Business as usual

John Micklethwait talks about the pressures and challenges that he faces as the 16th editor of one of Britain's best-known magazines

In his tailored suit and polished shoes, John Micklethwait, the new and 16th editor of the Economist, cut a poised, unmistakably upmarket figure last Friday. It was the morning after his appointment, and a whirlwind 24 hours. He seemed, in victory, the very essence of a well-educated English gentleman editor, charming, a touch self-deprecating, but to the point.

The general view is that, in picking Micklethwait, 43, to run one of Britain's best known global media brands - to succeed outgoing editor Bill Emmott - the board made a smart choice, emphasising continuity. "He's a very steady pair of hands. He's been there through all the recent global crises," says an insider. "He's never been seen to lose his cool and is charming to deal with." He is currently the magazine's US editor, so crucially he understands the country where the weekly's sales run at 500,000 a week, half the total circulation.

Taking Bush to task

But Micklethwait, pictured below, who joined the Economist in 1987 after a short spell at Chase Manhattan, is also a stalwart believer in Economist values: the superior benefits of capitalism, free trade and globalisation. He is also regarded as an excellent communicator, and is likely to have a higher media profile than his predecessor. Gordon Brown's budget last week was a "missed opportunity", he says - had he been appointed earlier, it is likely that he would have been saying that all over the airwaves.

This links in with his biggest challenge, which will require flair and steel: can the Economist double its sales again in the forthcoming decade, go from 1m to 2m under his editorship? Micklethwait says cautiously: "I think it could, but we have to earn it. Obviously, that is the challenge, the test that Bill set his successors."

Micklethwait thinks the magazine's saliency will increase because of economic trends. "In our favour, we are the user's handbook of globalisation. And globalisation is still pushing ahead, though obviously it has got problems in some areas. But everywhere you look around the world you see more people for whom the Economist should be a useful tool."

He shrugs off a recent attack by the former New Statesman editor Peter Wilby, who wrote in the the London Evening Standard that the Economist is "smug", simplistically wedded to a belief in free markets over everything. "A lot of that showed how little he read us. We spend a lot of time looking at the imperfections of markets, we spend a huge amount of time exploring why globalisation hasn't delivered wealth to parts of the world. We think markets are better than the alternative, but they don't work perfectly.

"We stand for free market capitalism, just as we stand for social liberalism, and we have got to defend these things, even when it gets tricky."

Micklethwait points to the history of the magazine, founded in 1843: "We were founded to defend free trade, but also very early on attacked capital punishment. We went after slavery, were early proponents of penal reform.

"At about the same time as the Guardian, we started taking Bush to task over Guantanamo, as unjust and unAmerican. We ran covers in America on it."

His challenge, he says, is to balance change and continuity. Micklethwait concedes that the Economist does need to make some changes. "We do have problems. We do have issues, but most of our competitors would kill to have those problems and issues."

Some of these changes will clearly be responses to the internet. "Online is a big challenge, a hurricane is moving in on our industry which is the internet. It has hit newspapers much more directly. It hasn't come through on to magazines as hard, but it is patently going to do so. Over time, more and more people are going to get the Economist only by online methods."

Does that mean that the Economist needs to appear more than just once a week? "I think it's a mixture, that's something we need to look at. The basic product of the Economist is as a print magazine. We're a personal read. I think that will endure for my editorship," which, on past experience, he estimates at ten years.

Micklethwait was one of seven strong internal candidates, including deputy editor Emma Duncan, who has made it clear she intends to stay at the magazine. He was educated at Ampleforth in Yorkshire, where Economist editor number 13, Andrew Knight, was head boy. He read history at Magdalen College, Oxford, where his predecessor, Emmott, studied politics, philosophy and economics. There is an established link between Oxford and the Economist. "It's about being very well educated," says an insider.

Micklethwait believes investment in the quality of its editorial product will be the key to the magazine's continued growth."I think circulation in this business tends to flow with editorial quality. We usually cost more than our competitors across the world, certainly in America, so in the end quality is our one defence. That's always been the way we've pushed ahead. The success is not incidental."

He sees long-term growth in Asia, among western-educated or west-leaning business managers and professionals ("those are our audience for the future, not rapidly, or immediately, but for the longer term"), but points to problems with censorship in China, and price in India.

Most important, however, is the editorial team. "In the end the Economist is very simple. It's about talent. It's about the group of people you assemble together."

And a final thought. In terms of where the paper stands politically in its home country, Britain, he says: "We are open to offers. We don't belong to either side."