geordie greig

by aman mahmood

It is no overstatement to say that The Independent’s editor-in-chief – Geordie Greig – sees journalism as a medium of service. After creating campaigns to deliver 43 million pieces of PPE to the NHS frontline in covid and raising £50million in aid of grassroots charities in London, Geordie’s campaigning work is far from over, as now, over £500,000 has been raised as part of The Independent’s current Brick by Brick campaign. Launched in September 2024, the campaign has raised money to fund houses for women and children escaping domestic violence. With donations from the likes of The Prime Minister and The Queen, the Brick by Brick campaign has been no exception to Geordie’s track record of gaining the attention of the most influential figures in our society. But what are the key moments in his remarkably unique career that led up to this milestone?

BEGINNINGS: SPARK OF JOURNALISTIC JOURNEY
The 64-year-old certainly didn’t hesitate to ask questions, to the extent where the Etonian would write letters to actresses, artists and politicians as a teenager, ultimately igniting an enthusiasm for journalistic practice. Geordie said: “I realised journalism would deal with my desire to be very curious. I always liked asking questions, and was thrilled to get a reply by letter from people like Roald Dahl to the actress Joanna Lumley. “I thought ‘wow’, there’s an echo I can get back by just simply being curious, if that’s the nature of journalism, I’m in.” It was the aforementioned curiosity of a young Geordie that actually led to The Brick By Brick campaign’s slogan: ‘Be a brick, and buy a brick’. Stemming from the mind of Joanna Lumley, the actress came up with the slogan after Geordie stayed in touch with her following an interview they did 47 years ago.
“She came to my school and I interviewed her on stage in front of 500 schoolboys. We stayed in touch ever since, with me asking her every so often to help with projects. It taught me that if you stay in touch with people, there can be a long tail to gain from.”
Currently, one house for women and children escaping torture and potential death threats has been funded, with the publication being on the verge of funding a second home.
“That’s the nice thing about journalism, it can be a power for good.” Geordie was educated at Eton before studying at Oxford, but still took the traditional route in the journalism world of starting at a local publication before joining the Sunday Times as a reporter in 1987.
“I don’t think anyone ever asked me where I’d gone to school or what university I’d gone to. I think if you’re comfortable in your skin, most people are comfortable in their skin. No one really over bothers about what uniform you put on between the ages of 13 and 18.” Geordie also visits schools to give advice to pupils, and his message to them is loud and clear. “The one thing I think is key to getting on in life is reading, that’s the acrobatic architecture of the mind, and the other is to have the confidence. If the youth can be encouraged to do these 2 things, they’re a step closer to progressing.

CAREER: TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS
However, there was a long road to these achievements. Kickstarting his career at the Kentish Mercury newspaper in the 1980s, Geordie has seen first-hand how the journalism world has evolved over the years, and this has seen him adopt a new outlook towards contemporary journalism. “When I was first on Fleet Street, it was a very unionised work force, with the ‘clack clack’ of type writers. People produced duplicate copies, sending them round the office with mail boys taking them round. Then, the work of amazing moments of progress saw computers the size of great hampers come in.” In 1999, Geordie stepped into the world of fashion, becoming the editor of Tatler, before transitioning to the traditional Fleet Street news room setting when he became the editor of The Evening Standard a decade later.
“I’d previously been at the Sunday Times for 12 years, so I had a lot of reporting principles like being quite hard-nosed, so in a way, it was an advantage to come to Tatler, because my aim was to bring more journalism to it. What I learnt was the pictorial importance of images and fashion. Fashion in many ways is the crossroads of commerce and creativity, so for me, it was an interesting speed dating course in magazine journalism when I first arrived, as I didn’t know much about fashion, and had to learn quickly.” In 2012, Geordie became editor of The Mail on Sunday, which was the first time he became editor of a national newspaper before succeeding Paul Dacre at The Daily Mail in 2018, making him the first editor of the paper after 25years. The passing of the baton between Geordie and Dacre was not a smooth transition, with Greig telling Mail on Sunday readers to vote to remain in the EU, whilst Dacre pushed for readers to leave, with Geordie saying the Mail – when Dacre was editor – didn’t hold figures such as Boris Johnson to account for their actions, causing the two to publicly condemn each other. Another impactful campaign of Geordie’s career came during this time as editor of the Daily Mail, in 2020, where he set up Mail Force, a charity providing personal protective equipment such as masks and overalls for NHS workers in the pandemic, delivering over 43 million pieces of PPE. The charity has more recently evolved into supporting children who face difficulties accessing remote learning content and aiding displaced Ukrainian refugees due to Russia’s invasion.

The Independent is a now digital only publication, having stopped printing newspapers in 2016, mirroring the increasingly online-driven media landscape.
“I never thought I’d be working for a news brand with no printed edition, but actually, it’s liberating, exciting and profitable. And the great thing about no paper is you don’t have the expense, and you’ve a younger, more agile set of readers.”
He expanded his journalistic practice to writing, most famously writing Breakfast with Lucian, a book detailing Lucian Freud’s incredibly wild life. The saying is that nothing good comes easy, and this is undoubtedly proven by Geordie’s pursuit to get Freud to speak to him.
“When I was 17, I saw an exhibition of his work in the punk era, and this was more exciting, more revolutionary, more disruptive, so I was really hooked on these strange, unnamed paintings of lovers and gangsters. So, I began what would be a 20-year journey to get him to answer my letters. One time I suggested I interview him when he had an exhibition at the Tate, and he wrote back: Dear Mr Greig, the idea of giving an interview about my exhibition at Tate makes me feel sick. Yours, Lucian Freud.” Geordie ended up not only meeting the mysterious character, but he managed to become closer with Freud, having breakfast with him every Saturday, leading to the publishing of his book. “I hope the book is the key to who was in his life, such the estimated number of 25 children altogether. In one year alone, he had three children from three different women, and his response to how he did that was: ‘I had a bicycle’.”

LEGACY: THE POWER OF JOURNALISM
While Geordie holds The Brick by Brick Campaign close to his heart, he tells what he feels truly makes campaigning worthwhile.
“Most importantly, it’s about feeling it in your heart and your head, and that’s it’s a campaign which you can explain, making people want to join you. All campaigning should be a gift to the people who give.” But what is this all for and what message is journalism sending to society? With the overarching aim of the campaign being to fund three houses, Geordie gives his take on the service of journalism.
“I began as a reporter and I still see myself as one. I just want to bring the sense that journalism can do good. I think it’s very important for people to realise that it is a huge force and it can be exposing ill gains, but it can be also be about allowing people to open up and find good causes. If I can get the readership, staff, and a cause together, it seems to be a very good combination in order to use the purpose of journalism, which is to shine a light in dark places, and to keep that light on so people can find a path of safety or being less hungry.”