When is an editor, a chief content officer?
Picked up The London Standard yesterday. First time I’ve actually seen it in print.
Pagination isn’t bad – 68. It still carries some of the same content as before – when it was a daily and called The Evening London Standard.
Dylan Jones (the previous editor) interviews Nigel Farage. A few investigative pieces, celeb gossip, business, travel and a slimmed down sports section. So not too different. But clearly positioning itself as “The Newspaper of the Greatest City in the World”.
The paper, like most, has been through turbulent times. As a consequence, it has lost a number of editors. Anna Van Praagh, the Chief Content Officer, has stepped into the acting editor role until a “replacement is found”.
I suspect a replacement might not be found and that Anna will remain in post. And why not. She seems to be doing a very good job in a really crap market.
But it begs a bigger question about the direction of ‘news’ media – are we seeing the beginning of the end of the traditional media editor and the rise of content officers to govern our news?
I have no idea where that might take us – but I do wonder whether it signals a further demise of ‘news’ which has been checked, fact checked and discussed before publication.
