Rupert Murdoch’s shake-up of News Corporation continues as Victoria Barnsley, veteran chief executive of book publisher HarperCollins for the UK and international, is departing.
Her exit follows the appointment of new editors at The Sun and The Times. It is also about power in the books trade shifting from London to New York, which will take responsibility for Australia, New Zealand and India. Barnsley won’t stay as an adviser — in contrast to Penguin Random House’s Dame Gail Rebuck who was named as chairman after stepping back from day-to-day operations this week. The top of News Corp looks very male now that Barnsley, a rare female face, is off. HarperCollins’ summer party in Kensington tonight should be an impromptu farewell.
* Unfortunate timing from Zarin Patel, the BBC’s departing chief financial officer, who has used a valedictory interview to attack the media’s habit of holding the corporation’s spending to account. “I think there’s a balance needed between openness and the ability to give the organisation space to do the right thing,” Patel told in-house mag Ariel ahead of her departure last Friday. “There can be a danger of running this organisation for the Daily Mail.” Given what has happened this week, with the release of embarrassing figures showing the pay-offs received by top staff, she couldn’t look more wrong.
* The battle over press regulation has taken a fresh twist as newspaper groups have cannily put forward plans for their own regulator — an alternative royal charter to the Government’s proposals — at a Privy Council meeting on July 10. Lord Wallace, a minister, admits there has been “some very fast footwork” by the papers in tabling their plan and outsmarting Government lawyers.
