break out this weekend. now on bbc news... the media show. hello, for the 130 years, the great british bank has worn 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 newspaper and now digital publications, read by devotees in shanghai, new york, and delhi, and, of course bristol, and manchester too. the newspaper 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.

of the death of a duke. a newspaper that has such a fixed place in readers�* imaginations? what scope is therefore 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? 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 will talk about what the ft is up to today shortly but before we do that, let's go back a few decades. beirut, the lebanese civil war, which is where you grew up and in fact, you lived pretty close to le commodore hotel, which was the best for many which was the base for many international war correspondence. 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 out of our house. and so we moved next to the commodore hotel. obviously, we used to go there from time to time and this was the home ofjournalists

during the civil war. it had a certain romantic appeal, despite the tragedy around us. but i think i decided to be a journalist just because i grew up with news being the sort of 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 and news was purely partisan. and so you had to listen to the radio all day and two different radio stations, just to figure out, could you go to school? could you go to the supermarket? you know, was there a curfew? you know, what the situation was on a daily basis. what was the impact 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 to, you know, at one 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 why, when i sort of started to ask myself, you know, well, there must have been an impact from the civil war. what could that impact be? i mean, the resilience is something you need in spades when you're an editor and you've showed it of late, as we will get to. 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 our show that appeared in the wolf of wall street, the memoir and laterfilm by the fraudsterjordan belfort. he called you an insolent reporter and said you deserved an a for cleverness. can you tell us how it came about that you should be depicted in the wolf of wall street and why you were such an incident reporter, if indeed you were. well, i covered accounting for forbes. i always be very grateful to forbes, actually, because they gave me my first break in journalism after grad school. and i used to talk to a lot of short sellers at the time to see where they saw, you know, accounting fraud. and somebody had mentioned to me, jordan belfort's outfit. i started looking into it, talking to people who worked there and discovered what a great penny stock pusher he was. and then i met him.

he was very pleased to be interviewed, which was very surprising. but he was very pleased with himself and i think that's why he says insolent because i interviewed him as if he was somebody important and then wrote a not very positive piece about him. and he eventually went to jail. and wrote a book. in which he mentioned to me and this is the quote that you read from the book and then to my even greater surprise, it became 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 at the ft back in 1995. i read you got it by writing

to the hr department out of the blue and at the 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. you earned a lot of plaudits for your time as a correspondent in north africa and the middle east. later you were middle east editor during the arab spring and went on to be foreign editor. the ft doesn't usually cover the on the ground fighting of a war, so what sort of stuff where you are writing about at that time? 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, "roula's here, that means the story is 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 in that we don't cover the fighting necessarily. so, we don't cover blow by blow, but unless you are there during times of crisis, you won't understand what is happening on the ground. i've always believed you had 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's how you are able to convey it, to, as you say, a very intelligent audience. let's talk about the job you've got today, a news room staffed 24—7, as all newspapers are these days. it covers stories 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 numbers in our headquarters in bracken house in the city. but we have satellite offices. news editing operations in new york and hong kong. and we have correspondents in bureaus all 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 at the paper 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. you know, we think about the economy and we think about business. and brexit has happened. so what i have tried to do is 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 are a bunch of remoaner doom mongers,

here are a bunch of headlines from 2016. "fears eu brexit delays will spur banks�* "exodus to eurozone." "tens of thousands ofjobs will go in the "city if uk leaves eu." do you think the ft was too strident in its news coverage? not its opinions and editorials, but its news coverage? during the brexit campaign? yes. obviously, you weren't editor at the time, 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, you know, 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 even 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, you know, anyone who was... ..even 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? it is interesting, well, in days gone by... well, first of all, it is one of the perks of the job, as editor, you get access to the people that run the country. it's quite an interesting thing 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 chat to him? more regularly. and how does he communicate? signal, what's app, text? no, we speak on the phone and i've been to see him a few times. let's turn now to a story that's been around at the moment, a big ft scoop, the biggest political story of the year so far. on tuesday the 18th of march, you published a major story and the headline read david cameron lobbied for greensill access to covid loan schemes. the ft was the first paper to reveal that cameron, former prime minister in the uk, had been encouraging the government and ministers there to work with greensill capital months before the finance company collapsed. can you talk me through the run up to 9pm, the publishing deadline. how did you stand the story up, because you said openly that david cameron wouldn't return calls? the story started with one source that one of our lobby correspondents had. jim picard, the correspondence? jim picard, the correspondent? yes. 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 enquired about, you know, the sources. not exactly who they are, but i wanted to make sure that we had, you know, we had a very reliable sources. i then checked, you know, cameron's reaction. and i was told... i asked exactly how many times did we try to contact him about the story. jim had tried to contact him several times throughout that. throughout that week. 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. still a bit scary, isn't it? and i think that it was a very important story because we have actually been looking at greensill for a long time. and greensill at heart, this is a financial scandal. it's a financial scandal that then became a political scandal. and we are still, obviously,

investigating the financial scandal and there's 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 trustjim picard. he's a very established journalist with very good sources. reporter of considerable reputation. but it's still a little bit scary, isn't it, when you have 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. because he was keeping shtoom? because, i mean, he had so many opportunities to say that the story wasn't true. 0n the contrary, i thought, you know what, i was very, very confident of the story. and you had another scoop this weekend about cameron's pitching greensill services to the german government. how many staff have you now got working on this story? well, we have two main reporters who have been working on greensill for a couple of years on and off.

and they've been working on greensill for a long time. the lobbyists are now working on greensill from a political angle. also helping on greensill and will probably, you know, i mean, we 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. it has know... credit suisse 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 greatjournalism on the subject, especially gabriel pogrend. and let's put this alongside some of the other major topics that you're covering in the publication. you've got some british journalists looking at employment rights and poverty, sarah 0'connor is outstanding. she's done some fantastic work looking at the low paid migrant workers trapped on british farms. angelie ravelle is superb. she's done a big piece on the covid triangle,

where chronic deprivation and uncertain employment means the death rate from covid has been particularly high. is there something that some people would consider sort of a bit odd about the ft on the one hand, being the stockbroker�*s newspaper of choice, also taking this crusading stance on labour rights and other similar topics? i mean, i would obviously say it makes sense to cover both, but some people might say maybe the figure of 25, 30 years ago wouldn't have done that. well, 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, you know, 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 whether where they're going, where they're going to invest. but i think this is part of the of the ft today.

and i don't think it's a crusade or 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's also pro responsible capitalism. is the ft pro globalisation? absolutely. so, do you think at a time when, i mean, globalisation and capitalism have many, many, many fans and adherents. but their critics, their skeptics, have also had plenty of voice in recent years and some point to some recent election results as an example of the fact that, you know, maybe support for those notions maybe dwindling. for those notions may be dwindling. when you look at the fact that lots of people are saying capitalism isn't working, 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, "you know what, "we're going to appeal to pro—globalisation "and pro—capitalism people all around the world?" or do you say, "actually, you know what, we need

"to broaden the church and we need to invite to sit "in the pews, you know, some people who are very "akeptical about those ideas. " i think we don't want to simplify this too much, amol. at the ft, we write about... we are very conscious of the shifts in the economic consensus. we are also very alert to the shifts in globalisation and, you know, 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 that this is... i don't look at this as black and white. you're 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 supplement how to spend it. this became a particular... i'm glad to see you smiling. i asked your predecessor about this, and he was he was pretty aggressive, actually, in his responses to my questions. let's see what happens now. this became particularly unpopular amongst some quarters, after the 2008 financial crash. it's essentially, for those who don't know, a large glossy magazine, promotes luxury items in a jetset lifestyle. and a jetset lifestyle. this weekend, it featured a selection of vases at £4,000 apiece, a woven chairfor £16,000, a lovely louis vuitton, i hope i pronounced that right, louis vuitton branded watch for a mere £a10,000. £a10,000 for a watch! who is this aimed at? because surely you can't have that many readers who are 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 to 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 in it is getting better and better. and it is, as i say, to some people's tastes but not to other. why not? speaking of money, let's think about what all this costs. how much does it cost for you to print on that salmon—coloured paper? i mean, why is the ft printed on coloured paper? i should declare an interest in this point. it's always been printed on coloured paper. i should declare an interest at this point, and say that i tried very hard to get the independent printed on coloured paper. i completely failed. but i wonder if you can persuade my former bosses of the merits of printing on coloured paper.

why is the ft coloured? it is distinctive. and i don't think we've ever considered not being printed on coloured paper. some peoplejust, you know, i mean... 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? i'll 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 be... 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 saw sales go up...

we had double—digit increases last year, so more people were buying the weekend ft during the pandemic. i just said that your predecessors�* editorial and commercial visions were pretty clear. editorially, i�*d say he wanted the ft to be the paper for and inside globalisation 2.0 as he said commercially and digitally it was about 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�*ve 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 have... 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 to expand. i want us to expand investigations. and i�*m a very visual person, and i believe in data investigations. and i think that is the most engaging to our readership, whether traditional readers or new readers. and so i�*m working very hard now on expanding our data visualisation department. there are also things that...

every editor has new interests that, at times, you may not know that they 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 concerns and interests of our business readership. and indeed it was, it was 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. now, the news wire service — reuters — announced last week that they are putting their news behind a paywall. do you worry about the health of a news ecosystem in which almost all the properly funded, rigorousjournalism is hidden

behind a paywall, while fake news flourishes out in the open? i do. i worry about it because i have seen what�*s happened to localjournalism, and i think that we haven�*t found an answer. the industry has not found an answer yet as to how to revive local journalism. so if you have... and this is something that i�*ve 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 we 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 ftjournalism today for free. but i think in the absence

of a solution and of a vision for local journalism and regionaljournalism, 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. 0ur spell of settled, dry april weather is set to continue, certainly through the remainder of the weekend. still some sunshine out there. this was the picture earlier on in cockermouth in cumbria. blue skies, cloud drifting around, hazy at times. tomorrow, that sunshine continues. another dry day but things turning a bit cooler, especially towards the east with a bit more cloud. still quite breezy around southern and south—western parts of the uk. you can see more isobars around here, whereas further north

high—pressure dominating at the moment. into the evening, temperatures still in the mid—teens but it will turn quite chilly fairly quickly once the sun sets. pollen levels still high out there at the moment and they will be high for some of us once again tomorrow, as well. a bit of cloud here and there. still a breeze through the english channel through the south—west of england, the channel islands fairly breezy, too. lighter winds further north and through this evening and tonight, the story doesn�*t change too much. temperatures will be dropping quickly. there could be a touch of grass frost around for some of us, first thing tomorrow morning. after that start to sunday, another dry day. still lots of sunny weather on the cards but you will notice more cloud drifting in across eastern counties of england. a bit more of an easterly breeze developing for the likes of kent, along southern counties of england as well, toward south wales, too. blustery conditions here in the south, much lighter winds further north and temperatures probably down a notch on what we�*ve seen today. still around 17 degrees or so towards the west,

but in the east, for norwich, for instance, just 10 degrees where you�*ve got a bit more cloud and the breeze coming in from the sea. now, if you are crossing your fingers for a bit of rain, some of us may see a bit of it into the new working week as we�*ve got low pressure approaching from the north. that is likely to bring some showery weather to parts of scotland through the day on monday. nothing too heavy or persistent. some of those showers perhaps pushing a little bit further south into tuesday as well. thoses temperatures will be starting to come down a touch. still into mid and high teens in the south through the day on monday. you can see the blue colours returning to the map, this is tuesday into wednesday. the winds starting to come in from a more north—easterly direction. through the week ahead, that is the story with one or two showers in the north on monday and tuesday. still predominantly dry in the south. temperatures fairly cool for the time of year. bye.

this is bbc news. the headlines at 5. hospitals in india struggle with overwhelming demand for beds, ventilators and oxygen — as it records the world�*s highest—ever daily rise in coronavirus infections for the third day in a row. labour has called for the government to publish full details of how work on borisjohnson�*s official flat was paid for — following allegations by his former chief advisor, dominic cummings. if there�*s nothing to see here, whether it�*s the refurb of number 10, whether it�*s the dodgy contracts, privileged access... if there�*s nothing to see, publish everything, have a full enquiry, because that, you know — sunlight is the best disinfectant. and the public have been told to stay away from the mourne mountains in northern ireland — amid warnings more fires may break out this weekend.