NEW EDITORIAL TEAM AT OPENDEMOCRACY AS ISABEL HILTON LEAVES TO FOCUS ON CHINADIALOGUE

LONDON: After two years and four months at the editorial helm of openDemocracy, Isabel Hilton is moving on to concentrate on one of the projects she has helped create: chinadialogue.net, the bilingual Chinese-English site specialising in environmental and climate-change issues. Tony Curzon Price, openDemocracy's executive director and architect of its new-media strategy, becomes editor-in-chief while current deputy editor David Hayes maintains day-to-day editorial authority.

Isabel Hilton came to openDemocracy with an outstanding record of achievement in international journalism and a longstanding focus on issues of human rights and democracy, and has been central in consolidating its position as one of the most respected sites of high-quality content on the net. She has brought to the site an unmatched range of compelling writers, overseen a steady growth in its readership around the world, and raised its profile in media, policy, and activist channels. She has also continued to broadcast regularly, and to write for several national and international publications.

Now, the transition of the year-old chinadialogue.net from pilot to full roll-out requires Isabel's fuller attention. Isabel says: "It has been an extraordinary two years. openDemocracy is a unique meeting place for those who seek ideas, analysis and challenging points of view. It has been a privilege to be part of it, and I shall miss it, but I am leaving openDemocracy's unrivalled network of writers in the capable hands of David Hayes, the best editor anyone could wish to have." Isabel's extended reflections on her time at openDemocracy can be read here.

openDemocracy's newer initiatives include the already influential OurKingdom blog created by founder Anthony Barnett, a specialist terrorism and democracy site, and the 50:50 gender-equality project. Tony Curzon Price's strategy to develop these and other knowledge-communities is being reinforced by a range of partnerships with NGOs, academics and writers aimed at developing shared understandings through credible analysis and conversation in the face of the noisy transformations in media and technology.

-ENDS-

Notes to Editors:
openDemocracy (www.openDemocracy.net) is an independent website on global current affairs seeking to build an informed community committed to the values of human rights, free speech and democracy.

For more information please contact openDemocracy's managing editor Grace Davies
T: (+44) (0) 20 7193 0676
E: grace.davies@opendemocracy.net