Aengus Fanning

Aengus Fanning (22 April 1942 – 17 January 2012) was an Irish journalist and editor of the Sunday Independent from 1984 until his death in 2012. Originally from Tralee in County Kerry, he was also a former editor of farming for the Irish Independent. Fanning was listed at number 31 on a list of "most influential people" in Irish society compiled for Village magazine.

Fanning was boss and friend to the deceased journalist Veronica Guerin. Fanning's family owned the Irish local newspaper The Midland Tribune.

Fanning was a graduate of University College Cork (UCC).

He also had a keen interest in sport, having represented Kerry in Gaelic football in his youth - cricket was also a passion of his. He also played the clarinet, and was a jazz fan.

Fanning took over editing the Sunday Independent in 1984 from Michael Hand. Under Fanning's leadership, the newspaper adopted what Irish newspaper historian John Horgan called a "new emphasis on pungent opinion columns, gossip and fashion" which resulted in the paper overtaking its main rival, The Sunday Press. For a time, Fanning's deputy editor was journalist Anne Harris.

In a 1993 interview with Ivor Kenny in the book Talking to Ourselves, Fanning described himself as a classical liberal who was opposed to both Ulster loyalist and Provisional IRA terrorism. Fanning also expressed a strong advocacy of the free market, arguing that the goal of a good newspaper is to be as commercially successful as possible:

"If three or four papers out of 15 are successful and the others are not, they might say they're not driven by the market, they have some higher vocation: to serve the public interest or some pompous stuff like that. That's how they feel good about themselves. Fair enough, if that's how they want to explain the world. It's a grand excuse for relative failure... I think we live or die by the market, it will always win through."

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