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The Guardian’s Business Editor inspires LSST’s students

Kunal Chan Mehta

By Kunal Chan Mehta | Article Date: 6 February 2017

FIONA WALSH

Fiona Walsh is the revered business editor of theguardian.com and has dedicatedly worked for a number of national newspapers, including the Sunday Times, where she was deputy City editor.







LSST’s business and management students coordinated a series of scoping thought-provoking questions with LSST’s Deputy CEO, Mr Mohammed Zaidi, for one of the country’s most respected business editors:


Photo source: used with permission Fiona Walsh

 

1. What work do you do for The Guardian?

I’ve been the Business Editor of theguardian.com since October 2006. I initially started on the newspaper but was offered the opportunity to edit the business website, which I jumped at.

I had a long career in print journalism, from the Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph to the Mirror, the Mail and the Evening Standard, but was itching to make the switch to the rapidly-developing digital world.

2. How does online journalism differ from print journalism?

It’s a lot faster. You need to make swift decisions but must never sacrifice accuracy for speed.

There are so many exciting ways to tell stories online, with interactive, video and audio. One of the most popular features of our online business coverage is our daily live blog, which covers all the big events of the day in real time.

It’s a really good way to deliver the news in times of crisis, when events are moving fast, such as the Eurozone crisis a few years back, or the fallout from the Brexit vote. On a really big day, the business blog will record more than a million page views.

3. What will be the key trends in the business world this year?

Brexit, obviously, and also the impact of Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House.

The dire warnings about the catastrophic impact a vote to leave Europe would have on the UK economy have not proved accurate, certainly not as yet.

But negotiations on new trade deals for the UK will clearly be crucial for the future of the UK economy. We have a long haul ahead.

4. Where do you get your news from?

We use all the traditional news sources – company accounts, Stock Exchange announcements, brokers’ notes, news agencies such as Reuters and the Press Association, as well as sources developed by our reporting team. We keep an eye on social media and on what the competition are doing.

Our readers are often sources too – we encourage comments on our articles and it’s always interesting to hear what they have to say. They are also very good at spotting any mistakes!

5. How can websites such theguardian.com help LSST’s students?

The days when text books and academic journals were the only valid references for research are long gone.

News websites such as Guardian Business are a fantastically useful research tool for students – as well as covering the latest news, our keyword pages curate all our stories and opinion pieces on specific companies, sectors and trends, from retailing to banking, executive pay, economics and the Eurozone crisis.

This enables students to access news articles going back a number of years and, where possible, we try to link to the various reports and sources for our stories.

Research the latest business news at: www.theguardian.com/uk/business

Follow Fiona at: twitter.com/fionawalsh

Note from the Deputy CEO:

My warmest thanks to Fiona for taking the time to answer questions from our business and management students. We commend her support and enthusiastic answers.

Adding to Fiona’s views, in today’s continuously changing world, academic research in both business and management needs to stay as close to real-time as possible. I feel by using her business pages on a regular basis students will be able to do so with ease.

To take part in future interviews with senior managers, editors and company executives please email kunal.mehta@lsst.ac.

Mohammed Zaidi, Deputy CEO, LSST


Please email the author of this article kunal.mehta@lsst.ac for any questions or comments.



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