Ben Chacko

Ben Chacko
Born Ben Chacko
c. 1984
Cheltenham
Nationality British
Education St John's College, Oxford
Occupation Journalist
Known for Editor of the Morning Star

Ben Chacko (born c. 1984) is the editor of the Morning Star. He joined the newspaper in 2010, becoming editor in 2015.

Early life

Ben Chacko was born around 1984. His father is an actuary and his mother is a software engineer who studied for a PhD at the University of Oxford. His brother is the tax barrister Thomas Chacko, of Pump Court Tax Chambers. Ben Chacko was educated at Pate's Grammar School, Cheltenham, and St John's College, University of Oxford, where he studied Mandarin Chinese. He later spent time in China.[1]

Politics

Chacko credits his conversion to communism to a recommendation from his mother when he was a teenager that he abandon the Socialist Worker newspaper, published by the Socialist Workers Party, for something more genuinely "leftie", such as the Morning Star.[1] Chacko found the Star "a real revelation".[1] He edited Challenge, the journal of the Young Communist League and was a member of the student union council at Oxford.[2]

Chacko's time in China influenced his thinking and he cites it as evidence that "you can run a society without surrendering to the idea that the market is always right". Post-Soviet Russia, on the other hand, he describes as "a gangster capitalist state run by oligarchs".[1]

Career

Chacko was appointed editor of the Morning Star in May 2015, the youngest editor of the paper since its founding editor, William Rust.[1][3] He joined the paper as a sub-editor in 2010, and was subsequently deputy features editor, assistant editor and deputy editor before being appointed acting editor in July 2014.[4]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "A respectful rallying cry from the starry-eyed Lenin of Cheltenham", Josh Glancy, The Sunday Times, 5 July 2015.
  2. ↑ New Editor Hailed By Leading Lefties. Morning Star, 23 May 2015. Retrieved 9 July 2015.
  3. ↑ Rising in the east. The Economist, 6 June 2015. Retrieved 9 July 2015.
  4. ↑ Morning Star opts for youth by appointing Ben Chacko as editor. Roy Greenslade, The Guardian, 26 May 2015. Retrieved 9 July 2015.
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