The British Are Coming To Save Our Presstitute Newsrooms

The future belongs to independent news organizations that don’t seek favor with politicians or advertisers that pay them what to say.

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Desperate to sell newspapers, top publishers have looked past American journalists for top jobs in the U.S. in favor of British news managers.

Will Lewis, the new publisher and CEO of The Washington Post and former Murdoch lieutenant, is perhaps the most notable selection. He brought along Robert Winnett, who was named the paper’s top editor. Lewis called Winnett a “brilliant investigative journalist.”

The Financial Times illustrated Lewis’s blunt approach when he recently told a Post newsroom that “People are not reading your stuff.”

The former publisher of Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, continued, “I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”

The Post’s union said it was “troubled” by Lewis’s decision to replace the paper’s former editor, Sally Buzbee, and it also rejected claims that the fault was on journalists at the paper, and not business decisions. Many at the paper say it has not been as successful as other peers in obtaining new digital subscriptions. 

The FT noted a long list of Brits occupying top jobs at media companies. CNN’s boss is Mark Thompson, formerly from the BBC, and the Wall Street Journal’s editor is Emma Tucker. Bloomberg News editor John Micklethwait and the New York Post’s Keith Poole are all from Britain. 

Margaret Sullivan, a former Washington Post columnist, told the FT that she is somewhat surprised at the trend. 

“I do think that there’s something special about American journalism and democracy because we have this ethos that was formed in part by the First Amendment,” she said. “The country has a very special relationship with the press. That’s not to say that individual people are not good choices, but the trend is hard to understand.”

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Lewis was asked in November to compare British and American journalism, and he said, “American Journalism at the level of The Washington Post… is better. There’s just no two ways about it,” according to a column by Erik Wemple, The Post’s media writer.

Wemple said it is worth noting that British papers are not so quick to hire Americans. 

Mel Bunce, head of the journalism department at City, University of London, told him, “I am struggling to think of a single editor of a major U.K. publication or outlet that is not British.”

TRENDPOST: Albert Scardino, an American, reached a high rank at the British paper The Guardian, and told Wemple that one key difference between British and American news is that the British news industry “doesn’t need earnestness. They don’t value honesty ahead of entertainment value.”

Joanna Coles, the English-born editor who in April became head of The Daily Beast, told The New York Times, “We are the ultimate trophies for American billionaires.”

She said her outlet is “loading up on Brits.”

The Trends Journal has reported extensively on the Death of Journalism in the U.S.

TREND FORECAST: The future belongs to independent news organizations that don’t seek favor with politicians or advertisers that pay them what to say.

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