health care system reeling. amid reports of hospital patients dying due to oxygen shortages, the prime minister has said industrial oxygen is being diverted for medical use. french leaders have paid tribute to a police clerk stabbed to death by a suspected terrorist at a police station near paris. president emmanuel macron said the nation stood by the 49—year—old mother of two. a new malaria vaccine developed by researchers in britain has been 77% successful in stopping infection in early clinical trials. the drug was tested on a50 babies and toddlers from burkina faso. the jailed russian opposition activist alexei navalny has ended his hunger strike, after 2a days of refusing food. he says he has now seen doctors from outside the russian prison service about his back pain and numbness. at ten o'clock reeta chakrabati

will be here with a full round—up of the days news. first, the media show. hello. for the last 130 years, the great british banker has worn a distinctive uniform — a pinstriped suit, a furled umbrella, and a salmon coloured newspaper under one arm. the financial times is one of the world's most highly regarded newspapers and, now, digital publications read by devotees in shanghai, new york and delhi and of course bristol, manchester and edinburgh, too. and the paper has a certain reputation. the layout is traditional. you could call it old—fashioned. the journalism is unashamedly intelligent. the front page generally manages to find an economic angle on the biggest news of the day even when that news is that the death of a duke. but how easy is it to edit

a newspaper that has such a fixed place in readers imaginations? what scope is there for setting a new editorial position? and is there a danger that in appealing to high—flying financiers abroad, you risk alienating the rest of us at home? well, with me today is a person best equipped to answer these questions because roula khalaf has been the editor of the financial times forjust over a year — in fact, since january 2020. roula, welcome to the show. nice to be here. we'll talk about what the ft�*s up to today shortly. just before we do that, let's go back to well a few decades and beirut during the lebanese civil war which is where you grew up and in fact, you lived pretty close to le commodore hotel which was the base for many international war correspondents. did you meet many and is that why you became a journalist? well, it was during the war that we had to move out of our house and so we moved next to the commodore hotel and obviously, we used to go there from time to time and this was the home ofjournalists during the civil war,

and it had a certain romantic appeal despite the tragedy around us. but i think i decided to be a journalistjust because i grew up with news being sort of the most important thing in one�*s, you know, in my life because we had to know exactly what was going on from a whole range of news organisations because everything was partisan. news was purely partisan. and so you had to listen to the radio all day to different radio stations just to figure out could you go to school, could you go to the supermarket? you know, was there a curfew? what the situation was on a daily basis. what was the impact that that had on your family? how did it shape you? well, we had to move around a lot and we lived in a lot of different countries,

and it certainly forced me point leave lebanon and never return to live. so, it made me a lot more of a global citizen. i think that it also probably made me more resilient because, you know, we had to... it was difficult growing up during the civil war. it's not easy on families and it certainly isn't easy on children. for a long time, i wasn't aware of what the impact of war was until i started to cover war for the ft. and that's when i started to sort of ask myself, you know, "well, "there must�*ve been an impact from the civil war. "what could that impact be?" the resilience is something you need in spades when and you've shown it of late as we'll get into. but you started your career

at forbes as a business reporter and i think i'm right in saying you're the first guest we've had on this show who appeared in the wolf of wall street, the film about the fraudster jordan belfort. he called you "an insolent reporter" and said you deserved "an a for cleverness." can you just tell us how it came about that you should be depicted in the wolf of wall street and why you were such an insolent reporter if indeed you were? well, i covered accounting for forbes and i'll always be very grateful to forbes actually because they gave me my first break in journalism right after grad school. and i used to talk to a lot of short—sellers at the time to see where they saw accounting fraud. and somebody had mentioned to me jordan belfort's outfit, i started looking into it, talking to people who had worked there and discovered what a great penny stock pusher he was. and then i met him, and he was very pleased to be interviewed which was very surprising,

but he was very pleased with himself and i think that's what he says insolent with himself and i think that's why he says insolent is because i interviewed him as if he wasn't somebody important and then, you know, wrote a not very positive piece about him. and he eventually went to jail. and wrote a book in which he mentioned me and this is the quote that you read from the book, and then went to my even greater surprise when it came out a hollywood film, i wasn't told about it. i didn't get any royalties but there was a woman with a strange name who played me! you then went on to get a job at the ft, you mentioned you started at forbes, you got the job with the ft back in 1995. i read you got it by writing to the hr department out of the blue and at that time,

you weren't living in london, you didn't know anyone here particularly. what did you say that convinced them to take you on? it's quite a story. it was just great timing because they were looking for someone to cover north africa. algeria was going through a civil war at the time but it also had a lot of debt and it's a huge gas producer, so it was important for the ft. and that's the first job i got at the ft. well, you earned a lot of plaudits for your time as a correspondent in north africa and the middle east, you were later a middle east editor during the arab spring, you went on to be foreign editor. the ft doesn't usually cover the actual on—the—ground fighting of the war. so what sort of stuff were you writing about at that time? well, that's not quite true and i think i have helped shift that image a little bit. i remember when i first started, my colleagues from other newspapers would say, "oh, roula's here, that

"means the story's over!" and i didn't like that one bit. and i remember editors telling me, "we don't cover wars." but we don't cover wars and then we don't cover in that we don't cover the fighting necessarily, so we don't cover blow—by—blow so unless you're there during times of crisis, you're not going to understand what is happening on the ground and i've always believed that you have to be there, you had to feel it, you had to smell it, you had to talk to the people, you had to get their feelings and be able to tell the stories of what they're going through because that is how you get to understand a place and that is how you're able to convey it to, as you say, a very intelligent audience. let's talk about the job you've got today. you've got a newsroom which is staffed 24/7 as all newspapers are these days. it cover stories from around the globe from politics to cinema as well as finance of course. how big an operation is the ft these days? news wise, the newsroom is 600 journalists spread between —

the largest number of course is in our headquarters in bracken house in the city — but we have satellite offices, so news editing operations in new york and in hong kong. and then we have correspondents and bureaus over the world. and who are your readers? are they predominantly white—collar metropolitan and male as the stereotype goes? i think a large part of our readership works in finance all around the world. i think that the average reader is still around 51, those are the last demographic stats that i've seen. but our readership is also changing. and we are trying to appeal to a younger readership. 0ur social media audience is much younger than our traditional audience. under lionel barber's tenure,

the publication took a very strong line on brexit. it loudly opposed the decision to leave the eu. has that tied your hands? absolutely not. brexit has happened. i was as passionately anti—brexit as everyone else at the ft, and i don't think that it was a mistake for the ft to be against brexit. we think about the economy and we think about business. and brexit has happened. so, what i have tried to do is to try to look at the future of the uk economy and be constructive in that regard, and we did have a series of leaders early on at the beginning of this year in order to encourage thinking about the future of the british economy. some of your critics would say, the ft�*s critics, would say, "you're a bunch of ramona doom

mongers." here's a couple of headlines from 2016 from your news pages — "fears eu brexit delays will spur banks exodus to eurozone,"" "tens of thousands 0fjobs will go in the city if uk leaves eu." do you think the ft was too strident in its news coverage, not in its opinion, not in its editorials, but in its news coverage? you mean during the brexit campaign? yeah, obviously you were not editor at the time, but you were deputy editor. i think that we were reflecting the fears of business at the time. i don't think that we pushed it in the news reporting. we certainly pushed it on the opinion side and i think one of the lessons that i draw from our brexit coverage is that you need diversity of thought on the editorial board. you can'tjust have everybody thinking the same way. but has your opposition to brexit, your strident opposition to brexit and the very critical coverage of borisjohnson in your pages cost

you access to the top of government in britain? not in any way that i have either noticed or been bothered by. so it's not something you're concerned about? no. 0k. i think that ourjournalists have a lot of access. i think that when dominic cummings controlled downing street, he didn't want to give access to anybody — us or anyone us or anyone who was even remotely mildly critical of the prime minister, but it's been better since he left. how often do you speak to borisjohnson? i've seen him once. i don't speak to him regularly. and rishi sunak, the chancellor? why would i need to speak to him regularly? well, i think it was interesting. in days gone by — well, first of all it's one of the perks of the job as an editor, you get access to the people who run the country, it's quite an interesting thing if you're going to be invited in. i think in days gone by, ft editors would have boasted about how often they see the prime minister. i think different editors have

different approaches. what about the chancellor rishi sunak? how often do you talk to him? more regularly. and how does he communicate — signal, whatsapp, text? so, no, we speak on the phone and i have been to see him a few times. let's turn now to a story that's around at the moment, it's a big ft scoop, it's biggest political story of the year so far. on tuesday the 18th of march at 9pm, you published a major story, headline read... the ft was the first paper to reveal that cameron, former prime minister of course here in the uk, had been encouraging had been encouraging the government ministers there to work with greensill capital months before the finance company collapsed. can you just talk me through the run—up to 9pm when you hit publish? how did you stand this story up because you said in the opening that david cameron wouldn't return calls? the story started with one source that one of our lobby correspondents had. was thatjim pickard the correspondent? yes, and we always require at least two sources. and when i was told that we've got this amazing splash,

i obviously spoke to the reporter and inquired about, you know, the sources — not exactly who they are, but i wanted to make sure that we had very reliable sources. i then checked what cameron's reaction was and i was told, i asked exactly how many times did we try to contact him about the story. and, i mean, jim had tried to contact him several times throughout that week. and that i was very satisfied, i knew that the story would have a lot of impact, and i think that it was a very important story for us. still a bit scary, isn't it? we only went with that story because we had actually been looking at greensill for a long time. and greensill at heart, this is the financial scandal. it's a financial scandal that then became a political scandal, and we are still obviously

investigating the financial scandal, and there is a lot more that we'll be writing about greensill. it's still a slightly scary place for an editor to be, isn't it? obviously you absolutely trust jim pickard, he's a very established journalist with very good sources, a reporter of considerable reputation. but it's still a little bit scary, isn't it, when you've got a story about a former prime minister and he's not returning your calls. does that make you think, "i hope we get this right"? no, it made me think that we did get it right. he had so many opportunities to say that the story wasn't true. the story kept on going... 0n the contrary, i thought i was very, very confident at the story. and you had another scoop this weekend about cameron's pitching greensill�*s services to the german government. how many staff have you now got working on this story? well, we have two main reporters who've been working on greensill for a couple of years on and off. so, they've been working

on greensill for a long time. the lobby is now working on greensill from a political angle. arash is also helping on greensill, and we'll probably bring people in and then they might come in for a couple of weeks and then leave depending on the angle because this has become a global story. credit swiss was involved with greensill as well. so, the whole banking team has been involved in the story. it's interesting, let's put this story which has been a big success for the ft, along with the sunday times which has done some great journalism on the subject, especially gabriel pogrund, let's put this alongside some of the other major topics that you're covering in the publication. you've got some brilliant journalists looking at employment rights and property, so sarah 0'connor is outstanding, she has done some fantastic work looking at the low—paid migrant workers trapped on british farms.

anjli raval, she is superb, she's done a big piece on the kobe triangle in area where chronic deprivation and uncertain employment means the death rate from covid has been particularly high. is there something some people would consider being a bit sort of odd about the ft on the one hand being the stockbrokers newspaper of choice also taking this crusading stance on the rights and other similar topics? i mean, i would obviously say it makes sense to cover both but some people might say maybe the ft of 25—30 years ago wouldn't have done that. some people may be right. maybe the ft of 25 years ago would not have done that. because i think the ft of 25 years ago, which is when ijoined the ft and i was told we don't cover wars and i had to explain why we had to cover wars and why human rights were actually a worthy subject for business leaders to evaluate an emerging market, to evaluate where they are going to invest. but i think this is part of the ft today, and i don't think it's

a crusade and i don't think that we are delving into topics that are irrelevant for our readers or that are irrelevant for business. i think these are all topics that business wants to know about today. is the ft pro—capitalism? of course the ft is pro—capitalism, but it is also pro—responsible capitalism. is the ft pro—globalisation? absolutely. so, do you think at a time when capitalism and globalisation have many, many fans and adherents, that their critics and their sceptics have also had plenty of voice in recent years and in some recent election results, as an example of why that maybe support for those notions may be dwindling. when you look at the fact that lots of people are saying capitalism isn't working and others are saying globalisation is going into reverse, do you feel it's a challenge for you as an editor perhaps being out of sync with those currents of public thought? and what's your approach in responding to it? do you double down and say we are going to go pro—globalisation and pro—capitalism all over the world or do you say we need

to broaden the church and invite to sit in the pews some people who are very sceptical about those ideas? i think we don't want to simplify this too much. at the ft, we write about and we are very conscious of the shifts in the economic consensus. we are also very alert to the shifts in globalisation. and the rise of economic nationalism. we've seen it with vaccine nationalism. so we are not blind to what's happening in the world. 0n the contrary, i think in some ways when it comes to climate change or esg, we are ahead of it. so i don't think... i don't look at this as black and white that you were either pro—capitalism or anti—capitalism, pro—globalisation or anti—globalisation. there are shifts that are taking place both in globalisation and in capitalism that we are setting the agenda on. and i think that is exactly the role that the ft should play

and that it is playing. one way in which the ft does i guess implicitly endorse capitalism is through the how to spend it supplement. i'm glad to see you're smiling. i asked your predecessor about this, and he was pretty aggressive actually in his responses to my questions. let's see what happens now. this became particularly popular amongst some quarters after the 2008 financial crash. it is essentially for those who don't know a large glossy magazine that promotes luxury items and a jet—set lifestyle. this weekend it featured a selection of vases at £4000 apiece, a woven chair for £16,000, a lovely louis vuitton—branded watch for a mere £a10,000. £a10,000 for a watch. who is this aimed at? surely you can't have that many readers looking to spend £16,000 on a chair. some of our readers are very wealthy. many of our readers are actually wealthy. so how to spend it is not

everyone�*s taste. and i think during the pandemic, how to spend it was thinking very hard about what issues to feature and how to not appear completely off. and i think it's done it very well. i like reading the magazine. i think that the journalism is getting better and better. and it is, as i say, to some people's tastes, but not to others. why not? speaking of how much it costs, how much does it cost you to print on that salmon—coloured paper? why is the ft printed on coloured paper? i should declare an interest in this... it's always been printed on coloured paper. i should declare an interest in that i tried very hard to get printed on coloured paper and actually failed. —— the independent printed on salmon coloured paper.

but i wonder if you can persuade my former bosses of the merits of printing on coloured paper. why is the ft coloured? it's distinctive. and i don't think we've ever considered not being printed on coloured paper. some peoplejust... this is what the ft has always been known for and it will continue to be and we will always have coloured paper because i know where you're going with this, whether we're still going to have print. i wasn't going there, but you've gone there, so why don't we go there? how long is the ft going to continue in print? iwill tell you, i had at the beginning of the pandemic, the first couple of months, i started having doubts very frankly about whether print would or will be sustainable for much longer. but by the end of the year, although obviously because of distribution problems, our print circulation went down, by the end of the year, the business proved very resilient. and i think that we will continue to have the print paper for a long time.

of course the ft weekend, so sales... we had double—digit increases last year. so more people were buying the weekend ft during the pandemic. i understand your predecessor's editorial and commercial visions were pretty clear. editorially, i would say that he wanted to lead the paper for an insight in globalisation 2.0, as he said. commercially and digitally, with the march to a million subscribers. what's your vision? i think there are several elements to my vision. one in terms of the newsroom, and as you say, i inherited a great foundation, a terrific organisation. it's not broken, so i'm not trying to fix it. i'm trying to build on this foundation. in terms of the newsroom, i think that we need a newsroom and we are and have started working on a newsroom that is a lot more diverse, that is more reflective of the society that we live in. in terms of how we work to attract new audiences,

i think that we also need to attract more diverse audiences. we need to attract younger audiences. but not with differentjournalism. i am very focused on corporate reporting, where i think that we had lost a little bit of ground. so i'm very, very focused on corporate reporting, on deep dives and investigative reporting on the corporate side. and i think you can see that in what we've been producing over the past year. i want us to expand investigations and i am a very visual person and i believe in data investigations. and i think that has been the most engaging to our readership, whether traditional readers or newer readers. and so i'm working very hard now on expanding our data visualisation department. there are also things that,

you know, every editor has new interests that at times you may not know that are as relevant to your readers. but when i set up the climate hub last year, which was one of the first things that i did, i could anticipate and i think our experts on climate change could anticipate that this was going to be one of the main... one of the main concerns and interests of the business readership. and indeed it was. it's quite remarkable how setting up this hub, focusing a lot more on climate coverage, has engaged our readers a lot more and brought us a lot more readers. the newswire service reuters announced last week that they are going behind a pay wall. do you worry about the health of the news ecosystem in which almost all the properly funded, rigorousjournalism is hidden behind a pay wall while fake news flourishes out in the open?

i do. i worry about it because i have seen what has happened to local journalism. and i think that we haven't found an answer, the industry hasn't found an answer yet as to how to revive local journalism. so if you have, and this is something that i have actually discussed with the new york times, if you have major news organisations that are not accessible to a majority of people, then i think you could end up with a problem. but that is why last year i did make a lot of our pandemic coverage free. because it was very important to me to do that as a public service. and i think that there is definitely more that we can be doing on that front. you can also access some of the ft journalism today for free. but i think in the absence

of a solution and of a vision for localjournalism and regional journalism, i do worry about what you're describing. thank you very much indeed forjoining us today. i'll be back at the same time next week. goodbye. good evening. this spell of dry weather is likely to continue throughout the weekend and even beyond. there will be a little bit more cloud for this evening across scotland, central and eastern parts of england. but not enough to prevent temperatures from falling once again towards frost levels, perhaps not as extensively as last night, but certainly a risk out and about, in the countryside in particular. another chilly start to the day on saturday. perhaps a bit of mist and fog to clear first thing. and generally a little bit more cloud in eastern areas, so sunshine�*s a bit more hazy. and notably more breeze right across southern areas tomorrow

and as we have seen today in the south west. it just tempers the feel of the day, and we will notice a bit more breeze coming off the north sea, the chilly north sea, so temperatures will be just a little down on those that we have seen today. perhaps not in the north west, still the best of the sunshine and the highest temperatures. even more cloud potentially, but not spoiling the day across central and eastern areas on sunday, which will limit the temperatures somewhat. but still plenty of dry and fine weather to be found.

harrowing scenes in hospitals in india, as they run out of beds and oxygen supplies — under a record surge in cases of covid—19. medical staff are at breaking point, as they struggle to manage huge numbers of patients with rapidly dwindling resources. if oxygen runs out, there is no leeway for many patients. there is no leeway — they will die. we'll be reporting from the emergency ward of a hospital in the capital delhi, which has been overwhelmed by the numbers. also tonight... from closest ally to bitter critic — dominic cummings launches an explosive attack on borisjohnson. vindicated — 39 former post office workers have their convictions quashed in the uk's most widespread miscarriage of justice.

the wales manager and former player ryan giggs has been charged