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August 31, 2016

Barack Obama to guest edit Wired magazine in ‘US presidential first’

By Freddy Mayhew

Barack Obama will sit in the editor’s chair for an issue of Wired magazine, becoming the first ever sitting American president to guest edit a magazine, according to its publishers.

The 44th president of the United States will take over editorial direction of the monthly glossy for its November issue. Obama is said to have chosen “frontiers” as his theme for the edition.

Editor-in-chief Scott Dadich said: “When the Founders wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, they were at the bleeding edge of Enlightenment philosophy and technology.

“[Benjamin] Franklin was talking about crazy stuff like electricity and communications networks. [Thomas] Paine gave up the copyright to Common Sense so it could get wider publication. [Thomas] Jefferson was radically rethinking design and land use.

“We want to wrestle with the idea of how today’s technology can influence political leadership. And who better to help us explore these ideas than president Obama?”

Former Wired guest-editors include tech billionaire Bill Gates, tennis star Serena Williams and film directors JJ Abrams and Christopher Nolan.

Wired, published by Conde Nast Publications, has an average monthly print circulation in the UK of 54,094 copies, according to the latest ABC figures to the end of June.

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