Oliver Duff (editor)

Duff was born in 1983 in Leighton Buzzard. He is an ex-student of Cedars Upper School.[3] Brought up in Bedfordshire, Duff had early career intentions of becoming an explorer, then Arsenal goalkeeper, before finally deciding on journalism, when he started writing for his local paper, the Leighton Buzzard Observer.[3] He read Politics at St John's College, Cambridge (2001–2004),[1] He became editor of the student paper, Varsity in 2002.[4][5]

Before starting work in 2002, in newspapers as an admin assistant at The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Observer.[1] Then in 2003,he got a staff job as an admin assistant on the Independent newsdesk "writing odds and sods after hours" before moving up to a staff reporter role.[1] Simon Kelner then offered him the job of editing the Pandora diary column.[1]

He then worked as a travel writer (which he occasionally still does),[6] and news editor. Although he was fired as a bar critic after three weeks,[7] he (and an investigative team of reporters) was nominated for the Cudlipp Award (by British Press Awards) for excellence in popular journalism.[8]

Until 2008, when he became deputy home news editor, shortly before Roger Alton replaced Simon Kelner as Independent editor in April 2008.

He was a member of the team that launched the i newspaper in October 2010 and he has covered the Olympics, two general elections, the London terror attacks and the phone hacking scandal.[9]

In 2010 Duff moved up to news editor and after a year in that job he was made executive editor under Chris Blackhurst (who became Independent editor in July 2011).[1]

Duff was made editor of the i at the same time that Amol Rajan became editor of The Independent, in June 2013.[1]

He writes an editor's letter every day in the newspaper.[10] Topics include nature and science, politics and diplomacy.

He lives in central London with his partner. Away from work, he is a member of the Royal Geographical Society.[11]