Wednesday, May 4, 2011

The Prince of the City

If the title was already taken, it would be called "Majesty". Indeed, Lionel Barber reigned supreme over the kingdom in the heart of the business life of New York to Brussels via Shanghai and Johannesburg. By pink salmon, the Financial Times, British newspaper become global institution, differs from all other media.

"A global newspaper offering a global perspective" is how his editor defines the Mecca of economic information. Sober, concise and pugnacious, this graduate in modern languages from Oxford University led this beautiful engine since 2005. The paper edition of the FT, which has retained its traditional format, is one of the few to have increased its sales, which are around 400 000 copies daily across the globe.

Success, moreover, the FT website. com, blogs and impressive array of products, studies, journals, letters or special lecture demonstrates the flawless Lionel Barber. It has a taste for the epic. Between 2007 and 2009, he dared to double the price of newsstand sales, the passing of one to two pounds, cost twice as much a mainstream daily.

The message to advertisers was clear: the brand is the FT of the elite. While retaining its specific economic and financial, the title is also renowned for his diplomatic cover and literary and artistic topics. This price increase was also motivated team of 590 journalists paper and website, whose editors are fully integrated.

While the U.S. edition, including Lionel Barber has been in charge between 2002 and 2005, now biting the legs of the Wall Street Journal, read the FT has become a requirement for all morning makers in Europe and Asia. "Lionel Barber has done a good job. The FT is the most serious British newspaper, one of the few not to have been tempted by populism and the race to the bottom.

This upscale strategy has paid off" says Roy Greenslade, a journalism professor at City University in London about what the Bible is the barometer and Almanac financiers. Nothing seems able to lose this asset to the venerable house founded February 13, 1888. "Paradoxically, the financial crisis has helped us.

Our mission was to link the different aspects of it between them," Lionel Barber readily acknowledges that the FT, like his colleagues, had initially underestimated the impact of the storm subprime, although he was rarely caught in the act of misconduct. Yet two of its journalists had sounded the alarm: Gillian Tett, the head of capital markets, especially debt, and the columnist Martin Wolf, Cassandra of global imbalances.

Their warnings were relegated to inside pages because of the blindness general, the housing boom and the rule at the time of the articles published on the stock market. The lesson has been drawn. The network of correspondents - more than a hundred full-time journalists, plus a myriad of independents - were redeployed to better address the burning issues, high technology, the U.S.

Federal Reserve or the wings of the EU and euro area. Teams of raw materials and the shadow banking (the bank parallel) have been strengthened. To better understand the functioning of the internal banks, two industry professionals have been hired as editors. But be careful, too much exclusivity exclusivity kills, prevents our interlocutor: "We do not scoop of scoops, but the interpretation, meaning that analyze information and identify trends." By multiplying a tad catchy headlines on the crisis of sovereign debt, the Financial Times he does not become anxiety? "We live in a particularly volatile.

It is hard not to be anxious. You must stay in your lecture, "replies the person, who is said to be authoritarian and didactic. In a renewed emphasis on microeconomics and finance, the beast releases came out of the rut that his reputation predecessor, in favor of a generalist, was nearly engulfed.

All is not uniformly rosy for the FT. Thomson and Bloomberg are now competing with his legendary "Lex Column" by putting them also focus on the commentary. The doors of Indian market remain closed to him. The accounts of the FT Group, a subsidiary of Britain's Pearson, was commingled, it is difficult to get an accurate picture of the financial health of everyday life.

Finally, the partnership with Goldman Sachs in the award of the Business Book of the Year is a problem of conflict of interest, even if the investment bank in New York is covered like any other group. "We live in Financial Times" as evidenced by the slogan house, despite these uncertainties, the jewel of the British press has more surprises.

lemonde rock @. com Marc Roche Article published in the edition of 04.05.11

No comments:

Post a Comment