Former Conservative cabinet minister Michael Gove has been appointed editor of The Spectator following the purchase of the current affairs magazine by Sir Paul Marshall.
Fraser Nelson will leave the current affairs magazine after 15 years as editor, but will continue to write for it as an associate editor which he said was on the request of Gove.
Meanwhile former Spectator (1984-1990) and Telegraph editor Charles Moore will become non-executive chairman after the departure of Andrew Neil.
Moore has been given a specific remit to “safeguard the editorial independence and soul of the magazine during its expansion”.
Gove had previously been tipped as a potential editor of The Spectator when it was rumoured that his former employer Rupert Murdoch might be in the running to buy it.
Before becoming an MP in 2004, Gove spent eight years at The Times as leader writer, comment editor, news editor, assistant editor and Saturday editor. He started his career as a trainee reporter for The Press and Journal in Aberdeen.
He also contributed to The Spectator and later began writing for The Times again in 2016 after a failed bid to be Conservative leader. Gove stepped down as an MP this year after stints as justice secretary, environment secretary and levelling up secretary.
Part of his time in cabinet was served under Boris Johnson – himself a former editor of The Spectator between 1999 and 2005.
Gove will begin at The Spectator on 4 October, pending approval from the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) which vets new appointments for former cabinet ministers.
Fraser Nelson says Michael Gove is ‘clear successor’
Writing for The Spectator website, Nelson described Gove as “in many ways… the clear successor”.
“He’s a first-class journalist who took a detour into politics and not (as so often happens) the other way around. He was my news editor when I was a young reporter at the Times and even then he was writing Spectator cover stories and being tipped as a future editor. His hinterland, love of mischief, intellectual depth, energy, sense of humour and – most importantly – love of good writing make him perfect for the job.
“Having known him for so long, I know (for example) that he first declared his ambition to edit The Spectator in an Aberdeen classroom at the age of seven. Now, aged 57, he has made it. He might have taken a circuitous route but his experience, combined with his journalistic skills and the quality of the Spectator team around him, will make for quite a potent combination. Perhaps most importantly, he’s also from the north-east of Scotland.”
Speaking on a panel for the British Society of Magazine Editors less than a week ago, Nelson said the relationship between editor and proprietor should be “no relationship at all”.
“The editor is backed or sacked but never second guessed, never steered,” he said, adding that Marshall “obviously likes us, he paid £100m for us – but I should be having no contact with him. In the same way I had no contact with the Barclays when they owned The Spectator. I think in 15 years they spoke to me about ten times.”
Nelson added that editors should “actively ignore” suggestions from proprietors and that: “If you get sacked for it, you get sacked for it – but you hold the line. Famous last words.”
GB News investor Marshall bought the nearly 200-year-old magazine for £100m through his company Old Queen Street Ventures Limited, which also publishes online magazine Unherd, earlier this month.
Unherd editor-in-chief and OQS chief executive Freddie Sayers also became publisher of The Spectator and its sister art magazine Apollo in the deal, making him responsible for the magazine’s overall strategy.
Nelson described Sayers as a friend and said: “The success of our American and Australian editions – as well as our broadcasts, emails and first-class online commentary – has the basis of something that can be far bigger. That’s how Sir Paul sees it and Freddie will now be leading the work to make it happen: in our magazines, broadcasts and online.”
Old Queen Street Ventures has said it “will prioritise investing in journalism, talent and the latest technology, with the aim of building a strong future for The Spectator and supporting it to reach new audiences” especially in North America and the Anglosphere.
Sayers said Nelson “leaves the magazine modernised, digitised and with more readers than ever before”.
Of Gove, Sayers added: “Alongside his political and journalistic nous, Michael brings a love of books, philosophy, art, opera — and a mischievous sense of humour. He is perfectly suited to the role, and I can’t wait to work together.”
Matthew d’Ancona, who edited The Spectator from 2006 to 2009, said Nelson had a “magnificent editorship” and called Gove an “inspired choice” to follow him.
Lord Moore said of his own appointment: “The Spectator thrives because of its free spirit and editorial independence.
“Having been continuously associated with the paper for more than a fifth of its nearly 200-year history, I am honoured to have been asked to be its Chairman. I look forward to its future being even greater than its past.”
New Spectator editor Michael Gove has called journalism ‘the best job in the world’
Speaking in 2018, when he was still an MP, Gove said: “In making the switch from reporting to politics I left a profession that I loved and admired for a complex of reasons.
“But one of the reasons why I love and admire journalism is that politicians, rather like nappies, have to be changed often and generally for the same reason.
“But while politicians are dispensable in a democracy, one thing is indispensable and that is a free press.”
A few years earlier he described being a journalist as “the best job in the world” because it “allows you to indulge your curiosity like nothing else.
“All of us want to know more about the world we live in. All of us have got passions, whether it’s sport, arts, politics – whatever it might be. And all of us are bursting to know more about the things that we care about.
“But so often in life you’re circumscribed from being able to ask those questions – sometimes you don’t have the access, sometimes it’s just plain rude… being able to ask those questions isn’t just the most fantastic fun. It also is a critical public service.”
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