James Franklin Archibald "Archie" Bland[1] (born 7 October 1983),[2] is a British newspaper journalist who writes the Guardian's daily morning newsletter First Edition.
[3] Bland was previously the deputy editor of The Independent, a national British newspaper, a post to which he was appointed in April 2012, at the age of 28.
[4] Bland was born in 1983, the only child of Sir Christopher Bland,[5] the former chairman of the BBC's Board of Governors (the forerunner of the BBC Trust), British Telecom, the Royal Shakespeare Company,[6] London Weekend Television and a number of other companies,[7] as well as Deputy Chairman of the former Independent Broadcasting Authority,[7] and Lady Bland (née Jennifer Mary Denise May),[8] the daughter of William May, a former Northern Irish Minister for Education.
[12] At Winchester, Bland obtained four A*s, three A's and two B's at GCSE,[11] followed by Emmanuel College, Cambridge, at which he became the editor of Varsity, the student newspaper of the university.
[3] Bland won the last-ever episode of the BBC television game show The Weakest Link, in March 2012.