Kelner out, Blackhurst in at the Independent

Simon Kelner has lost the editorship of The Independent. He is being replaced by Chris Blackhurst, currently the business editor of the London Evening Standard. Kelner will take the title of editor-in-chief, but will have no responsibility for the day-to-day running of the Indy and its stablemate, the Independent on Sunday. The decision to appoint Blackhurst, a former deputy editor of the Indy, was taken by Evgeny Lebedev, son of the Russian business tycoon, Alexander, who negotiated the acquisition of the titles last year. Evgeny emailed staff to announce the appointment ( full text here ). It brings to an end Kelner’s control of The Independent after 13 years. He was appointed as editor in 1998 by the then owner, Tony O’Reilly’s Irish company, Independent News & Media. At the time, Blackhurst was deputy editor to Rosie Boycott. Both of them then went on to run the Daily Express. Blackhurst, 51, has spent most of his journalistic career as a business journalist, though he started off in the law after graduating from Cambridge, (Trinity Hall). Following a stint as assistant editor of International Financial Law Review in the mid-1980s, he worked for a business magazine until becoming deputy editor of the Sunday Times’s Insight team in 1990. He went on to be business editor of the Sunday Express – lured to the paper by his Sunday Times colleague, Robin Morgan – before joining the Independent on Sunday as a business writer. Translated to The Independent, he spent time as a Westminster correspondent, returning to the Sindy as assistant editor. Then came the years as Boycott’s deputy, first at the Indy and then the Express. He left in the aftermath of the Richard Desmond takeover of Express Newspapers, spent a year back with the Indy before accepting an offer from the Standard’s then editor Veronica Wadley, to head up her paper’s business coverage. He has won several awards, most recently being named business journalist of the year in the London Press Club awards last month. Sources: Confidential The Independent Simon Kelner Evgeny Lebedev London Evening Standard Newspapers Newspapers & magazines Roy Greenslade guardian.co.uk

Posted by on July 1, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.