Lionel Barber Quotations

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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