AND ANOTHER THING
However odd it seems, the best kind of editor is a happy one
PAUL JOHNSON
survey of national newspaper editors in one of the Sundays claims they now °command more power than ever before'. Not strictly true. None of the present lot has anything like the influence of Delane of the Times between the mid-1840s and the end of the 1860s. But that was mainly because the Times in those days had such a commanding lead over its competitors as to amount almost to a monopoly — the same reason why whoever runs the Washington Post today has his/her boots licked on both sides of the Potomac. What is true is that, With a weak government and opposition, and with politicians held in low regard by the public, editors appear to carry a lot of clout, at any rate of a negative kind.
Yet there is no code of conduct for edi- tors, formal or informal. They usually do not know what they have done amiss until they are sacked. Getting the push is far more likely to be the result of commercial failure than professional, let alone moral, delinquence. The last editor to be unfrocked was Aylmer Valiance of the News Chronicle, caught in flagrante delicto With his secretary by his outraged Quaker proprietor, 'actually on the premises', as the latter whined. But that was in 1936. Today competition has rarely been more severe, especially at the top end of the mar- ket, and I suspect most editors are too hag- ridden by watching the figures, and produc- ing papers which bounce them in the right direction, to philosophise deeply about their role. So here are a few thoughts which occur to me at this time of editorial Paramountcy.
An editor does not need to be a super- man (or a wonder-woman). But he must be able, energetic, resourceful, quick, patient and have lots of stamina. Courage is abso- lutely essential — an editor who lacks it will fail though it may be some time before he is found out. He must be able to say to his proprietor, 'Sack me if you must but until then leave me alone.' Especially in an age of high-technology, an editor must know exactly how his paper is put together and be able to do it himself He must be good enough at a pinch to do the jobs of every- one on his staff, bar one or two specialists. And the journalists must be aware of this. An editor can get by inspiring fear among them, but admiration, or at least respect tinged with awe, will produce better work. Behind their cynical carapace, most jour- nalists are romantics: they want to feel proud to serve a great editor, whose merest frown humbles and whose rare praise is nectar. For an editor to be good-humoured is a huge bonus, for newspaper offices are horribly crisis-ridden and laughter dissolves tension (raises circulations too). But a modicum of human wisdom is essential. Editors should keep their door ajar to harassed employees, for journalists lead messy, fraught lives and often they have no one to turn to for advice, encouragement and a bit of rough affection. A good editor is a father figure — better still, a mother figure.
Editors do not need to know all the answers. A sense of wonder, an itch to dis- cover, are far more useful than omni- science. An editor is not required to have ideas — except about people — or be in any sense an intellectual; better not in fact, since if he is an egg-head he is fatally bound to find many of his readers ridicu- lous. But he needs to know how to recog- nise ideas and exploit them, how to suck genius dry. His own views ought to be what I call superior commonplace. He cannot spend much time in pubs, clubs, bars, can- teens and buses: but he must somehow know what is the common talk there.
An ideal editor has lots of children — and in time grandchildren — and a good stock of elderly aunts, cousins, nephews, god-daughters. A rambling family is the best conduit of unsolicited, useful informa- tion. But a good editor also listens to post- men, cleaners, constables, check-out girls, maintenance men and others who know what is really going on (not his office driv- er, who moves in too exalted circles). An editor may become good by giving orders but he stays good by asking questions. In short he is gregarious by day; in the evening he is frantically busy, but the real test comes between climbing into bed and switching off his light — what books are on his bedside table? An editor must be a reading man, whatever the cost.
'Oh, God! I must be an old bore!' Northcliffe held, rightly, that editors and proprietors should not get too close to politicians, especially ministers. What they thereby learn can usually be discovered by other means and is more than offset by the emotional obligations of friendship. I shud- der when I hear of editors spending week- ends at Chequers or Dorneywood. Today's politicians, usually socially insecure and lacking independent means, are far more demanding than they used to be in solicit- ing support from those they know in the media and can become quite hysterical when they get criticism instead. Not long ago a senior minister angrily assured me he 'had something' on me and that if I 'wasn't careful' I'd be 'appearing in Private Eye'. I wrote him a letter telling him not to demean his great office. It's a sad day when journalists have to instruct their rulers M the etiquette of public life. The only safe guide is for editors to be on no more than nodding terms with the great.
Above all, working editors should never accept honours. (Nor should any journalist so long as he is capable of holding a pen.) This rule has been broken in recent years with undesirable results for both politics and journalism. Editors may now be paid twice as much as prime ministers, hold more power than secretaries of state and be better catches for hostesses. But they don't know how to handle baubles. A proprietor told me that when one of his editors was knighted, 'he thought it made him into a different kind of person. I had to prove otherwise by showing him the toe of my boot.' The honours system is by far the most corrupt, and corrupting, aspect of our public life — rotten from top to bottom — and editors should set their faces like flint against it.
My last advice to editors is not to take the job — still less themselves — too seri- ously. It is the paper, which has a life, a character and a spirit of its own, which mat- ters. Editors may feel like little tin gods but once they are 'ex' they are of no more sig- nificance than the discarded model-wife of a billionaire. I think I worked too hard when I was an editor, stuck too close to the job and worried too much about it. So I tell a new editor nowadays, 'You should behave like Alexander VI who, on becoming pope, remarked, "Now at last we have the papacy — let us enjoy it." The paper will be none the worse in consequence. For the best kind of editor is a happy one.
Previous page
