Tom Standage is a British journalist, author, and editorial executive is currently serving as the Deputy Editor of The Economist newspaper under editor-in-chef, Zanny Minton Beddoes. As head of the newspaper's digital strategy, Standage is the editor-in-chief of The Economist's website, applications, and digital platform. He first joined the paper in 1998 as a science correspondent from where he was successively appointed technology editor, business editor, and finally, digital editor. Born and raised in England, Standage graduated from Oxford University with a degree in engineering and computing. He began his career in journalism as a science and technology writer for The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph. Standage is the author of six books including but not limited to The Victorian Internet, A History of the World in 6 Glasses, and Writing on the Wall.
Early life and career
Standage was born and raised in England. He attended Oxford University where he studied engineering and computing. He then went on to work as a science and technology writer for The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph. A consistent approach of his is the use of historical analogy in science, technology and business writing. He has published a collection of articles and surveys from The Economist and six books, including The Victorian Internet. This book explores the historical development of the telegraph and the social ramifications associated with this development. Tom Standage also proposes that if Victorians from the 19th century were to be around today, they would be far from impressed with present computer networks capabilities. This is because the development of the internet is in significant aspects mirroring the development of the telegraph. The telegraph was the first widely used and planetary-wide electrical, standards-based information and communications system. Like the telegraph before it, internet technologies can be seen to have largely increased the speed and transmission of information. And also like the telegraph, the internet is widely criticised by some, due to its perceived and actual negative consequences. Tom's most recent work is Writing on the Wall.
