Amol Rajan is an Indian-born British journalist, broadcaster and the BBC's Media Editor, having taken up the role in December 2016. Rajan was formerly editor of The Independent newspaper from June 2013. When The Independent announced it was dropping the print edition in February 2016, and continuing as only an online operation, Rajan was retained for a period as "editor-at-large".
Rajan was the secondary presenter on The Wright Stuff, the daytime talk show on the Five network, during its 2006-7 series. He was also a researcher on the programme. He joined The Independent newspaper in August 2007, where he was over the next few years a news reporter, sports correspondent, columnist, comment editor, and editor of Independent Voices. He has also written a Monday column for the London Evening Standard, restaurant criticism for The Independent on Sunday, and has contributed to The Salisbury Review. The latter publication, according to Rajan, "still publishes writing on politics, history and culture that is among the finest produced in English today. It is frequently offensive, and I cannot say I often agree with its editorial position, but that is all the more reason to read it." In 2013, aged 29, Rajan became the first non-white editor of a national newspaper when his Independent appointment was announced, although that claim has also been made on behalf of Rachel Beer. His predecessor as editor of The Independent, Chris Blackhurst, became Group Content Director. When The Independent proprietor Evgeny Lebedev announced a move to digital-only in February 2016, with the imminent closure of the print edition, it emerged that Rajan would remain with the company to help facilitate the change in direction. His role as editor-at-large for The Independent website ended after he was appointed as the BBC's first Media Editor in November 2016, and he assumed his new post on 12 December. From May 2017, he has presented The Media Show on BBC Radio 4 in succession to Steve Hewlett. Since 2017, Rajan has provided holiday cover for several presenters on BBC Radio 2, including Simon Mayo, Jeremy Vine and Zoe Ball. He has guest presented several episodes of The One Show including covering for Matt Baker during BBC Children in Need week in November 2019.
Personal life
Rajan is a cricket enthusiast, and plays for the Authors XIcricket team. His first book, Twirlymen, the Unlikely History of Cricket's Greatest Spin Bowlers, was published by Random House in 2011. He married Charlotte Faircloth, an academic, in Cambridge in September 2013.
