Pete Clifton was Editor-in-Chief at the Press Association (PA) until 2025. 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 () 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 (11:32 PM BST) on 23 October ...

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

Northampton Northampton ( ) is a town and civil parish in Northamptonshire, England. It is the county town of Northamptonshire and the administrative centre of the Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority of West Northamptonshire. The town is sit ...

, a sports journalist at the Exchange Telegraph national news agency, chief sports sub at the UK's

Press Association PA Media (formerly the Press Association) is a multimedia news agency A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and All-news radio, radio and ...

(PA) and editor of the PA's

Teletext Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipped television sets. Teletext sends data in the broadcast signal, hidden in the invisible vertical blanking interval area at the to ...

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 BBC Television, television, BBC Radio, radio and BBC Online, online. The BBC holds the television and radio UK broadcasting rights to several sports, broadc ...

website in 2000. He went on to become editor of BBC News Online in 2004, succeeding founding editor Mike Smartt, 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'') is a BBC children's news programme, which has run continuously since 4 April 1972. Originally ''John Craven's Newsround'', it was one of the world's first television news magazines aimed specifically a ...

, 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 U ...

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

mobile phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This rad ...

s and other mobile devices. Clifton replaced

Richard Deverell Richard George Deverell (born 1965) became Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in September 2012. He was previously Controller of CBBC, the department within the BBC responsible for output aimed at children. Early life Deverell was born ...

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

CBBC CBBC 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 brand used for all BBC content for children aged 6 to 12. Its sister c ...

. 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 is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps provided by Microsoft. The main webpage provides news, weather, sports, finance and other content curated from hundreds of different sources that Microsoft has partnere ...

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