Towards the end of the 19th century, the City of London was close to the pinnacle of its power. It was, as one commentator remarked, the greatest shop, the greatest store, the freest market for commodities, gold and securities, the greatest disposer of capital and credit, and the world’s leading clearing house.
Yet something was missing. For all its imperial strut, the City lacked reliable sources of information. This was the context for the launch, in 1884, of The Financial News and, four years later, The Financial Times, the two newspapers that later merged to form the heart and soul of the modern FT.
Today the FT celebrates its 125th anniversary. It still appears in its trademark pink printed format (a marketing wheeze conceived in 1893) but its news and views are now published to a global readership in real time on multiple platforms: the smartphone, the tablet and the desktop computer. The digital revolution has fundamentally changed the distribution and organisation of content but the FT’s editorial values – its liberal international outlook, lack of party affiliation and ironclad commitment to authoritative news and commentary – remain unchanged. Indeed, in the age of the internet, where information is abundant, the FT’s concise journalistic style, its authority and its editorial independence are priceless assets.