Alton: an editor of passion and flair

As editor of the world's oldest Sunday newspaper for the past nine years, Roger Alton has been in his element, whether writing about bacon butties in the Observer Food Monthly, or supporting the invasion of Iraq.

He has been credited with turning the newspaper around and oversaw the transformation of the Sunday paper in the Berliner format, which launched on January 8 2006. The revamped Observer triumphed as newspaper of the year at the British Press Awards this year. As he went up to accept his award, Mr Alton was clearly overcome.

Yesterday, when he addressed his staff shortly before 6pm, was also an emotional time. Accompanied by champagne, his speech told of the paper's impressive sales figures and its editorial brilliance. For a while, it seemed seemed that he did not want to announce his news.

But then he said: "However, however". It was a rare moment of reticence for an outstandingly outspoken editor.

His response to Tony Blair's Reuters speech earlier this year, in which the departing prime minister attacked the "feral beasts" of the media, was atypical of the newspaper industry's overwhelmingly critical attitude. "A great read. Give that man an editorship," Mr Alton said at the time.

Mr Alton, who was appointed editor of the Observer in 1998, stabilised the paper and made it prosper. Guardian Media Group had bought the title in 1993 and went through three editors in the space of five years: Jonathan Fenby, Andrew Jaspan and Will Hutton.

Their successor, who moved to the Observer from his role as assistant editor of the Guardian, won plaudits during his tenure for the launches of its monthly colour supplements on food, sport, music and, most recently, Observer Woman.

At a time when most newspaper circulations are declining, the Observer is bucking the trend. September saw average weekly sales of 472,252, up 6.7% month on month or 3.1% compared with September 2006, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Mr Alton started in journalism as a graduate trainee at the Liverpool Post in 1969 but spent most of his career at the Guardian.

He joined the newspaper in 1974 as a subeditor on the news desk and rose through the ranks, with stints as deputy sports editor and arts editor in the 80s.

In the early 90s he became editor of the Weekend magazine and then features editor of the Guardian, finally serving as assistant editor of the daily from 1996 to 1998.

Mr Alton has been described as an editor in the Fleet Street mould, renowned for his robust language and belief in good old-fashioned journalism.

Although he accepts that online video and audio will become part of the mix for newspapers, he is sceptical of the industry's headlong rush into multimedia publishing.

In interviews Mr Alton has been fiercely protective of print as the platform that matters most, and once described most newspaper podcasts as "uniformly dire".

Mr Alton defined his paper's stance in the context of a long and varied history: "The Observer is Britain's oldest Sunday newspaper and it has been making mischief, poking its nose where it shouldn't and reporting the best in arts, culture, politics, sport, business and skulduggery for over 200 years. We aim to keep it that way and maintain its position as Britain's most exciting Sunday newspaper."

A few weeks ago Mr Alton was proud to be able to pay tribute to Observer photographer Jane Bown and her 60-year tenure at the paper. He was forthright in his praise of the newspaper veteran, who had checked herself out of hospital for the event.

Others pay their tributes to Mr Alton - some from rival companies. Last year at the British Press Awards, Les Hinton, the executive chairman of News International, praised the job he had done with the Berliner format, saying that of all the editors of rival titles, Mr Alton was the one he most admired.

Despite such a clearly successful career, Mr Alton has admitted to still being surprised when he sees a stranger buy his newspaper.

He once said his proudest achievement was being the subject of a question on University Challenge - and the fact that the contestant got it right.

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