| Intro | British journalist |
| Was |
Journalist Editor |
| From | United Kingdom |
| Type | Journalism |
| Gender | male |
| Birth | 20 January 1943 |
| Death |
15 December 2006 (aged 63 years) |
Frank Robert Johnson (20 January 1943 – 15 December 2006) was an English journalist.
Education
Johnson failed his 11-plus examination, and was educated at a state secondary school in Shoreditch in East London, which he left at the age of 16. Unlike many senior journalists of his time, he did not have a background in further or higher education, and instead, had taken a job as a ‘messenger’ on a national newspaper.
Career
Early career
He was a junior reporter at the North-West Evening Mail in Barrow-in-Furness from 1965 to 1966. One of the duties of news staff was to cover sport, which was an unwelcome intrusion into the weekend. Johnson once reported the score of a Barrow rugby league match inaccurately and was robustly criticised by his editor on the Monday morning. However, he never had to cover sport again.
Later career
He was the editor of the conservative Spectator magazine from 1995 to 1999 and was a popular columnist for The Daily Telegraph. He had a particular reputation for his work as a parliamentary sketch writer, as which he was regarded by many as one of the most incisive and amusing commentators of his generation.
Personal life
He married Virginia Fraser, the widow of Simon Fraser, Master of Lovat, in 1998 who survives him. He died after a seven-year fight against cancer.
| Media offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by ? |
Deputy Editor of the Sunday Telegraph 1994–1995 |
Succeeded by Kim Fletcher |
| Preceded by Dominic Lawson |
Editor of The Spectator 1995–1999 |
Succeeded by Boris Johnson |