Guardian Unlimited and the Evening Standard are reporting this afternoon that the Guardian‘s sports editor, Ben Clissitt, is about to join Telegraph Media Group, possibly as head of sport for the Daily and Sunday Telegraph and their online operation.
Judging from the Guardian Unlimited report, exact details of Clissitt’s new role are ill-defined as yet, thought the fact that the Guardian‘s website is carrying the story suggests that the newspaper’s sports editor of the past eight years is looking to leave Farringdon Road for Victoria.
Clissitt has overseen significant changes on the Guardian sports desk in recent weeks, with wholesale changes among the newspaper’s football reporting staff and the departure of Olympics and athletics expert Duncan Mackay, the SJA’s Sports Writer of the Year in 2004.
Clissitt had told colleagues in recent times that he was looking for an internal promotion, but the Standard reports that he has been lured to the Telegraph “for such a vast sum that his current employer was unable to match it”.
According to Guardian Unlimited, Clissitt’s “…new job is understood to be similar in scope to the position the Daily Telegraph City editor, Damian Reece, was granted last month across the two papers’ print and online operations”.
Before joining the Guardian, Clissitt had worked for the Independent on Sunday. Prior to becoming the Guardian sports editor, he worked for the paper’s City desk and G2 features section.