Lionel Barber Quotes

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.

- Lionel Barber

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.

- Lionel Barber

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.

- Lionel Barber

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.

- Lionel Barber

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.

- Lionel Barber

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.

- Lionel Barber

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.

- Lionel Barber

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.

- Lionel Barber

As a cub reporter, I devoured books about journalism.

- Lionel Barber

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.

- Lionel Barber

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

- Lionel Barber

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

- Lionel Barber

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.

- Lionel Barber

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.

- Lionel Barber

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

- Lionel Barber

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.

- Lionel Barber

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.

- Lionel Barber