Jim Waterson

Jim Waterson had his dream job as media editor of the Guardian, reporting on what information people were consuming — and why. Then, disturbed by the news industry’s failure to appreciate the shift in public consumption, he quit to found a local news start-up. Now he runs London Centric, a profitable and rapidly-growing outlet which has thousands of paying subscribers and specialises in tricky investigations. He can talk about the failure of the ad-funded news business model, how media companies lost their direct relationship with audiences, and how influence no longer goes hand-in-hand with reach.