Financial Times appoints Brexit editor and ramps up EU team as it sees spike in subscriptions post-referendum
The Financial Times has appointed Daniel Dombey as its dedicated Brexit editor to strengthen its coverage of Britain's exit from the European Union following a spike in subscriptions post-referendum.
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Dombey will continue in his role as global economy news producer, taking up the additional responsibility of coordinating the FT’s Brexit coverage, managing resources and overseeing content output across all channels.
Meanwhile Alan Beattie, lead writer based in London, will relocate to Brussels in August to boost its presence in the European centre.
In May Alex Barker was named as the FT’s Brussels bureau chief having spent the last five years in Brussels working as the FT’s European diplomatic editor and EU correspondent. He replaced Peter Spiegel who assumed the role of FT news editor, based in London.
Rochelle Toplensky will also move to Brussels to cover European regulation as EU Correspondents, starting from September, while James Blitz has been appointed Whitehall editor, working with the Westminster team overseeing coverage of the courts and public policy. Joshua Chaffin will take up a UK Correspondent role, exploring the divides in the UK across regions, demographics and wealth.
The FT, like many news providers, saw a huge surge in traffic to its site on the day of the referendum and following, helping it drive a 600 per cent surge in digital subscriptions sales over the weekend of the vote, equating to thousands of new subscribers.
Page views were twice its previous records, previously held by coverage of the Greece crisis, China slowdown and Lehman fall. This was helped by the publisher dropping its paywall for all Brexit-related news and anaylsis for 24 hours on the evening of the vote.
It comes just months after the FT announced three new editorial appointments to strengthen its technology and media team in order to address a rapidly changing business landscape, with Madhumita Murgia joining as European technology correspondent from the Telegraph; Nic Fildes joining from the Times as telecoms correspondent; and David Bond, former sports editor at the BBC, joining as media correspondent.