Two insights into the Daily Telegraph - and its editor Will Lewis - head up today's media sections. The Independent runs an interview with Lewis while The Guardian carries a lengthy analysis of life inside the Telegraph office.
Both pieces stem from last week's conversion to full-colour publishing (I was unable to comment on that because, here in Ireland, it is still an uncomfortable monochrome-colour mix). What emerges from each of the articles is the changed culture of the paper. People are working harder. Casualisation has ended (a genuine first in nationals). An unapologetic Lewis is delighted with his "revolution."
One quote sums up his confidence (or hubris): "The Telegraph is in 'a new golden age'... We have put together a group of people that are phenomenally talented. On the back of full colour we have real momentum now. I didn't mean to be unrelentingly positive but that's the way I feel."
Footnote: A Lewis quote (chosen as the Indy headline), "This is not Disneyland", reminded me of the long-ago time when the old Mirror Group Newspapers first introduced computers to the Daily Record offices in Glasgow. There were inevitable technological teething troubles and it was soon nicknamed Disneyland. Why? Because "this dis'nae work and that dis'nae work."
