Pete Clifton is Editor-in-Chief at the Press Association (PA). Prior to the appointment he was Executive Producer for MSN in the UK and former Head of Editorial Development at BBC News.

Career

Clifton was previously the editor of

Ceefax Ceefax (, punning on "seeing facts") was the world's first teletext information service and a forerunner to the current BBC Red Button service. Ceefax was started by the BBC in 1974 and ended, after 38 years of broadcasting, at 23:32:19 BST ( ...

, and before joining the BBC was a news and sports reporter at the ''Chronicle and Echo'' in

Northampton Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England; ...

, a sports journalist at the

Exchange Telegraph Exchange may refer to: Physics *Gas exchange is the movement of oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Places United States * Exchange, Indiana, an unincorporated community * ...

national news agency, chief sports sub at the UK's

Press Association PA Media (formerly the Press Association) is a multimedia news agency, and the national news agency of the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is part of PA Media Group Limited, a private company with 26 shareholders, most of whom are national and re ...

(PA) and editor of the PA's

Teletext A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...

service. Clifton was involved in the founding of BBC News Online and also helped set up the

BBC Sport BBC Sport is the sports division of the BBC, providing national sports coverage for BBC television, radio and online. The BBC holds the television and radio UK broadcasting rights to several sports, broadcasting the sport live or alongside flag ...

website in 2000. He went on to become editor of BBC News Online in 2004, succeeding founding editor

Mike Smartt Mike Smartt OBE is a British journalist and broadcaster, and was the founder and editor-in-chief of BBC News Online, the BBC's Internet news service. With Project Director Bob Eggington, he led the team that launched the service in 1997, and held ...

, until he was promoted to head of BBC News Interactive in October 2005 with responsibility for BBC News Online,

CBBC Newsround ''Newsround'' (stylised as ''newsround'', and originally called ''John Craven's Newsround'' before his departure in 1989) is a BBC children's news programme, which has run continuously since 4 April 1972. It was one of the world's first televi ...

, the Ceefax teletext service, the digital text service,

On This Day BBC News Online is the website of BBC News, the division of the BBC responsible for newsgathering and production. It is one of the most popular news websites, with 1.2 billion website visits in April 2021, as well as being used by 60% of the ...

, BBC's Interactive TV, the Action Network and a variety of news services to

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

s and other mobile devices. Clifton replaced

Richard Deverell Richard George Deverell (born 1965) became Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An ...

as head of BBC News Interactive, who had moved to become chief operating officer of

CBBC CBBC (initialised as Children's BBC and also known as the CBBC Channel) is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the bran ...

. Clifton's successor as editor of BBC News Online was Steve Herrmann. Clifton admitted on the BBC Editor' Blog on 16 August 2007 that he had edited his own Wikipedia entry after viewing an incorrect entry for BBC News Online, but would be leaving the editing of the page to others in future. In March 2011, the BBC announced Clifton would be made redundant following the closure of the BBC Journalism group within the organisation. The following month it was announced that he would be moving to

MSN MSN (meaning Microsoft Network) is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995, alongside the release of Windows 95. The Microsoft Net ...

UK to become executive producer. In January 2015, he was appointed Editor-in-Chief of the

References

1962 births Living people BBC newsreaders and journalists British male journalists Online journalists {{UK-tv-journalist-stub