It’s a busy summer for The Spectator. Sales of the magazine are rising and our website is now visited by well over a million people each month. Spectator TV has now joined our regular podcasts, so we’re now watched (and listened to) as well as read. One of the great strengths of The Spectator is that we have a small team and a fluid structure – we all do a bit of everything. But there’s more than ever to do and I’m delighted to announce some new arrivals to that team, together with some other changes.
· Freddy Gray, our managing editor, has been appointed deputy editor with oversight of all parts of The Spectator.
· Igor Toronyi-Lalic, who has done a brilliant job running our new Culture House blog, becomes the new arts editor. He’ll now oversee all of the Spectator’s arts coverage. He’s also co-director of the London Contemporary Music Festival and a biographer of Benjamin Britten.
· Lara Prendergast has been made deputy online editor. It’s a permanent job, but she’s currently standing in for…
· Sebastian Payne, our online editor, who is in Washington for four months (having won the Washington Post’s Laurence Stern Fellowship). He returns here from DC in November.
· Lucy Vickery becomes life editor, overseeing the magazine’s inimitable final section, in addition to her role as deputy arts editor.
· Damian Thompson, former blogs editor at the Daily Telegraph, joins as an associate editor.
Liz Anderson has retired as arts editor after 23 brilliant years at the magazine. David Blackburn, our blogs editor, is off to the City and leaves next week (his successor will be named in the autumn). They’ve both been incredible colleagues, who I could not hope to thank properly here. A few other changes have already taken place: Isabel Hardman was promoted to assistant editor a few months ago, and Mary Wakefield has (at her suggestion) become commissioning editor to focus on procuring the most original, entertaining and thought-provoking features that you’ll read anywhere.
Much is written about the changing ways in which journalism is read (or listened to), and our industry is certainly going through a revolution. But our approach is pretty much the same as it has been for 186 years: hire the best writers and give them the freedom to say what they want – always mindful that we’re serving the best-read, best-humoured cohort of people on the planet. To join our subscribers, from £1 a week, click here.
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