The Death of the Editor

by Bikram Vohra
Editorial integrity, as we once knew it, died long back and no one really noticed. Like those doves they shoot and mark with crimson to denote peace or swords rusting in their own glory. Much the same way, senior journalists sold their souls to the highest bidder and turned Faustian. It all began when editors per se betrayed the cause. Like Mark Anthony leaving the battle of Actium to chase Cleopatra, these fourth estate mandarins dumped their staffs and galloped off after filthy lucre. Admirable was the fact that they could gallop with bended knees.
Before you knew it, editors had become representatives of the management instead of being the fierce front-liners for their sad little flock of scribes. They cheerfully sacrificed their charges to survive in their jobs and so the moat was breached. We had lost the good fight and we still are largely held at ransom by our own.
The chasm between the editor’s salary and the next five put together was indicative of the growing caste system in journalism. Naturally, any sporadic attempt to bridge with a scoop or a strong report met with disaster. No, we cannot run this became the mantra in the newsroom. As newspaper owners realized that these journalists of the 21st century were men and women largely made of straw and easy to buy and sell, they predicated editorial policy to their business interests and the editor today is just another guard dog for the same interests. News is censored in-house and you can cry yourself hoarse but it is true. Elitist editors have made it so. The 100 member party-going, cigar-smoking, pontificating little rabbits who run the media mafia can be body stripped and searched and you will be hard placed to find a soupcon of moral courage in them.
With no one to back it, Editorial is often seen as an increasingly necessary evil that has to be tolerated by other departments and if the proprietors could do away with it entirely they probably would.
As a matter of fact this idea has been advocated by a very high profile owner of an Indian publishing house on the premise that a newspaper can be brought out untouched by dirty journalistic hands. Since professional Public Relations staff write better and do more home work than their journalistic counterparts and get a lot more money for doing so, all you need are technicians, not newshounds. Regrettably, as a tribe we are offering to Caesar so much space without Caesar even asking for it that very soon we will ourselves be only technicians totally besotted by the call to survive the day rather than seize it.
Excuse me, can you give me one more freebie goody-bag for my brother.
How has all this happened? What weakness within allowed us to be marginalized and is this, like global warming, just a phase? No hall of fame, clay feet in our bosses and deep and abiding insecurity have made us a pretty pathetic bunch.
Yet, there is hope. After 40 years on the business I would like to find some warm sanctuary in that thought. After all, TV killed the radio and the radio has come back with a vengeance. They said newspapers would be dead when we went into news overdrive and the Net linked up with the telly and the mobile phone to inundate us with a nonstop tsunami of information. Our synapses crackled and popped and we are now deep into news fatigue.
The newspaper, the magazine, the niche publication have been bruised and battered but they did not lie down like battle-weary troops and die. They are still there. So there must be some magic, some residual wunderbar about the published word that is forged in a special crucible. The touch, the texture, the intimacy of the paper and the printing, the artwork and the design, the inside story, the ability to return to it at will and as often as you like, all combine to create an awesome staying power.
Unfortunately, half a generation of good writers has run to the glamour of TV. Many more have found it financially pleasing to join the glossies and a fair amount of potential has dribbled into PR and the devil take your hind leg, it pays the bills, mate.
This is the period of transition. Not enough writers, columnists, commentators in the ranks. Too many youngsters seeking fame and bylines before they have taken off their diapers. Weak hierarchies, weaker editors who don’t or cannot write, too much emphasis on ‘how the paper looks’ than ‘how it reads.’ Advertising spurs the product, leaving the journalists vulnerable and often defenceless. Marketing is more important any way you cut it.
It will change. It always does. And the same technology that sidelined the print media will bring it back into the game. In fact, the worst is over. The new generation is heap smart. Slick, armed with savvy and the smarts, with easy access to information, enjoying the arrogance of youth and not afraid to say it like it is. And they have begun to read books again and turn away from their woofers and tweeters and 5-speaker surround systems. This is a global phenomenon where the dynamics of the world are no longer insular. You cannot shut the window on the new winds. Truly, the newspaper and the magazine will return to their old glory if those who work in it respect themselves and don’t sell themselves to the company store. It is the surrender to mediocrity that is our worst enemy. That and the need to find good leaders to plough the field, not those who kneel at the financial altar and bargain us away for cheap.
This article on the demise of the Editor first appeared in Impact (http://impactonnet.com)