Alan Rusbridger (born 29 December 1953 in Northern Rhodesia) is the son of the late G H Rusbridger, the Director of Education of the country. He has been editor of The Guardian since 1995. Previously he was a reporter, columnist, features editor and the deputy editor of The Guardian. Briefly, he worked for The Observer as a critic and was Washington Editor of the ill-fated London Daily News before returning to The Guardian in 1987.
He was educated at Cranleigh School, a boys' independent school in Cranleigh, Surrey, and at Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge. His first journalistic role was on the Cambridge Evening News. He joined The Guardian as a reporter in 1979. He subsequently wrote the paper's diary column and was a feature writer. On returning to the Guardian in 1987 he launched Guardian Weekend and the paper's G2 section. As editor, he oversaw the launch and development of Guardian Unlimited. He defended the paper against a number of high-profile defamation suits, including from the Police Federation and the Conservative MPs, Neil Hamilton and Jonathan Aitken. In the autumn of 2005 the Guardian responded to the tabloid re-launches of The Times and The Independent by moving from a broadsheet format to a "Berliner" format, common in continental Europe.
He is a member of Guardian News and Media, the main board of the Guardian Media Group and of the Scott Trust, which owns The Guardian, and is executive editor of The Observer. He is a visiting Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, and Visiting Professor of History at Queen Mary, University of London. Since 2004 he has been Chairman of the National Youth Orchestra.
Disparaging remarks he made about the discipline of Sociology prompted Gordon Marshall to write In Praise of Sociology (1990).
An interview with ex-Daily Mirror and News of the World editor Piers Morgan saw Morgan accuse Rusbridger of being a hypocrite. The interview noted that Rusbridger was paid £520,000 in salary and pension contributions in 2006, while The Guardian itself has railed against highly paid executives and traders. Rusbridger refused to discuss his private life in the interview, while Morgan alleged that The Guardian itself was happy to invade the private lives of others. Rusbridger also refused to discuss whether his children go to private schools, though Morgan claimed his newspaper has criticised Labour politicians for privately educating their children. Although Rusbridger drives a G-Wiz electric vehicle, a conspicuous statement of environmentalism, it emerged that he also drives a Volvo estate.
The Guardian has also written editorials complaining of nepotism in public office; Private Eye reported in April 2007 that Rusbridger's daughter Isabella is employed by The Guardian, on whose website she has written under the name Isabella Mackie, Mackie being her mother's birth name.
In addition to journalism, he has written three childrens' books as well as being the co-author (with Ronan Bennett) of a BBC drama, Fields of Gold.
