The Guardian today reports that Daily Telegraph Managing Director Hugo Drayton has left that newspaper. There had been speculation that Drayton, who published the United Kingdom's largest-circulation (one million) broadsheet newspaper, would last now that Hollinger International has sold the Telegraph Group to the Barclay brothers' for £665 million.

Drayton is significant for online publishing because he was the first former head of a newspaper new-media department to become the publisher of a major international daily. Drayton held marketing positions at Reed Elsevier and Coats Viyella before joining the Telegraph in 1994 as marketing manager. He became managing director of group internet operations in 2000 and was promoted to managing director last November. I interviewed Drayton in March for a package of stories of stories about the future of newspapers.