Former Daily Mail editor Geordie Greig has been appointed editor of the Independent as the news publication faces severe financial challenges and faces a number of redundancies.
Greig has been tasked with expanding the Independent’s audience in the US after the company recently put a fifth of its staff at risk of redundancy and laid off several of its UK political reporters.
A number of Independent staff, who believe the publication should retain its left-wing perspective, expressed surprise at the news that a former Daily Mail editor had been appointed to the helm. One person described the staff’s reaction as “variety of trembling/fury/humiliated/unsurprised”.
Greig’s decision to join the Independent reunites him with Yevgeny Lebedev, who continues to own a significant stake in the news outlet. The two first met in the late 2000s when Greig was editing the public magazine Tatler. The journalist helped advise Lord Lebedev on the purchase of the Evening Standard before he himself was appointed editor of the newly purchased London paper.
Remainer Greig later became editor of the Mail on Sunday before moving to the Daily Mail as deputy to pro-Brexit editor Paul Daker. However, Greig’s time at the helm of the Mail ended unceremoniously in 2021 when he was ousted amid public clashes with Dacre over the management of the exit.
Greig faces a difficult challenge in his new job. When the Independent closed its main print edition in 2016, it kept its website, which thrived on social media sharing and an aggressive approach to quickly publishing breaking stories online. However, all news websites are struggling with a drop in traffic from sites like Facebook as audiences drift elsewhere – while a tough advertising market means it’s harder to convert clicks into money.
Independent’s ownership structure has also drawn attention after a 30% stake in the company was sold to a Saudi Arabian businessman. Court documents later revealed he controlled his holdings through an offshore company in the Cayman Islands, and in 2019 the UK government said it believed a bank with close ties to the Saudi state was a private owner.
A full regulatory investigation into Independent’s new investor has been blocked after the UK government missed deadlines to intervene. Since then, numerous foreign language versions of Independent have been released by a Saudi publishing house, all aimed at Middle Eastern audiences. There was also significant Saudi advertising on the Independent website.
The Independent also insisted that Lebedev’s father, the sanctioned Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev, who was involved in the purchase of the now-defunct Independent press in 2010, had no current involvement in the website.
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The Independent has not had a permanent editor since Christian Broughton stepped down in 2020, despite several rounds of recruitment for the job. John Peyton, chairman of the Independent’s parent company, said Greig – who takes up the role with immediate effect – will be asked to “continue to build news teams around the world to expand our global reach while upholding the values and integrity of Independent as we expand”.
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