Back in January one of Monkey's top sources said that Sarah Sands would be leaving the Sunday Telegraph very soon. Today she did.
Inquiries six weeks ago were met with denials. And, anyway, it seemed scarcely credible that Sands would be ousted so soon after being given the job. After all it was only last June that the (relatively) new owners of the Telegraph Group dispensed with the services of the last Sunday Telegraph editor, Dominic Lawson. He was followed out of the door in November by Martin Newland, the editor of the Daily Telegraph.
An editor-in-chief, John Bryant, had joined the rash of recruits brought to the Telegraph group from Associated Newspapers, where chief executive Murdoch MacLennan, had previously worked. Newland hadn't liked the arrangement and walked. What would happen to Sands? To lose one editor is careless, but to lose two?
But then Sands was given carte blanche to revamp the Sunday Telegraph. There's still plenty there for vicars, Tories, soldiers and sports fans. But Sands was allowed to redesign the paper, creating a new female feel for the magazines. She even turned the black masthead blue (and then changed it back again). To some (admittedly not necessarily hardcore Sunday Telegraph type readers) the changes improved the paper immeasurably. But the sales figures were poor. Sands complained about the lack of marketing spend. What is the point of creating a product aimed more at women, if you are not going to tell anyone that that is what you have done? Despite having been promoted from deputy editor of the Daily to the editorship of the Sunday by the current regime, many saw Sands as a disciple of the long-gone Charles Moore era.
But today's events show that no-one is safe in the editors' chair at the Telegraph Group these days. But who is behind the to-ing and fro-ing of editors? Are all the departures down to the many moods of Murdoch MacLennan? Or the Barclay Brothers? How much of a role has John Bryant played? And what is the role of Guy Black, director of communications, in all of this?
