Media Headliner: Donnish new Guardian chief surprises industry.

Tim Brooks' breadth of experience helped him beat insider Stuart Taylor to the managing director's chair.

It is not every day that Campaign's media editor is handed the managing director's job at Guardian Newspapers. OK, so Tim Brooks left rather a long time ago (late in 1984, the office archivist reckons, although his memory is not what it was) and rather a lot has happened since then.

But still. As our list of successful former alumni grows, we can be forgiven for basking in a little reflected glory, however faint. So imagine our disappointment when, bursting with slightly inappropriate levels of proprietorial pride, we began discover our contacts were somewhat less enthusiastic about Brooks' appointment.

The reaction was uncannily similar at half a dozen agencies across town. 'What do I think?' comes one typical response. 'I think, poor Stuart, that's what I think.'

That would be Stuart Taylor, GNL's commercial director and the man widely assumed to be the frontrunner for the job ever since it was announced that Carolyn McCall was stepping up to become the chief executive of Guardian Media Group. Speculation intensified when Taylor was shortlisted; and he was said to have been ashen- faced with suppressed anger when he found out he hadn't got the job.

It is telling that many observers automatically began talking of Taylor having been 'passed over' for the job as if, having paid his dues, it had been his by rights.

That is not to say there is widespread hostility towards Brooks. Far from it. He is described by many as 'one of the good guys' or, as another source has it, 'one of the brightest and most reasonable people in this whole business'.