Guess who I’ll be speaking to when I next call Google’s press office? Peter Barron, Editor of Newsnight on BBC Two is leaving to join Google as Head of Communications and Public Affairs for the UK, Ireland and Benelux regions. The move follows Google’s European Head of Communications, Rachel Whetstone, departure for the role of Vice-President of Communications and Public Affairs for Google in the US. Peter is expected to start in September. It’s always an odd feeling when a high profile journalist crosses the great divide into PR, but this is surely one of the oddest yet. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to ask him the same question 12 times in a row as has famously happened on Newsnight in the past (at least twice).
And as you can see below, Barron had a taste for the online world even as editor of Newsnight – not that Jeremy Paxman gave a flying f*@k.