Lionel Barber Quotations

The advent of the Internet exposed the fact that the old business model for newspapers was broken. The world wide web fundamentally changed the media eco-system, challenging established journalistic practice in what is known as the mainstream media: radio, television, newspapers and magazines.

Thanks to social media such as Facebook and Twitter, a far wider range of people take part in gathering, filtering and distributing news.

There were always plenty of newspapers in the house. 'The Times', 'Guardian', 'Daily Telegraph' and 'Daily Mail' were all regular fixtures on the coffee table. I used to enjoy reading 'The Times' editorial pages and the 'Daily Mail' sports pages.

All our reporters and editors now work seamlessly in print and online. This integration has transformed the way we work. I believe this is vital to the success and growth of newspapers.

In hindsight, Watergate was a curse as well as a blessing for American journalism. The courageous reporting of the 'Post' and the 'New York Times' - coupled with the favourable Supreme Court rulings on publication of the Pentagon Papers - were landmarks for the interpretation of First Amendment rights and the freedom of the press.

As a cub reporter, I devoured books about journalism.

I walk into the office at Southwark Bridge every morning, and I have no idea whats going to happen.

My own special relationship with America began at an early age. My father, a fellow journalist, named me after Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

By using our international network, utilising templates and thinking ahead with pre-planned pages that contain carefully selected relevant news, we can deliver stories that other people just don't have. And that will release resources for the web.

For the BBC and others, a free website is an obvious and relatively cheap addendum to their main purpose of streaming news and entertainment on screen to a mass audience.

In the summer of 2009, I modestly predicted that most major news organisations would be charging for content within 12 months. Charging, I argued, would not only plug the revenue gap; it would also help to re-establish value in their news product.

The post-war American newsroom resembled a vast factory churning out multiple editions through the night. Reporters spent days, sometimes weeks, on a single story.

My father was a journalist for 50 years in Leeds and Fleet Street. I thought about a career in business to show I could do something different, but the reaction among prospective employers was, shall we say, underwhelming.

There is no conflict between best in British class and being a global newspaper. We are an international newspaper rooted in the City of London, and I think people understand that. The 'FT' stands out as a global niche product.

We don't need to update the paper through the night, so we don't need so many people working anti-social hours producing a newspaper for real-time news. That's the equivalent of the steam age.

While the web is very much the first draft of history, a rough-cut, it still has to be good journalism, well-sourced, reliable. Clearly, the printed form is going to have more effort put into it, going to be more reflective and relevant.

Our U.S. audience is composed of globally-minded Americans, an elite category, the ones who do have passports, the decision-makers, senior ranks in the administration, senators on Capitol Hill.

We have Trumpist (ph) tendencies in Europe. Look up Marine Le Pen in France. Look at the Five Star Movement headed by a clown by profession, Beppe Grillo, in Italy.

But I do think that Brexit, an exit of Britain from the European Union, would trigger real pressure on the United Kingdom.

We British play an important role in Europe, even if we have a traditional and historical ambivalence towards the continent.

The Financial Times is pro-British membership of the European Union. We have taken that position for decades. But we are not starry-eyed about the European Union. And we do not believe and have not believed for at least 10 years that Britain should be part of the euro.

There were always plenty of newspapers in the house. The Times, Guardian, Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail were all regular fixtures on the coffee table. I used to enjoy reading The Times editorial pages and the Daily Mail sports pages.