| Alan Rusbridger | |
|---|---|
Alan Rusbridger in 2007 |
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| Born | 29 December 1953 Northern Rhodesia |
| Occupation | Editor |
| Children | 2 daughters |
| Notable credit(s) |
Editor of The Guardian Deputy Editor of The Guardian |
Alan Charles Rusbridger (born 29 December 1953, Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia) is the editor of the British newspaper The Guardian. He has also been a reporter and a columnist.
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Rusbridger was born in Northern Rhodesia, the son of B.E. (née Wickham) and G.H. Rusbridger, the Director of Education of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). He was educated at Cranleigh School, a boys' independent school in Cranleigh, Surrey, and at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read English.
His first post in journalism was with the Cambridge Evening News. He joined The Guardian as a reporter in 1979 and subsequently wrote the paper's diary column and was a feature writer. He left to become The Observer's TV critic before moving to America to be the Washington editor of the London Daily News. On returning to The Guardian in 1987 he launched the "Weekend" supplement and the paper's "G2" section. As editor from 1995, he oversaw the launch and development of the Guardian Unlimited website. He defended the paper against a number of high-profile defamation suits, including from the Police Federation and the Conservative MPs, Neil Hamilton and Jonathan Aitken. In late 2005 The Guardian responded to the tabloid re-launches of The Times and The Independent by moving from a broadsheet format to the "Berliner" format, common in the rest of Europe.
He is a member of the board of Guardian News and Media, of the main board of the Guardian Media Group and of the Scott Trust, which owns The Guardian and The Observer, of which he is executive editor. Rusbridger received £471,000 in pay and benefits in 2008/9.[1]
He has written three children's books as well as being the co-author (with Ronan Bennett) of a BBC drama, Fields of Gold.
He is visiting Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, and Visiting Professor of History at Queen Mary, University of London. Since 2004 he has been Chairman of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. He is a governor of the Ditchley Foundation,[2] an organisation which exists to promote international relations.
Rusbridger supports 10:10, a British climate change campaign for a 10% reduction in carbon emissions in 2010.
In 1982, he married the educationalist Lindsay Mackie, who was educated at the private St Leonards School, in Islington. She helped found FILMCLUB. They have two daughters (born 1983 and May 1986), one of whom was briefly educated at the independent St Paul's Girls' School in London. In 2009 it was reported that one of his daughters, Isabella, had been working at The Guardian, but had been using her mother's surname as a nom de plume to avoid suspicion of having obtained the job through nepotism.[3] His wife is good friends with Tessa Jowell, whom she knew at the University of Edinburgh, and he is good friends with her estranged husband, David Mills. They both own cottages near the same Gloucestershire village.[4] He is Chairman of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. He is said to wear a wig.[5]
Rusbridger received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Lincoln in September 2009[6] and from the University of Kingston in January 2010.[7]
In 2010 he was chosen to deliver the annual Andrew Olle Media Lecture in Australia.
| Media offices | ||
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| Preceded by Jonathan Fenby |
Deputy Editor of The Guardian 1993 - 1995 |
Succeeded by Georgina Henry |
| Preceded by Peter Preston |
Editor of The Guardian 1995–present |
Incumbent |
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