Hello, welcome to the Financial Times.
I'm Miranda Green, and I'm delighted to be joined
by Lionel Barber on his very last day as editor of the paper
after 14 years in the top job.
Lionel, thank you very much for speaking to me today.
It's great to be here, Miranda.
It's been an extraordinary decade and a half,
a really kind of tumultuous time to be at the head
of an international news organisation.
What, for you, have been the biggest moments
or the biggest trends that you think
have seen our world transformed in the way it has?
I think there are three big trends in the past 15 years.
One would be the global financial crisis
and its aftermath.
If you like, there was a huge economic and financial shock.
The world almost melted down in 2008.
And then there was a political reaction,
which I'm sure we're going to talk about -
the rise of populism and the anti-globalisation backlash.
And I think second would be the rise
of the east, the rise of China, China becoming, if you like,
the second superpower - economic superpower - and increasingly
assertive, and India following fast behind.
And then third is just the technological change,
this upheaval, symbolised, in a way by the smartphone,
which has changed everybody's lives
and certainly how media works.
So that tech change and the way that it's transforming media,
do you think we are a little way along
the transformation of the media industry, or further along,
or are we coming to somewhere where
we know this new world that we're dealing with,
or is there much more disruption to come, do you think?
More disruption to come.
We've only just begun, in my view.
There were many people who thought
that the smartphone would change things
maybe one or two degrees.
But if you think what the computer power of a smartphone
is, what the best, biggest computers
were doing say 20 years ago, and we haven't even
begun to see what machine learning
and artificial intelligence is going to do.
So for me, it's a bit man versus machines, and the journalists
- we need to take back control of it.
Right, because will the AI ever manage to compete with
the judgement that a good responsible media organisation
has to make every day, many times a day,
in which you've been at the centre of that machine,
filled with humans making those judgement calls?
Yeah, I think you and I have answered the question.
I mean, the journalists, the human mind,
cannot be replicated.
I think judgement is massively important in today's media.
You know all about fake news, that's
an often-used term, but this notion of disinformation,
misinformation, what can you trust?
And the FT, we've tried very hard to make it still
the centre of authority, a place where you can read accurate
and trustworthy news.
And I think that does require judgement
- curatorial judgement, human judgement.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning
can help us maybe sort a bit and prioritise,
but I think there needs to be limits.
But data and the use of data in journalism
is obviously one of those things that the technology
has enabled us to do more, and obviously, for a business
newspaper, covering finance in some detail.
That's made a difference to our reporting already.
And I think that's been very positive influence,
because we know much more about our audience
now than we ever did.
Because we know what they're reading,
what they're interested in, what they're sharing.
And previously, if you like, in the newspaper age,
the way you kept in touch with readers
was you read the letters page or you get a phone call
from somebody who's either angry or pleased.
And obviously, we're in a whole different scale.
That's been very important for the FT as we've grown
our global audience now to almost 1.1m paying readers.
So you talked about the financial crash
and the recession that followed it
and then the political backwash from that.
Do you think that's still got a lot of time
to play out, that political reaction?
'Cause clearly here in the UK we've
had the Brexit crisis and the vote.
And in America we've got the Trump presidency.
The first reaction to the global financial crash
was anti-globalisation, a backlash against it,
the Occupy Wall Street.
And then, you also had concomitant
with that, a concentration of financial power, paradoxically.
There was a crisis that got banks got bigger, not smaller,
less competition.
I think that's a problem.
But the third point - and I'm going back to globalisation
- is, 30 years ago the great popular reaction and worries
were about goods, the freedom of movement of goods.
And then maybe during the financial crisis,
freedom of movement of capital.
Actually now, it's about people.
And we're going to still see those demographic movements.
And different pull-up politicians
are drawing different conclusions.
One is - if you think of the tie-in to the rise of the east
- it's regaining control.
You've got a sort of reversion towards greater
nationalism and national economy rather than integrated supply
chains and things like that.
And also you've increasingly been travelling in Asia.
As China has risen, the importance of India
has grown massively over this period.
In a sense, how is that felt being
in London running a global network,
as the power balance shifts internationally?
I can still remember a senior Chinese diplomat just
over lunch using the phrase.
And it was the first time.
Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator was there.
He heard this diplomat use the word 'the second superpower'.
And I remember going back and Martin
saying that was the big thing out of this lunch.
China's never described itself in that role.
And that was 2006.
I've since made, I think, eight or nine trips to China.
And I've seen it change.
You've seen Beijing change, you've seen the growth of these
- just number of airports around China.
You've seen the growth of the Chinese middle class,
and now Chinese companies going global.
So it's visible, it's tangible, and it's real.
India also - we've got some problems now with Mr Modi
and the economy is slowing down rapidly
- but the fact is, power - economic power -
has shifted from the west to the east,
and we have to capture that.
You've spent a lot of your career
in Brussels and in the US as well as in London.
How does it feel with London changing its relationship
with Europe and with the States as well?
I mean, it's a real moment of flux.
Well, I'm still confident in the City of London,
because I think it's one of the world's great financial centres
and I don't worry about London's relationship to the EU.
The EU does not have a comparable financial centre,
and I don't think it's going to have one any time soon.
It's not going to be Paris, it's not going to be Frankfurt.
New York, by comparison, may benefit from divergence
of the London from Europe.
New York, they've got the big banks,
so that's the thing to watch there.
I worry more about how the rest of the country
is going to adapt to post-Brexit.
I think there are some great centres
of excellence like Cambridge.
I think Manchester is becoming a great city, linked
to the university as well.
But there are other places, and we know about the seaside towns
where they're still very vulnerable,
and no amount of huge public spending
is going to arrest that.
So thinking about the extraordinary access that we
at the FT have as a pre-eminent global international news
organisation.
I mean certainly as a reporter I've always
found it incredible what you can find out as an FT journalist.
But the financial crash, having this incredible ability
to talk to these leaders around the world,
how does that feel balancing that
with the journalistic killer instinct to get the story
and to hold people to account?
Well, access is two-edged, because you
talk to primary sources, but then it's easy with access
to be captured.
So in a way, I've always taken the view
that you have to be inside - close enough
to see the whites of their eyes, but then to detach and then
write from a slight distance.
Now obviously, the more intimate the relationship,
the more dangerous that relationship is.
And I remember being invited - indeed,
getting the call in the first week of taking over
as an editor - in 2005.
And who should it be?
It's Downing Street and Tony Blair.
And within three weeks, I'm on the sofa talking to the prime
minister and...
Being wooed.
Yeah.
Well, you know, it is just interesting.
But I think one always has to bear in mind the lines.
So access always has to be for a purpose,
and you can never sort of have people...
if people threaten access either to me or to FT journalists,
I've always said, well, I don't care.
We're still going to write about you.
And that's happened a number of times.
But, you're right.
I mean, I think at times, I've worried
a bit about whether we we're a little too close.
I mean, we're obviously a business newspaper.
We want to write about the real people and not just
- we've got to - well, when I say the real people,
I'm talking about it's good to have access
to board members and CEOs, people
who are exercising power.
We also need to talk to other people involved,
like investors and the accountants, et cetera.
So multiple sources is okay.
It's the way to deal with the access problem.
So you've had this very interesting interview
with Angela Merkel today on your last day.
Couple of months ago, a few months ago
- fascinating interview with Vladimir Putin.
What have been the sort of high points for you
of these extraordinary figures who you've
had this incredible level of access to,
to explain their world view through us, through the FT?
Well, it's one of the great privileges of being editor.
I've been very lucky.
I've wanted to still do journalism,
and I figured that one way to do it and plant the standard,
if you like, was go and see the people who run countries,
run businesses, but particularly political leaders, because I'm
interested in power.
I've always been fascinated by it.
So the Putin interview after midnight in the Kremlin
was really interesting.
I mean, this is Russia's back on the world stage.
North Africa, Middle East, et cetera,
and seeing him talk about that was very interesting.
Then, of course, he gave the big line,
which was the liberal idea is obsolete.
And so the Merkel interview.
Chancellor Merkel was, if you like the anti-Putin interview
I wanted to do, a bookend.
And I'm very interested in Germany, speak German,
studied German at university.
So for me, it was a nice endpiece.
But I think probably the highlights of all were maybe
being in Tehran and meeting president,
ex-president Rafsanjani - great historical figure--
and then seeing Rouhani at the end.
That was very..
I just hadn't been there ever to Iran.
I think being in the White House with President Trump.
He was a bit disappointed when he said have you
been to the Oval Office?
Nice place.
And I said, well, actually, I have...
20 years before.
But didn't want to name drop.
And then this interview with President Trump
was quite special.
But for me, overall probably on balance,
was Putin in the Kremlin after midnight.
So you brought up his amazing line,
which we splashed across the front page:
the liberal idea is obsolete.
Angela Merkel today giving us the counterpoint,
as you've said.
Do you think...
what about the FT's values, though, because in a sense,
the FT is also... has a kind of liberal world view.
Well, we've defended that and our columnists
have defended it.
And it's correct to do so, because we
do believe in globalisation.
We know that globalisation has lifted billions out of poverty.
You've seen that in China and in India.
And we also are tolerant, open-minded people.
We believe in immigration.
Not - if you're going to have lots and lots of immigration,
you maybe need to think about how
it might affect public services and communities
and have spending to offset that.
But in terms of...
again, I've spent more than 10 years in America.
I've seen immigration has been a tremendous force of renewal
and prosperity in America.
Energy.
And energy, exactly.
So that... those values, the FT needs to defend
and we'll continue to defend.
But I also think going forward that we
need to offer solutions.
We need to recognise and explain how maybe the world has changed
a bit after Brexit, after the election of Trump.
This is not to condone what he's saying
or sometimes what he's doing, but just
to understand if the world has changed,
to take account of that, but also to provide solutions
to problems and not just, say, look backwards.
I think that's important for a newspaper like the FT.
And I think the other thing I'd say,
because you talked about interviews,
it's not just the big countries.
One of the great enjoyments for me
has been to spend time in Africa.
I've done at least six, seven trips to South Africa,
was in Rwanda.
Had a fascinating three and a half hour
interview with President Kagame whose been a figure in power
for 20 years - controversial figure,
but a serious, deeply serious figure.
And then, the Nobel laureate Mr Abiy in Ethiopia.
So it's those things as well as the big names
that have been such a pleasure.
Thank you, Lionel.
Thank you very much for joining me,
and also thank you for hiring me.
It was always a strategic decision, Miranda.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.