Financial Times editor seeks to reassure over Nikkei sale

With the completion of the sale of the Financial Times to Nikkei just weeks away the newspaper’s editor has moved to reassure that it’s a case of “new owners, new partners, same FT”.

Lionel Barber said that the dramatic change - the FT has been owned by Pearson for 58 years - would not impact the pink ’un’s editorial independence which will remain “committed to the gold standard of journalistic excellence”.

“I’ve covered plenty of mergers and acquisitions in my nearly 40-year career, but let me tell you – it’s a whole different story when your employer makes the lead on the home page,” he said, giving the Polis lecture at the London School of Economics on Thursday night.

“There’s been plenty of speculation about what the FT-Nikkei deal portends. I say this: New owners, new partners, same FT. The FT remains committed to the gold standard of journalistic excellence. We will continue to report without fear and without favour. And we will continue to be an industry pioneer, blazing trails where others fear to tread.”

Barber – who opened his speech with a quip by adding konbanwa, Japanese for good evening – said that Nikkei paid a premium for such brand values.

The Japanese business media giant paid £844m, a huge multiple of FT Group’s £24m adjusted operating income last year, roughly the same multiple as Rupert Murdoch did to secure the Wall Street Journal in 2007.

“Nikkei paid 40 times earnings for the Financial Times,” he said. “Why? In two words: Brand matters. I believe that in a world of nimble, deep-pocketed, tech-savvy rivals, we are stronger together than apart.”

The deal with Nikkei, which is being dogged by the threat of strike action by FT journalists unhappy with proposed pension changes, is expected to complete on 30 November.

Barber warned the industry about being careful about rushing into deals to give content to tech giants such as Facebook and Apple for fear of disintermediation.

“The big beasts in tech, and they are very big, say they have no interest in investing in content,” he said. “The reality is that they have no need to if they create go-to platforms for publishers’ content. If mishandled these new platforms present a route to disintermediation, to surrendering the direct relationship with readers. News publishers are all wrestling with the reach-versus-return challenge right now. Is it a stretch to predict the tech titans will own the media without ever having to pay for the message?”

Barber, who has edited the title since 2005, said that over his tenure the FT has grown from a newspaper circulation of 420,000, with 76,000 digital subscribers, to a 750,000 circulation, of which over 70% is digital.

Barber also touched on how the transition to digital has displaced the notion that traditional newspaper publishers would, by right, be implicitly trusted by readers.

“News publishers thought they would always serve as the trusted source, handing down wisdom like Moses with his tablets of stone,” he said. “Today, in an age where information is instantly accessible readers can adopt the motto: trust but verify. That means that media publishers find themselves held to account as never before.”

Barber said that the FT felt the best approach was to eschew the Independent Press Standards Organisation, the successor to the PCC, and appoint its own complaints commissioner.

“Last year, after much debate in the wake of the Leveson inquiry, the FT chose, for now, not to join IPSO,” he said. “Instead, we created the new post of editorial complaints commissioner reporting to an independent panel.”

The panel includes FT chief executive John Ridding and former Fleet Street editors Baroness Wheatcroft and Ian Hargreaves.

The FT appointed barrister Greg Callus as its editorial complaints commissioner.

Barber said that the set up had created a “new locus of authority in the newsroom, albeit strictly in the appellate role”.

“Earlier this evening I spoke of our commitment to the gold standard in journalism,” he said. “The appointment of an independent editorial complaints commissioner demonstrates just that. It underlines the value of fresh thinking, of avoiding being trapped by dogma.”