The Resonance Test 40: Alan Rusbridger, Author of "Breaking News"

In May 2015, Alan Rusbridger stepped down as the editor of *The Guardian.* He had managed, over the course of 20 years, to transform the British paper into a digital phenomenon—a truly global source of news. His book, *Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now,* details that transformation. In a recent *Resonance Test* conversation, Rusbridger relates how it feels to *not* to report on Brexit Era U.K. politics (“I’m really rather relieved not to have anything to do with it”) and talks about the stress involved in digitizing one’s business: “Suddenly you say to your staff: ‘By the way, we want you to update things every five minutes, every ten minutes. We want you to do it in video and audio as well as text. We want you to be on social media. We might want you to do live events as well. And by the way, you can’t go home at 9:00 because the story keeps updating till midnight...” Listen closely, and you’ll learn about the uncertainly of life during a digital revolution, the dangers of deepfakes, the challenges of writing a business memoir, and even the extent of Rusbridger’s non-Chopin piano repertoire: “Given enough drink, I will sit and play show tunes all evening—but that doesn’t happen very often.”