John Bryant has worked as a Fleet Street journalist since 1971. For a decade he was Deputy Editor of The Times. He is a former Editor of the Sunday Correspondent and The European, and following five years as a Consultant Editor of the Daily Mail, John Bryant was appointed Editor in Chief of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph in 2005.

He started his career in journalism on the Edinburgh Evening News before moving to the national press and the Daily Mail in 1971, where between 1975 and 1986 he served as Features Editor, after which he moved to the Times. Here, between 1986 and 1990, he served as first Managing Editor, then Deputy Editor. After editing the Sunday Correspondent and the European in 1990 and 1991, respectively, John again was appointed Deputy Editor on the Times, a position he held until 2000, when he moved to the Daily Mail to take up a position as Consultant Editor. 

John Bryant is author of 3:59.4, The Quest to Break the Four Minute Mile, and The London Marathon, the History of the Greatest Run on Earth. He is a veteran of marathons throughout the world and has been involved in the London Marathon since its founding in 1981. He is an Oxford Blue, County Champion, coach to Olympic athlete Zola Budd, and a long time captain of the world's oldest cross country club, the Thames Hare and Hounds.