Sarah Sands

Sarah Sands (born Sarah Harvey, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, 3 June 1961) is a British journalist and author.

Journalistic career

The sister of Kit Hesketh-Harvey of musical duo Kit and The Widow, Sands trained on The Sevenoaks Courier as a news reporter, before moving to the Evening Standard, initially as editor of the Londoner's Diary, before taking further posts as features editor and associate editor.

She joined The Daily Telegraph in 1996 as deputy editor, under Charles Moore, later assuming responsibility for the Saturday edition.

She was appointed as the first female editor of The Sunday Telegraph in June 2005, succeeding Dominic Lawson. Her masterplan for the November 2005 relaunch of the paper was that it should be "like an iPod - full of your favourite things". In an abrupt move, after just eight months and 20 days in post, Sands was sacked as editor of the newspaper on 7 March 2006 and replaced by Patience Wheatcroft.^[1] Subsequently, many of her changes under her editorship were reversed (including changes to the title font).

In April 2006 she was appointed consultant editor on the Daily Mail; in February 2008 she was appointed editor-in-chief of the UK edition of Reader's Digest.^[2] In February 2009 it was announced that she would be taking up the role of deputy editor on The Evening Standard.^[3]

Sands has written two novels: her first was Playing the Game and her second, Hothouse, was published during the summer of 2005.

Controversy

In August 2006, Sands wrote an article about the Emo musical genre, which stated that Green Day and My Chemical Romance encourage self-harm among teenagers, despite Green Day having tenuous links to the emo genre and My Chemical Romance advising their fans not to commit self-harm.^[4]

My Chemical Romance, on hearing about this article while on tour in the UK, led a chant of "fuck the Daily Mail" (as Sands's article ran in this newspaper) during one of their live shows.^[5] Kerrang! magazine in particular took offence at the article.

References

1. ^ "The media column - Peter Wilby bids farewell to Sarah Sands", New Statesman, 13 March 2006
2. ^ Mark Seewney "Sarah Sands joins Reader's Digest", The Guardian online, 21 February 2008. Accessed on 21 February 2008.
3. ^ Mark Sweney "Sarah Sands named deputy editor of London Evening Standard", The Guardian, 20 February 2009
4. ^ Sarah Sands "EMO cult warning for parents", Daily Mail, 16 August 2006
5. ^ Kerrang! News

External links

• Guardian profile of Sarah Sands
• Independent profile of Sarah Sands
• Criticism of Sands' tenure at the Sunday Telegraph, and her response

Media offices
Preceded by Simon Heffer and Veronica Wadley	Deputy Editor of the Daily Telegraph 1995–2005	Succeeded by Neil Darbyshire and Will Lewis
Preceded by Dominic Lawson	Editor of The Sunday Telegraph 2005–2006	Succeeded by Patience Wheatcroft
Preceded by Andrew Bordiss	Deputy Editor of the Evening Standard 2009–present	Incumbent

Persondata
Name	Sands, Sarah
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	3 June 1961
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death