Guardian appoints first ever female editor-in-chief

The Guardian, a center-left British national daily newspaper, named the first female editor-in-chief in its 194-year history. On Friday, the newspaper announced its decision that current deputy editor Katharine Viner (aged 44, photo) will take up the role in summer as 12th editor-in-chief.

The Guardian launched its U.S. outlet in 2011 and Australian one in 2013. “I intend to lead a media organization that is bold, challenging, open and engaging. It will be a home for the most ambitious journalism, ideas and events, setting the agenda and reaching out to readers all around the world,” said the editor-in-chief nominee.

Having worked for The Sunday Times magazine, a high-quality U.K. newspaper, Viner joined the Guardian in 1997. She became feature editor in 2006 and deputy editor in 2008. In 2013, she began to supervise Guardian digital edition in Australia and has worked as the head of The Guardian `s American website since 2014.

British media reported that Guardian’s appointment is yet another major conversational topic after a 172-year-old weekly newspaper Economist named Zanny Minton Beddoes as its first female editor in January 2015.

Against serious crisis with the advent of the Internet, the Guardian has been at the center of the attention as the one who has pushed forward with the strongest changes and innovation. It was the first newspaper to introduce a “Live-Blog” service that provided real-time live news in 2001. In 2010 when a blog named “Live-Blog” was widely visited during the wave of “Arab Spring," Guardian’s brand value was greatly increased. Introducing the “Digital First” strategy in which, starting from economy and international news in 2008, it published its news articles on the website first, followed by the paper version. Unlike other daily newspapers, Guardian’s editor-in-chief is in charge of general supervision not only on paper version but also on website version, a sign of its focus on digital journalism.

Thanks to its “Digital First” strategy, the Guardian has enjoyed a greatly increased number of online readers. As of 2010, some 40 million readers visited its website more than once every month, while in 2014, the number exceeded 100 million. During 2012-2013 period, sales of digital news was higher than that of paper news.

The Guardian, however, is still agonizing over the fact that this innovation has yet to be led to actual profit. In 2014, it had 30.6 million pounds of operating loss. With her experience in digital news in the U.S. and Australia, editor-in-chief nominee Viner has a difficult task to realize sustainable growth model that would generate actual profit based on the momentum of growing online readers.

Shifting its course to investigative reporting along with the digital strategy, the newspaper won the Pulitzer Prize last year by making an exclusive report on National Security Agency’s indiscriminate eavesdropping, which was disclosed by former agent Edward Snowden. From 2014, the Guardian, along with French daily Le Monde, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, reported that Switzerland banks have aided and abetted the concealment and tax evasion of black money.

Incumbent editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger (aged 62) who has been at the post for more than two decades and will step down from the post this summer is expected to be a chair of the Scott Trust, which will own the Guardian Group after 2016. Taking up the post in 1995, he took the lead of digital innovation in the Guardian, and is now recognized as the one who made the Guardian one of the most read English newspaper in the world.

pen@donga.com