Paul Rapacioli becomes the Director at the Media Institute Fojo at Linnaeus University. With extensive experience in both British and Swedish media, including as founder of the news site The Local, Paul Rapacioli now assumes the role of director with the task of strengthening journalism in Sweden and internationally.
”My focus as operations manager at Fojo will be to work with our experts to develop and spread Fojo’s concept for economically, environmentally and socially sustainable journalism”, says Paul Rapacioli.
Paul began writing for British newspapers and worked with digital media in England in the 1990s. He moved to Sweden in 2003. The following year he founded The Local, which offers Swedish news reporting in English. Paul Rapacioli was chief operating officer of The Local until 2018 and during that time, together with co-founder James Savage, they established editions in eight other European countries. Paul Rapacioli is currently a member of The Local’s board of directors.
In 2017, he wrote the book ”Good Sweden Bad Sweden”, about how news mechanisms, digital communication and disinformation are used to distort the image of Sweden internationally. Since then, he has lectured on the subject and worked as a communications consultant.
”The role of Director at Fojo feels like a perfect way to share what I have learned over the past two decades, both about running and developing a business and about the vital role that journalism plays in society.”
”Journalism faces many large and overlapping challenges. How to make a news business profitable, how to deal with the impact of AI, how to report constructively on climate change, how to get young people to understand the importance of journalism and want to be a part of it, how to reverse the negative trend of local news and how to respond to rising waves of disinformation – these are all pressing issues for the industry to address.”
Paul Rapacioli sees the fact that Fojo is part of a university as an advantage both in Swedish and international contexts.
”As part of Linnaeus University, Fojo has access to a huge bank of knowledge and ideas in many different disciplines, which I believe will help us find solutions to these problems.”
For Bodil Petersson, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the Linnaeus University where Fojo is a part, Paul Rapacioli’s background was just right for the assignment.
”Our ambition is to strengthen Fojo’s research, continuing education and collaboration opportunities, both in Sweden and around the world.”
”With his long operational and entrepreneurial experience, together with his thinking and writing about the role of news in society, Paul Fojo provides a new perspective and further expands the broad competence in the organisation”, says Bodil Petersson.
