Katharine Viner (born 1971) became the first female Editor-in-Chief at The
Guardian on 1 June 2015 succeeding Alan Rusbridger.
Viner is a British journalist and playwright who headed The Guardian's web operations in Australia, moved to New York in September 2014 to take up responsibility for The Guardian's online presence in the United States, and was shortly after selected for the editor-in-chief's position.
In March 2015, Viner won a majority in the ballot of Guardian and Observer editorial staff as the favoured successor of Alan Rusbridger as The Guardian's editor-in-chief. Viner received 53% of first-choice votes from the 964 staff who participated, and was thus shortlisted for selection. Former deputy editor and rival, Ian Katz (editor of the BBC's Newsnight television programme since 2013), was also on the final short list of two.
Viner was appointed editor-in-chief on 20 March 2015, the first woman to be the editor of The Guardian in its 194-year history, and assumed her new post on 1 June 2015. She intends to make the "media organisation" a "home for the most ambitious journalism, ideas and events" which is able to reach "out to readers all around the world."
It has been suggested by former Guardian columnist Michael Wolff that another of Viner's rivals to succeed Rusbridger, Janine Gibson, suffered because of internal disquiet over the internal impact on The Guardian of the Edward Snowden revelations which Gibson edited in New York. Peter Wilby, writing in the New Statesman, preferred a different explanation: "Viner is a more charming, more inclusive and less threatening figure than Janine Gibson, who started as the bookies’ and Rusbridger’s favourite."
Viner initially joined Cosmopolitan, a women's monthly magazine, for work experience, but was retained afterwards, becoming features assistant and then news and careers editor. After three years at The Sunday Times, working as a commissioning editor and writer for the magazine,
Viner joined The Guardian in 1997. Following a period on the staff of the women's page, she became editor of the Saturday Weekend supplement in 1998. She became features editor in 2006 and deputy editor in 2008 at the same time as Ian Katz. Viner edited the Saturday edition of The Guardian from 2008 to 2012.
Laura Slattery in The Irish Times, reviewing Viner's career up to March 2015, noted that she "has almost always been the person who does the commissioning, rather than provided the byline". Several Guardian pieces by Viner published during this period are reprinted in an anthology drawn from the Guardian archive entitled Women of the Revolution: Forty Years of Feminism (2010), edited by Kira Cochrane.
Outside journalism Viner is known for My Name Is Rachel Corrie, a play she co-edited with actor Alan Rickman from the writings and emails of Rachel Corrie, an American activist who was killed by a bulldozer operated by the Israeli Army in Rafah, Gaza in 2003. The play was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre in 2005. After Rickman died of cancer in January 2016, Viner wrote that their collaboration had been initially difficult, but "on the opening night we each admitted that we couldn’t have done justice to Rachel’s words without the other".
Viner was a judge in the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2004 and was on the board of the Royal Court Theatre for 13 years.
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| Katharine Viner |
Viner is a British journalist and playwright who headed The Guardian's web operations in Australia, moved to New York in September 2014 to take up responsibility for The Guardian's online presence in the United States, and was shortly after selected for the editor-in-chief's position.
In March 2015, Viner won a majority in the ballot of Guardian and Observer editorial staff as the favoured successor of Alan Rusbridger as The Guardian's editor-in-chief. Viner received 53% of first-choice votes from the 964 staff who participated, and was thus shortlisted for selection. Former deputy editor and rival, Ian Katz (editor of the BBC's Newsnight television programme since 2013), was also on the final short list of two.
Viner was appointed editor-in-chief on 20 March 2015, the first woman to be the editor of The Guardian in its 194-year history, and assumed her new post on 1 June 2015. She intends to make the "media organisation" a "home for the most ambitious journalism, ideas and events" which is able to reach "out to readers all around the world."
It has been suggested by former Guardian columnist Michael Wolff that another of Viner's rivals to succeed Rusbridger, Janine Gibson, suffered because of internal disquiet over the internal impact on The Guardian of the Edward Snowden revelations which Gibson edited in New York. Peter Wilby, writing in the New Statesman, preferred a different explanation: "Viner is a more charming, more inclusive and less threatening figure than Janine Gibson, who started as the bookies’ and Rusbridger’s favourite."
Viner initially joined Cosmopolitan, a women's monthly magazine, for work experience, but was retained afterwards, becoming features assistant and then news and careers editor. After three years at The Sunday Times, working as a commissioning editor and writer for the magazine,
Viner joined The Guardian in 1997. Following a period on the staff of the women's page, she became editor of the Saturday Weekend supplement in 1998. She became features editor in 2006 and deputy editor in 2008 at the same time as Ian Katz. Viner edited the Saturday edition of The Guardian from 2008 to 2012.
Laura Slattery in The Irish Times, reviewing Viner's career up to March 2015, noted that she "has almost always been the person who does the commissioning, rather than provided the byline". Several Guardian pieces by Viner published during this period are reprinted in an anthology drawn from the Guardian archive entitled Women of the Revolution: Forty Years of Feminism (2010), edited by Kira Cochrane.
Outside journalism Viner is known for My Name Is Rachel Corrie, a play she co-edited with actor Alan Rickman from the writings and emails of Rachel Corrie, an American activist who was killed by a bulldozer operated by the Israeli Army in Rafah, Gaza in 2003. The play was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre in 2005. After Rickman died of cancer in January 2016, Viner wrote that their collaboration had been initially difficult, but "on the opening night we each admitted that we couldn’t have done justice to Rachel’s words without the other".
Viner was a judge in the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2004 and was on the board of the Royal Court Theatre for 13 years.
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