Dominic Mohan is reported to be the frontrunner to fill the vacant editor’s chair at the Sun in today’s Guardian but one angle the paper doesn’t explore is the remarkably fast route to the top that the tabloid’s gossip column Bizarre appears to offer.
Mohan, who edited Bizarre until 2003 and is now deputy editor, would be the third Bizarre alumnus (following Piers Morgan and Andy Coulson) to become a tabloid editor in recent years. Another former Bizarre editor, Victoria Newton, is currently the second favourite to replace Rebekah Brooks (née Wade) who will shortly become chief executive of the paper’s parent company, News International.
As for the broadsheets, or rather “the qualities”, it’s business journalism that promises a swift ascent up the Fleet Street ladder. James Harding, the Times editor, began his career at the Financial Times and later became the Times’s business editor. The editor of the Daily Telegraph, Will Lewis, also worked at the FT and later became City editor at the Sunday Times, where he won the admiration of Rupert Murdoch.
Michael Wolff, who recently published a biography of Murdoch, The Man Who Owns the News, noted after his meetings with the News Corp head: “I thought he [Murdoch] really liked Lewis, that there was something really there. If you had to single one person out, or one of a handful of people, who Murdoch would really like as part of News Corp, I think Will Lewis is one.”
After landing the scoop of the decade with the expenses scandal, Lewis is now spoken of in some quarters as a possible Sun editor. But given that he will shortly begin a three-month Harvard management training course he is far more likely to bide his time and wait for a News Corp executive position.
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