"I had been the editor of FT Alphaville, the paper’s innovative markets blog. To be clear, I still admire and respect the vast majority of my former colleagues. They do great work. I also maintain my own FT subscription. However, the publication’s DNA changed over the 13 years I worked there.
The FT used to be a place where elites exchanged unvarnished truths, while populist outlets peddled agenda-driven narratives to the masses. Or at least, so the adage went.
That is no longer the case. Today, I subscribe because the content helps me understand herd mentality in markets – what I call “beta money” flows.
The question is: how did the FT evolve from a candid elite forum where dialogue was a point of pride – the best of the British free-thinking tradition – to an increasingly timid, risk-averse rag with little appetite for publishing ideas that sit far outside the prevailing party line? What happened to the “without fear or favour” spirit that championed the interests of the investor? I have some ideas.
My hunch is that this change was driven by the evolution of its business model. In response to falling advertising revenue and digitisation, the FT slowly but surely moved from serving a comparatively narrow but powerful, largely UK-centred financial readership to chasing mass subscriptions.
To make this work, it had to seek out a more global, demographically diverse subscriber base with diverse values and agendas. Doing this effectively demanded diplomacy, not candour, in editorial lines."
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