'Financial Times' Names Most Influential Journalists, With Some Surprises

By: Mark Fitzgerald In its weekend edition Saturday, the Financial Times named New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman the nation's "most influential" commentator -- but the nation isn't the United States.

In the U.S., the FT declared, Friedman is "runner-up" to the most influential commentator, the Washington Post's syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer.

Friedman is the most influential commentator, the FT said, in India. New Delhi correspondent Jo Johnson said only three Indian English-language commentators can "come close" to claiming genuine national influence. "Strangely, however, it may be that it is an American writer -- Thomas Friedman of The New York Times -- who is lapped up most ardently by the country's ruling elite," Johnson wrote.

Johnson said Indians were delighted with the brilliant future for Friedman limned for India in his most recent book, "The World is Flat." He has become "the country's de facto publicity chief" who is helping India accept its great strategic shift from head of the non-aligned movement to a partner of the U.S.

Similarly, FT's Lagos, Nigeria correspondent, Dino Mahtani, said the nation's "most influential journalist is neither a columnist nor a commentator, but an investigative reporter best know for the work he has done for a U.S. newspaper, Newsday."

FT said Dele Olojede, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, hopes he can make an impact on the Nigerian press as the nation transitions from military to civilian democratic rule. FT notes that Olojede criticizes the nation's press for lacking "quality and critical muscle."

The assessment of the most influential commentators in the United States was taken on by FT Editor Lionel Barber, who is the paper's former U.S. managing editor. He put Krauthammer atop his list because "he has influenced U.S. foreign policy for more than two decades," coining and developing the "Reagan Doctrine," and, after 9/11, urging the promotion of democracy in the Middle East.

Friedman is next on the list, followed by Maureen Dowd, who Barber calls "often achingly funny but occasionally crabby." Next is Paul Krugman, "who was brave and brilliant after 9/11 when few dared challenge President Bush's 'war on terror' but now he's monotonal."

In Britain, Trevor Kavanagh, associate editor of The Sun, was chosen because of the size of his readership, and "a style that destroyed the boundaries between reporting and commentary." Kavanagh, the FT said, was behind the shift of the tabloid from supporting to opposing Prime Minister Tony Blair.

In several nations, correspondents named authors and broadcasters as the most influential commentators. In Iraq, Baghdad correspondent Steve Negus said, "religious figures are far more important" than any journalist.

"Newspaper commentators don't have a lot of impact in most of Iraq, where years of Ba'athist rule and tight media controls mean that the press is widely mistrusted," Negus wrote. Perhaps the most influential newspaper commentator writes for a paper that comes out of London. Adnan Husseig of the pan-Arab daily Asharq Alawsat was credited with giving then-Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari a mocking nickname that FT says eventually led to his resignation.