Is Clive Cowdery, whose Resolution Foundation became the sole shareholder in Prospect last month, set to turn the highbrow magazine into a campaigning publication?
In an email to staff, Bronwen Maddox, editor and chief executive of Prospect since 2010, announced that she would be moving on in July, after the EU referendum.
While welcoming Resolution’s commitment to a “significant” investment in the loss-making magazine, founded 21 years ago, Maddox suggested that the magazine may change under its new owner.
In her email to the magazine’s 20-strong staff, she says that “there may be at any time several main ‘campaigning themes’ although never associated with any particular political party”. The incoming editor “will agree those themes in regular discussion” with the board of Resolution Media.
The not-for-profit Resolution Media board consists of Cowdery, the insurance-millionaire turned philanthropist, and three figures with links to the previous government most notably Gavin Kelly, the former adviser to Gordon Brown who now runs the Resolution Trust, and Andrew Adonis, the Labour peer and founding chair of the independent National Infrastructure Commission. The fourth member of the board is Adair Turner, chairman of the Financial Services Authority.
Maddox, who has increased sales of the magazine to 32,000 according to recent ABCs, will continue to write and chair events for Prospect and be a member of its editorial advisory board. She could not be reached for comment.
Kelly, who writes widely on economic and social policy, denied any suggestion that any part of the Resolution Trust would influence editorial content. “The editor will have editorial independence,” he said.
The company is ooking to appoint a new editor before July.
