History's Flawed First Draft
Reviewed by Peter Preston Posted Wed, Oct 10 2007
The difficulty, one British editor said to me the other day, “is knowing what we do any longer.” Once upon a time, at least in legend, newspaper editors could be responsible for everything that appeared in their papers: the words, the pictures, the choices – and the people who made them. The editor wasn't only responsible in law but also in fact. Success or failure, triumph or disaster were all the editor's bag.
But is that even remotely the situation now? Glance at an average editor's diary and make up your own mind. The end of hot metal has had one staggering repercussion. Forget daily papers with 24 or 32 pages – they're three or four times that size now. In turn, even speedy readers (like me) will take over three hours to scan them properly and in detail. A libel lands you in court. “Did you read the offending article, sir?” “Well, not exactly. But I probably knew it was there.”
Yet that's only the beginning. You have to read, or think you've read, your own paper. You also have to have had early morning sight of its rivals. Scan, ponder, reach for the phone, take a shower and head off to work by the time it's 9 a.m. (at least two hours after you started to think and read). So the day begins with management meeting to discuss coming budgets, which need to be cut.Then there's a staff meeting to explain why such cuts are necessary and a rendezvous with an in-house libel lawyer trying to resolve a dispute that arose when you were on holiday nine months ago. Later, there's debate with a second lawyer about the terms available for voluntary layoffs and a visit from the union, threatening action if the dismissals go ahead and insisting on better severance terms if they do.
Journalists themselves always like to hear from editors and besiege them with requests. Fit in a little hiring and firing and humanity between the cracks, and the morning has gone in a flash.
The afternoon, of course, is just the same. The meetings that couldn't fit in at 11 a.m. take the chance at 3 p.m.. The secretary who couldn't get you to return four urgent calls from irate readers (protesting about something you haven't registered yet) gets a moment of your attention at last.
There will be meetings about content, future and imminent. What's on the magazine list for next week? The features list for tomorrow? Can you read this copy and see whether we need to call a lawyer? Can you read this column and see whether you understand it?
Now add one further ingredient for bad luck.
The routine above might not have changed much in detail for a decade or more. But the descant to this routine – changing minute by minute – is in profound flux. You're the editor responsible, right? So you are responsible for the paper's Web site, for thousands of extra words from hundreds of extra sources, changing by the minute and aiming to keep changing day and night. Here's the possible turned to impossible. Here's a job and a role where none of the myths fit any longer.
Of course, no one pleads such incredible burdens in a court or boardroom crisis. How can you stand up and say you were too busy, too overwhelmed, by events? (Even if it is true.) Different countries have different ways of coping. America tends to split the news and comment roles between two while others still lump responsibility on a single bowed head. There's a constant search to find ways of dealing with digital overload, but when push comes to shove, we've barely acknowledged the problem, let alone solved it.
Last year the bright young number three at one of our London papers, the Daily Telegraph, caused a stir with his plans to integrate print and online staffs around the day in a giant room via a series of desks arranged like the spokes of a wheel. The editor of the newspaper, he declared, would remain unchallenged in his traditional role. But he (the number three) would take total command of podcasts, videos, mobile phone services and online versions. Integration meant a rational division of roles and duties. Except that, two months later, the number three got promoted to the editor's chair – whereupon he took back control of everything.
He was right in the beginning. The need to rethink not just online life at the bottom, but online life from the top down, is overwhelming. But he was also right in the end. We've tried to think through integration for years and have not made a very convincing argument. We're reluctant to confuse readers, our staff or ourselves by dividing the ancient kingdoms and ruling in new ways. Yet, sometime very soon, the attempt will have to be made. It may come after some disaster (of Jayson Blair proportions in a New York Times sense) when the crime that got away is too gross to be ignored. It may come when some brave editors restructure a more plausible job for themselves.
One thing is certain, though. We can't go on like this – building empires of lesser editors with grander titles and pretending that we've solved a problem that begins every day at 7 a.m., when our own alarm clock rings.
Peter Preston
Global Journalist columnist Peter Preston is editorial director of the Guardian Media Group and was the chairman of IPI from 1995 to 1997.