ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A brief biography
Alan Rusbridger is Principal of Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford, where he also chairs the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism
For 20 years Rusbridger was editor in Chief of the Guardian in London. He oversaw the transformation of the paper to a world-leading digital news organisation. Under his leadership the paper became the most-visited serious English language website in the world. Investigations into WikiLeaks, tax avoidance, phone hacking and the Snowden revelations won numerous awards, including the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for public service. He wrote about the transformation and challenges of the news industry in Breaking News (2018).
Rusbridger was educated at Cambridge University and started his newspaper career on a local paper before first joining the Guardian in 1979. He had spells as a reporter, feature writer, columnist, critic (Obersver), US bureau Chief (London Daily News) before turning to editing. He launched the Guardian Weekend and G2 sections and, upon being made editor in 1995, launched the digital versions of the Guardian.
He is a keen amateur musician and described his parallel musical life in Play it Again (2013). He has written three childrens’ books and co-written a BBC TV drama, Fields of Gold, with Ronan Bennett. He has served on the Boards of the Royal National Theatre in London and the NY-based Committee to Protect Journalists in New York. He is currently a member of the Facebook Oversight Board. His latest book, News and How to Use it, was published in 2020
His academic awards include recognition by several universities, including Harvard, CUNY, Oslo, Lincoln, Trinity College Dublin, Coventry, Kingston and the Open University. He lives in London and Oxford. In 2014 he was a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award in Stockholm – the so-called “alternative Nobel Prize.”
He is married to the journalist and New Weather Institute co-founder, Lindsay Mackie. They have two children.
Digested Bio
Alan Rusbridger was Editor in Chief of the Guardian from 1995-2015. He is currently Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and Chair of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. During his time at the Guardian, both he and the paper won numerous awards, including the 2014 Pulitzter Prize for Public Service Journalism. The Guardian grew from a printed paper with a circulation of 400,000 to a leading digital news organisation with 150m browsers a month around the world. He launched now-profitable editions in Australia and the US as well as a membership scheme which now has 1m Guardian readers paying for content.
He was born in Zambia, was educated at Cambridge and lives in Oxford and London. He is the co-author of the BBC drama, Fields of Gold. He is a keen amateur musician and the author of Play it Again. His memoir of journalism and its future, Breaking News, was published in 2018. He is a a member of the Facebook Oversight Board. His latest book, News and How to Use it, was published in 2020.
