drawing on the pool of leader and op-ed writers, columnists and editors, senior specialist writers and feature writers, all of whom will provide considered opinion, perspective and analysis on a broad range of stories, with their prime focus not on the next hour or next day but on the bigger picture.
Stuart Millar, currently deputy editor of Guardian US, will return to the UK as the Guardian’s overall head of news. He has, with Janine, been the lynchpin of the US end of the NSA story and has shown great judgment and cool-headedness. Stuart will work with journalists and editors across every news desk – including city, home, foreign and sport – on news, context and analysis over print and digital and across different time zones.
The Observer is enjoying continued success: the Observer Food Monthly and, more recently, Observer Tech Monthly have proved enormously popular, while monthly and annual circulation is strong. Following initial conversations over the last few months with John Mulholland about news resource, Paul Johnson, Paul Webster, Julian Coman, Janine and Stuart will now sit down to discuss how we we can organise our news gathering resource as effectively as possible.
Emily Wilson, after a run of proving that she can do anything across print and digital, including most recently as Network Editor, will move to Sydney to take over from Katharine Viner to edit Guardian Australia.
Merope Mills is producing an exciting multimedia strategy and will work with Janine to transform the significant parts of our output into video content.
Clare Margetson, who – like Emily – has been such a versatile and accomplished editor in a number of roles, will become an Assistant Editor - in the short term working directly with me on the new review pages and longer form pieces.
Janine, Jonathan, Kath and Paul will be meeting with editors and writers to explain their thinking in the months ahead. We will then share details of new roles and opportunities in these areas.
These are significant developments which reflect the radically-changing ways that our journalism is produced, consumed and shared. The Guardian has always been in the vanguard of innovation – open and responsive to it – and today’s news will help steer the Guardian’s digital future and cement our position as a world-leading media organisation.
I’ll be in morning conference tomorrow to talk about any of this if people have questions. In the months ahead I’ll explain more fully the direction of travel and the opportunities that will arise from these moves.
Alan Rusbridger
