Stig Abell, the Sun’s managing editor for the last two and a half years, is leaving the newspaper to become editor of the Times Literary Supplement.
He will succeed Peter Stothard, who has edited the TLS for the past 14 years following his editorship of the Times.
Abell’s move within Rupert Murdoch’s News UK outfit will astonish outsiders. To those who know him, however, it is not such a surprise.
He spent 10 years reviewing fiction for the TLS, as well as the Spectator and the Telegraph titles. His enthusiasm for literature is so great that in 2013 he spent his commuting hours reading the complete canon of Shakepeare’s plays – 38 in all. A News UK source described him as “the most intelligent guy in the company”.
Abell joined the Sun after a stint with the communications consultancy Pagefield, which involved advising companies on how to protect their reputations. News UK was eager to draw on his skills in that department at the then beleaguered Sun.
But Abell did much more than act as a soothing PR. He often edited the paper on Sundays. And the editors, formerly David Dinsmore and now Tony Gallagher, were able to draw on his previous experience as director of the Press Complaints Commission.
He spent nine years with the PCC having joined the commission not long after graduating from Cambridge with a double first.
In his Sun managing editor role, he has built a multimedia career by hosting a Sunday morning radio show for LBC and acting as a regular newspaper reviewer for Sky News.
He will find the TLS in good fettle. Although it has never made a handsome profit it does, to quote a senior News UK executive, “wash its face” in financial terms.
Stothard will retire at the end of February, on his 65th birthday, and is expected to remain in a consultancy capacity of some kind. He moved to the TLS chair in 2002 after spending 10 years as editor of the Times.
James MacManus, the TLS managing director, said he had no comment to make on the matter.
