John Crowley

I am a London-based editor, trainer and consultant who has more than two decades of experience working for local, national and international news titles. I have taken on editorial, digital and managerial roles for The Daily Telegraph, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and The Irish Post among others. I write and commission content around business, tech, newsroom management, burnout and disinformation. I have recently worked as a trainer and coach for journalists in Asia and Africa. I am a trustee of the Journalists' Charity and a member of the European Journalism Centre's News Impact Network. I also appear on the BBC News Channel on ‘The Papers’ review. I also advise companies around the ever-changing digital media landscape and audience insights. I am proud to be an of the media consultancy Fathm. In addition, I am co-writing a book for public relations professionals on how to pitch to journalists and get editorial backlinks for their clients. In November, I published a report on newsroom burnout.

First Draft is a not-for-profit organisation which tackles online misinformation and media manipulation. I managed a team of 10 reporters, publishing dozens of stories around mis/disinformation in the run-up to and during the UK general election of 2019. I launched a collaborative 'CrossCheck' election news project which brought newsrooms from across the UK together to collaborate around disinformation during November 2019's election. This involved securing newsroom partners from local and national media organisations, hiring a team of social media reporters and co-ordinating and providing editorial oversight of the entire project. We went into newsrooms training up reporters in monitoring, verification and responsible reporting. We also laid the ground to launch a US CrossCheck – as part of of our global platform – in advance of the US 2020 election, with a focus on curriculum resources, live-crisis simulations, newsroom guidance materials, partner recruitment, and press/influencer strategy and outreach.

I worked for a variety of news organisations including The Times on politics and technology - and a medical tech startup which helps families with cerebral palsy and autism. I also advised communications agencies on digital strategy. I also worked with the European Journalism Centre on its News Impact Network initiative. With a cohort of 15 other news leaders from across Europe, we are developing new sustainable ideas for our industry around collaboration and business models. I spoke on TV around subjects as diverse as Brexit, the Northern Ireland peace process, the business of tech and more.

I took on an additional role as Managing Editor EMEA at Newsweek Media Group. The company publishes several titles including Newsweek and International Business Times. I also continued in my role as Editor-in-Chief of International Business Times UK. Key achievements include: • ‘Ceausescu’s Forgotten Children’, was a 2017 winner in the General Documentary category of The Telly Awards, which receive more than 13,000 entries each year from across five continents. • Our technology reporter Jason Murdock was Digital Writer of the Year at The Drum Media Awards, beating off competition from Al Jazeera English, The Independent, The Guardian & Buzzfeed News.

Key responsibilities include: • Managing 70 editorial staff in London and Bangalore, leading the production of news articles and videos across the day. • Liaising with developers on product innovation, overseeing our audience team to drive growth and working alongside our commercial team. • Regularly speaking at journalist conferences on best-practice in digital media, UGC, mobile and innovation. They include the GEN Conference in Barcelona, another on immersive storytelling from news:rewired in London and also a panel spot at the International Newsroom Summit in Amsterdam on engaging new audiences on mobile. Key achievements include: • Leading IBT UK in 2016 to reach a record 24.8 million unique visitors, a 62% year-on-year increase. • Driving digital innovation on video, UGC and data visual content. We are now regarded as a thought leader on Facebook Lives after being asked to present our learnings at journalism.co.uk's News:Rewired conference. • Representing IBT as a news commentator and newspaper reviewer on the BBC News Channel. Addressing more than 140 communications professionals at a Gorkana press briefing. • Leading my team to a presitgious Telly Award for our documentary on Romania's Communist-era orphanages. • Made Managing Editor EMEA of Newsweek Media Group in April 2017.

Key Responsibilities include: • Scrutinising and managing the output of more than 400 journalists and raising the profile of WSJ’s digital and mobile journalism across the region. • Ensuring the right mobile-first 'digital furniture'​ is in place quickly on key stories – this includes graphics, videos, interactives and simple images. • Oversight of the Journal’s social media coverage, UGC, editorial SEO, metrics and audience engagement. • Working with colleagues to build new tools and products both in the newsroom and across the site. Key Achievements include: • Increased unique visitors from London by more than 200% in 2015. Year-on-year traffic from Facebook increased by 386% and from Twitter by 153%. Traffic from search increased by 130%. • Introducing verification of user-generated content to the newsroom, mobile-first graphics and new digital products in the newsroom. • Project managed the award-winning '100 legacies from World War I'​ - one of the most ambitious multimedia packages the Journal has undertaken. It was built to be read across all devices and nominated in the innovation category at the British Journalism Awards (see below if viewing on desktop). • Interviewed for industry websites explaining the lessons I learned on the WWI project in terms of collaboration, design and engagement. • Curating the WSJ's meetup with the Digital Editors Network on new formats at the Journal’s headquarters at News UK.

Responsible for management of WSJ.com in the EMEA region. This included managing WSJ.com's home page from Europe, reacting to breaking news and commissioning words, pictures and multimedia.

Commissioned and edited stories for WSJ.com and The Wall Street Journal Europe newspaper. At the end of 2011, I created the WSJ’s first European-based live blog, reacting to the turmoil in the euro zone. On WSJ.com, the rolling blog was regularly the most-read item. In 2011, I helped collate the Journal's coverage of the world's leading CEOs, economists and policy makers from Davos, editing stories, blogs and videos for the website. During this time I also introduced the European paper’s first daily markets analysis column. I devised a news angle each day and commissioned WSJ writers across Europe. Our column focused on the volatile markets on the Continent, covering currencies, commodities and equities.

I regularly news-edited the paper and acted as foreign news editor. My responsibilities included running our coverage on the economic crisis and overseeing public policy – education, social affairs and the environment. Stories I brought in include the climate research unit email controversy at the University of East Anglia. I was also charged with helping to integrate the paper’s news operation with online and was regularly interviewed on BBC Radio Five Live’s paper review programme.

I worked on the 2005 general election campaign as a news editor, coordinating stories on public policies, debates and election night itself. As night news editor I handled late breaking stories such as the arrests of the 21/7 failed suicide bombers. My responsibilities also expanded to include news editing the multimedia paper, Telegraph pm. Audio, video and podcast links were published on the newspaper’s website every day at 4pm alongside news copy. During this period, I also wrote travel articles from the Philippines, Ireland, Spain and Croatia for the Daily Telegraph’s weekend travel section. Represented the Daily Telegraph weekly on BBC Radio Five Live’s paper review programme.

General news reporter covering everything from court trials and tribunals to late-night breaking stories. One example of a story I brought in: I broke the news that saved 400 Lake District national park rangers from being made redundant. It was picked up by other newspapers, television and radio. After writing several stories on the controversy, I travelled to the Lake District to write a colour piece on the real help the rangers offered inexperienced walkers – particularly to the hopeless ones who often got lost. During 2003, I also freelanced for The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph, The Evening Standard and Metro.

Worked as an editorial assistant, reporter, arts editor and news editor during this period. Revamped arts and news sections, commissioning and writing interviews with figures such as Mo Mowlam, James Nesbitt, Bob Geldof, Gerry Adams and the playwright Martin McDonagh. Edited in-house supplements for the London St. Patrick’s Day festival and The Fleadh. Represented The Irish Post on London Live and on ITV news.