How Editors are managed

By KEWAL VARMA
Editors can be broadly divided into two categories: those with substantial circulations spread over large areas of the country; and those with regional circulations. The latter, naturally, have smaller circulations, though there are exceptions (the best example being the Ananda Bazar Patrika). However, both kinds of editors have trouble with two sets of people: the Government and the managements. The views of Government and owners are not necessarily the same, but on one point most owners of publications seem to agree: that their editors should not take criticism of Government too far. And they agree on this because most owners are vulnerable: having business interests apart from news papers, they are aware that if Government wants to, it can create significant barriers between them and their profits from other factories.
No one would deny the owner of a newspaper group the right to choose his editors, but at what point does this begin to hurt the fundamental duty of the Press, and how does one prevent an owner from crossing this point? No one, equally, can deny the right of a management to remove an editor but is there any recourse for an editor if he is removed on unethical grounds? The editor’s job may look glamorous, and indeed it has its rewards, but it is also one of the least protected jobs in the publishing industry. (Would it be more honest if all owners simply became the editors of their publications too? These tensions often find their worst expression when an editor has to leave. The best and most enlightened of managements have often behaved atrociously with departing editors. We think that- this subject should be discussed frankly, without prejudice to anyone, with honesty. And for this reason we have decided to name names. We would welcome it if the managements named here would reply: we will publish their rep
lies equally prominently. We would be happy if SUNDAY became a vehicle for a public debate on this important, crucial, issue.

 

EDITORS are treated as condoms. After using them, proprietors discard them. This is the sad truth about Indian journalism. Yet, editors are the strangest species. in this animal world. They lack fellow feeling despite the common experience of humiliation they suffer at the bands of proprietors. One editor often becomes a tool -in the hands of the management to humiliate his predecessor. Last week, SUNDAY narrated how shabbily Khuswant Singh was treated by his management. But what happened to Chalapathi Rau of the National Herald, into whose shoes Khushwant Singh stepped? Few people could have been more loyal than Chalapathi Rau has been to the Nehru family for the past 40 years. Many a time, against his conscience, he stood like a rock not only by Jawaharlal Nehru but by his daughter also. The only principled line he drew was on Mr Sanjay Gandhi: he did not go- out of his way to build up the rising star of the Emergency.
On his superannuation, Chalapathi Rau was rewarded for his services and made chairman of the board of editors. But the management did not show him the elementary courtesy of informing him about the appointment of Sardar Khushwant Singh as his successor. Thus was despite the fact that earlier he had acted as a cat’s paw of the company’s managing director, Yashpal Kapoor, a notorious member of the Emergency caucus, to sack a conscientious and an unassuming editor of National Herald, C. N. Chittaranjan. If Rau’s past record is any guide, there is every reason to believe that Chalapathi Rau would have gone to any length to fulfill the management’s wishes to make Sardarji a success in National Herald. But this was not to be so. He had to go. This might be excused, but how can one excuse the manner in which this was done? In the 'glorious' traditions of newspaper management, he was sent out in a most rude fashion. One day last month, Chalapathi Rau’s stenographer was on leave. As usual, he wrote his editorial.
But the management gave instructions to all typists in the office to refuse to type out his editorial. Chalapathi Rau, like any other journalist, likes to see his writing in print, so he ignored the hint of the management. He sent down his handwritten manuscript to the press. But the management’s arm reaches a long way. Instructions had been sent to the press the linotype operator refused to compose the handwritten piece. The same day, when Rau was leaving office, the management did not allow him the use of the office car. The heartbroken Chalapathi was seen off for the last time from the more over which he had presided for 40 years by only peon.
This was too much to bear even f or Chalapathi Rau. He wrote a letter terminating his association with National Herald to the company’s chairman, Charanjit Singh, the former Coca Cola king of Delhi, with a copy to Indira Gandhi. Asking that National Herald stop forthwith carrying his printline, Chalapathi Rau wrote: I am not writing it in bitterness. This is a short epitaph, which can later be extended, of 40 years of dedicated and frustrated journalism. I promise to forget National Herald.. .I hope there will be no second cremation of Jawaharlal Nehru under new auspices and the value and traditions which he loved will be upheld and his name will continue to appear as founder of the newspaper. Commenting on Khuswant Singh's appointment, Chalapathi Rau, though he was the chairman of the board of editors, said: I learnt it as a rumour.
As in Chalapathi Rau’s case, editorship has proved to be a graveyard of the self-respect of many a stalwart. Editorship is, indeed, professionally the most hazardous and tenuous assignment. Once G. N. Sahi, the former all-powerful general manager of the Birla-owned Hindustan Times group of publications (he in fact designated himself as managing editor of the Hindi daily, Hindustan) boasted that editors should be changed every three or four years. My paper (Hindust an Times) sells not because of the editor but because of matrimonial advertisements, he added confidently. In fact K.K. Birla, who succeeded his father G. D. Birla as the chairman of the company, put this idea of the length of an editor’s tenure in writing. In a letter to B. G. Verghese, to prepare the ground for his ouster, K. K. Birla wrote that as a matter of principle, no editor should stay for more than four or five years. Interestingly enough, this profound advice came from a person, who only a little while ago had defended publicly the hereditary type of management. If a Prime Minister’s daughter could be a Prime Minister, he had said, ‘Why can’t a company chairman’s son be a chairman?’ He echoed similar views in a recent article in his Hindustan Times. K.K. Birla is so wedded to this idea that he willingly became one of the brains behind Sanjay Gandhi during the Emergency.
The Birlas have made and unmade their editors too often. Of course, till Gandhiji’s son and Rajaji’s son-in-law, Devdas Gandhi was alive, the Birlas could not have their way. He remained the managing editor of the Hindustan Times till his death in the mid-Fifties. He was succeeded by Durga Das, whose Insaf column was a great hit in those days. Das earned the wrath of Nehru by constantly sniping at Dr Radhakrishnan, who was then the Vice President, at the instigation of Rajendra Prasad and Gobind Ballabh Pant. The Birlas then thought it, wise to ease out Durga Das and bring in S. Mulgaokar.
But by the time Mulgaokar joined, Nehru’s stars had started dwindling in the wake of the Chinese intransigence. The new editor launched a virulent anti-Nehru, anti-Krishna Menon and anti-China campaign (Mulgaokar has today become a convert to peace and friendship with China). When the anti-China fever subsided in the country and Nehru re-established his political supremacy, the utility of Mulgaokar was over. Thus started the process of easing out Mulgaokar. He was made chief editor, and Krishan Bhatia, who was known to be close to Gulzarilal Nanda. then the Home Minister, was brought as editor in 1963. Gradually Bhatia was made the effective editor and for Mulgaokar a new weekly Week end Review was floated. But the management, particularly the circulation department, saw to it the new weekly flopped. A frustrated Mulgaokar cut short his professional pursuit and took to poultry farming in 1969.
But a little later, G. L. Nanda lost his Home portfolio: Krishan Bhatia’s fortunes declined correspondingly. He- was sent to Washington and Ajit Bhattacharjea was brought in. By that time, the Birlas were in hot water, politically. The Young Turks, led b’ Chandrashekhar, had started a strident anti-Birla campaign. This led to the setting up of the Sarkar Commission to investigate into acts of omission and commission by monopoly houses, with particular reference to the Birlas. As a defensive mechanism, the Birlas needed a person who had greater pull than Ajit Bhattacharjea with the powers-that-be. In those days the Birlas’ choice naturally fell on George Verghese, who was then principal information adviser to the Prime Minister. He was brought over the head of Ajit Bhattacharjea and made the chief editor. Bhattacharjea felt humiliated and left Hindustan Times.
Unfortunately for the Birlas, George Verghese’s utility was over much sooner than they had expected. Soon after he joined Hindustan Times, came the 1969 split and Indira Gandhi changed the gear of her policies. Verghese was not in tune with those policies. In 1974, the foundation stones story was written, exposing the indiscriminate manner in which Indira Gandhi had been laying foundation stones of non-existent projects on the eve of the UP and Orissa Assembly elections. This, naturally, earned the wrath of the PM. The last straw on the camel’s back was Verghese's editorial attacking the mer ger of Sikkim with India. This provided a convenient handle to the Birlas to serve a quit notice on Verghese But the Hindustan Times journalist union took the case to the Press Council, and later to the High Court. The Delhi High Court gave a judgement -which in effect meant that while the editor was free to write, the management was free to hire and fire the editor. The management did not hesitate: On the day the judgement was delivered, the Hindustan Times general manager gave the dismissal letter to Verghese on the staircase when he was going home in the evening. In his place was brought Hiranmay Karlekar, on the recommendation of Siddartha Shankar Ray, who is now chief attorney of the House of the Birlas. It should be -remembered that at that time Ray had not yet fallen from the grace of Sanjay Gandhi and, hence, his mother.
OTHER newspaper houses have similar stories. Mr R.N. Goenka is the owner of the largest chain of news papers; let’s see what happens in the Express House. He brought Frank Moraes as the chief editor of the Indian Express after Moraes was eased out from the Times of India when he earned the wrath of Morarji Desai, who was then the Chief Minister of Bombay Presidency. Goenka would patronisingly call Moraes 'My Dilip Kumar' (Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan were not superstars then). But when Moraes retired as editor and was sent to London as correspondent, the company would not even pay the cost of carrying his books. Earlier,) Moraes used to have what was virtually a blank cheque. Moraes was replaced by - Mulgaokar, who, on his super-annuation, was then working in South East Asia. (Goenka seems to have a fascination, for superannuated persons as editors; he can perhaps establish an equation with people his age more easily.) Came the Emergency. The senior Goenka was laid up with a serious heart attack. The Government forced K.K. Birla as the chairman of the Express company to discipline Goenka. K.K. Birla and V.C. Shukla pressurised Goenka’s son, B.D. Goenka to throw out Mulgaokar, who had been refusing to lend positive support to the Emergency, ‘being, at best, neutral. V. K. Narasimhan. who was then editor of the sister publication Financial Express, was made concurrently the editor of Indian Express in the hope that he would be more pliable. But Narasimhan’s idli-dosa outward appearance proved to be deceptive. He fought against the Emergency most valiantly and raised the prestige of Indian Express sky high. As a result, during the elections last year, Indian Express registered a tremendous increase in circulation. But within a week of the Janata Government taking over, one fine morning when Narasimhan came to office, there was a stir in the editorial room. A supplement was being printed, and without Narasimhan's knowledge his printline as editor was changed: the new editor was Mulgaokar. That is the way Narasimhan was rewarded by Goenka. A more astonishing story is that of Nandan Kagal, a youthful’ resident editor, who died in harness. The office in its, generosity, met his funeral expenses. But when the overall settlement was being made with his widow, the management wanted to cut its expenditure on the funeral from Kagal’s gratuity; With great difficulty it was persuaded to relent.
And in Bombay recently we had an instance shoddy treatment of an editor, in another group. When C. S. Pandit was appointed editor of the Free Press Journal, one of the reasons was because he was thought to be close to I. K. Gujral, then the Information and Broadcasting Minister. The owners probably thought that as a resuIt of this gesture the Government would withdraw its nominees from the. Free Press Journal board of directors, and DAVP would give additional advertisements. But nothing of the sort materialised. The management felt cheated. Nor did anything spectacular happen to the circulation of the paper and Pandit began receiving pinpricks. His office car was withdrawn. He was then asked to stand in queue along with the juniormost employees to collect his monthly salary. One day, while he was returning home, he was searched by the gatekeeper on the instructions of the top management, in the same manner as the press workers are searched to ensure that they do not resort to pilferage of lead and newsprint.
However, after demanding the resignation of Mrs Gandhi in a frontpage editorial following the Allahabad High Court judgment, Pandit started supporting the Emergency in his columns. He thus became one of the navarattans of the Indira regime. (According to revelations made in the Shah Commission, Pandit was one of the nine top journalists who were being considered for app ointment to sensitive posts during the Emergency). This provided a protective shield to Pandit. But soon after the Janata victory, the management was after Pandit’s blood. One evening when he was leaving for home, the administrative officer came and handed over to him the letter of dismissal.
THE plight of editors of non-English papers has been still worse. Vivekapanda Mukherjee, who was an institution in Bengali journalism, was sacked from Jugantar after a letter supporting the Chinese case was published in the paper. In Hindi, such stalwart editors as P. R. Khadilkar, Lakshman Narayan Garde, Bhagwati Charan Varma and Khan Chand Gautam were dismissed most unceremoniously. P. R. Khadilkar was dismissed from Aaj and his proprietor Satyendra Kumar Gupta became the editor. Gupta justified it by asserting that, Khadilkar is B.Sc.; I am also B.Sc. If he can be the editor, I can also be the editor. Lakshman Narayan Garde was one of the Trimurti of Hindi journalism, the other two being Ambika Prasad Vajpayee and Baburao Paradkar One morning, Garde was doing his Geeta path. A peon from his Navjeevan office came with one month’s salary and a letter from the general manager that his resignation had been accepted. But Garde had not resigned. However, he followed the Geeta’s tenets and accepted the fait accomplish without protest. More recently, Akshay Kumar Jam, editor of a premier Hindi daily, Navbharat Times, met a similar fate. He was a blue-eyed boy of the Sahu Jams as long as Mrs. Gandhi Gandhi ruled the country. He got two extensions after retirement age. But after Mrs Gandhi lost things became difficult for Akshay Kumar Jain in the Bennett, Coleman & Company. He was refused further extension and in his place H. S. Vatsayan, older in age to Akshay Kumar Jam, was brought in. The reason: Vatsayan is close to Lok Nayak Jayapra kash Narayan.
LEST the impression may go round that hiring and firing editors in a most shabby manner is the prerogative of only unsophisticated institutions and the non-English Press’ we will now talk about one of the most prestigious newspapers. The Statesman. When the last Englishman left, and the management passed into Indian hands, Pran Chopra, every inch a burra sahib, was appointed its editor. He maintained the traditions of honesty. During a strike in Jamshedpur, an industrial zamandari of the Tatas, The Statesman took an anti-Tata position, even though the House of the Tatas was - the single largest shareholder in The Statesman. Chopra even refused to give credence to the Tata version. This was the beginning of misunderstanding between the editor and the management. A most authentic version of what happened subsequently is provided by an eminent jurist, M. C. Setalvad, in his autobiography, My Life. We reproduce below the full extract from the book relating to The Statesman controversy:
My chairmanship of the board of trustees of The Statesman Ltd. received a somewhat rude, though not unexpected, shock in the latter part of 1968. The story is interesting, as showing how difficult it is for industrialist proprietors of a newspaper to give editorial freedom to its editor, and how the experiment so honestly and laudably launched by the industrialists who had re-organised The Statesman in 1963 failed. Probably, this novel experiment owed its origin to the Tatas, and particularly, to J. R. D. Tata, the chief of the far-flung Tata complex, who enjoys a deserved reputation as the most liberal and enlightened of Indian industrialists. It was, therefore, truly a matter of regret that it should have been brought to an end principally at the hands of the House of the Tatas.
It was customary tor the trustees to meet once or twice a year at Calcutta, and the trustees’ meetings were, as a rule, preceded by a lunch by the chairman of the board of directors, at which the trustees met the directors. After the re-organisation, Charlton, who had been the deputy editor of the paper, was offered the appointment of editor for three years from the 1st of April, 1964, on the expiry of the term of the then editor. Soon after Charlton’s appointment, one could hear at the usual lunch given by the directors comments in regard to the editorial policy of the paper. Sir Jehangir Ghandy, who was then the chairman of the board of directors, representing the Tatas, and other directors frequently talked of the unfavourable impression which the editorial policy of the paper was having upon certain Ministers. This fact was evidently troubling them and Sir Jehangir Ghandy desired that the trustees should consider the policy pursued by the editor. Thereupon, the trustees invited Charlton to their meeting and decided that they should have information from the editor as regards the freedom allowed to editors in democratic countries. Mr Charlton having submitted to us a detailed note on the subject, the trustees looked, at -the next meeting at the various editorial comments made by Charlton and were of the view that the policy pursued by him was in accordance with the requirements of the articles of association.
S. M. Bose, one of the trustees, having resigned the trusteeship for reasons of health, the trustees had, under the articles, to fill the vacancy. Sir Jehangir Ghandy, representing the Tatas, suggested to me that I should invite Palkhivala, who was connected with the Tata organisation, to be a trustee. This obviously was inappropriate, because the trustees were supposed to be independent of the industrialist proprietary of the newspaper. I suggested the appointment of S. R. Das, the retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court with his consent, as a trustee in the vacancy which had arisen, and the suggestion was accepted by all the trustees.
Charlton having retired, the directors decided in January, 1967, to appoint Pran Chopra, who was already on the editorial staff, to be the editor. This resolution of the directors was approved by the trustees.
The general elections of 1967 brought into power in West Bengal the United Left Front, and, apparently, the editor’s handling of the ULF news items and its policy was not liked by some of the directors. I remember J. R. D. Tata and Palkhivala seeing me in this connection at my residence and complaining of the manner in which the editor, Chopra, was editing the paper and publishing news reports, which, they said, clearly showed a Communist bias. They suggested that the trustees should meet and change the editor. I pointed out to them that the directors should have thought of this before appointing Chopra in 1967 and entering into a term agreement with him. However, I promised to convene a trustees’ meeting to consider the matter.
Before the meeting, which took place in October, 1967, we met, as usual, the board of directors at lunch, the chairman of the board at the time being Sir Biren Mukherji. The policy of the paper was again discussed, but the directors did not all seem to be of one mind. At the trustees’ meeting, which took place the following day, we considered the comments of some of the directors against the editorial policy and the news items published in the paper. We sent for Chopra, and, after examining the relevant editorial comments and, news items in discussion with him, we reached the conclusion that the policy pursued by The Statesman was in no manner a deviation from the policy prescribed by Article 82 of the company’s Articles of Association’.
The attempt to get the trustees to control or remove Chopra having failed, the next chairman of the board of directors, Palkhivala, an eminent lawyer concerned with some of the Tata concerns, seems to have thought of putting an end to the whole trouble by the legal device of amending the Articles and getting rid of the trustees altogether. That course was certainly permissible for the directors to adopt, as representing the shareholders, if they thought it right to do so in the interests of the concern. But the way in which this was done struck me as most improper. Instead of approaching the trustees and informing them of the desire of the board of directors to amend the articles by omitting the scheme which had brought in the trustees, the directors passed a resolution without communicating with the trustees to amend the articles so as to delete all references to the trustees in the articles. The first intimation of this fact which I received was a letter from Palkhivala in July, 1968, informing me that the directors had resolved at their last meeting to call an extraordinary general meeting of the company at the end of August, 1968. for deleting the provisions in the articles relating to the trustees. I wrote in reply, complaining of the manner in which the trustees had been treated by the directors. I said: ‘If the directors were of the view that the scheme of management under which the policy of the newspaper was entrusted to the trustees had not worked satisfactorily, they could certainly have intimated this view to the trustees at a meeting or otherwise, and the trustees would have had no option but to bow themselves out of the trust. Instead of doing this, however, a procedure has been adopted, which appears to us to be. highly improper and discourteous. It gives the impression of a dismissal of the trustees by the backdoor.’
The view I expressed in my letter had the approval of some of the trustees whom I consulted, one of them being- S. R. Das. He had said in a letter to me: ‘I fully agree with your views. I have sent a telegram to -you this morning, reading Your draft approved.. ..I agreed to be a trustee at your request, little did I anticipate that we would be so shabbily treated.’
The episode excited a great deal of comment in the Indian as well as the foreign Press. The London Times having given a fairly accurate account of what had happened, stated: ‘The directors, among whom are represented India’s wealthy Tata and Mafatlal families, objected to any support for the Mukherjee regime, no matter how legalistic, but the trustees upheld Mr Chopra. The directors under newly-appointed chairman, Palkhivala, decided to do away with the board of trustees altogether, and designated a managing director. A directors’ statement in Calcutta said: The editor has always enjoyed the customary and reasonable degree of editorial independence which is necessary to enable him to discharge his functions as editor and fulfill his obligations towards the policy of the newspaper. There will be no change in this position and the enlarged board of directors, including the two former eminent trustees, will continue to discharge its responsibilities for safeguarding policy without impinging upon the necessary
editorial independence within the overall policy.
Confirming that he had refused to join the amalgamated board, Mr Setalvad said: I told them it was absurd to kick us out at one end, and to invite us to come back at the other end.
I should, have mentioned earlier that, at a later stage Palkhivala wrote to me and also personally invited me to join the board of directors as its chairman, which I felt, in the circumstances, right to decline. Great was my surprise when I found that S. R. Das who had told me that the trustees had been ‘shabbily treated’ had agreed to be the chairman of the board of directors!
After Chopra was sacked, C. R. Irani brought in N. J. Nanporia, who was earlier eased out of Times of India following his letter to Jawaharlal Nehru complaining against interference by the company’s chairman, Shanti Prasad Jam, in editorial affairs. But soon between Nanporia and Irani became estranging Nanporia formally complained to the board against Irani. The board sided with Nanporia and Irani decided to quit The Statesman. He even got a job as general manager of Macmillan. But right at that point Siddhartha Shankar Ray intervened on his behalf and persuaded the board that Irani was the only bulwark against Communists in West Bengal, and in his absence he was not sure whether The Statesman editor would continue to support the Congress Government in West Bengal or not. The board reversed its earlier decision and persuaded Irani to stay on, and gave him the additional charge of editorial administration. Thus. was delivered the final blow on the freedom and status of The Statesman editor. Irani, with his new powers, made Nanporia’s life miserable. But still Nanporia would not leave. Nanporia’s contract was to expire on September 30, 1976. Till the last minute, Nanporia was being assured that the renewal of his contract was just a formality. But on the evening of September 29, Nanporia got a letter saying that the management had decided not to renew the contract. Irani also started humiliating people who were supposed to be close to Nanporia. One of them was Kuldip Nayar. From resident editor of the Delhi edition, Kuldip Nayar was made political editor on the ‘understanding’ that he would be free to move about the country to report developments. But when Kuldip Nayar wanted to go to Ahmedabad to study the Gujarat agitation, the management refused the permission on the grounds of financial stringency. One morning when Kuldip Nayar came to his office he found his direct telephone h-ad been rem oved and transferred to the production manager. Kuldip Nayar left The Statesman in disgust and joined Indian Express.
The one legitimate grievance owners might have is against editors who hang on to their jobs at the cost of the publication, particularly the circulation. But this is rarely the reason why an editor is removed. The general reason why an editor and the management, particularly in large groups, part ways is political differences, or criticism of authority. (Which editor has been removed for supporting the Government ?!) The specific instances which actually provoked dismissal may sometimes seem insignificant, as indeed they are. But behind the last straw is generally a history of squabbling and tension and petty vindictiveness which becomes the material for gossip in the corridors of newspaper office buildings and towers.
ONE of the major reasons why editors in India have to suffer humiliation at the hands of proprietors is that interlocking of industry and business with the Press is much greater in this country than in most other countries. There are not many newspaper magnates who do not have other business interests. (Interestingly, when it comes to declaring his profession, Mr R. N. Goenka describes himself as journalist-industrialist.) The debilitating influence of this interlocking was underlined by Chalapathi Rau in his book, The Press in India in these words:
Here one difference between the proprietor or publisher in Britain and the United States, and the proprietor in India must be noted. The American publisher is usually trained or experienced in journalism and is as amenable to the influence of the editorial staff as they are to his. He stands by his publications and to the extent is answerable to the public. The Northcliffes and Beaverbrooks too are not only owners but publishers and journalists by temperament and experience. Not industrialists who have intruded into the newspaper industry. The developments in the Indian Press have been contrary; when the proprietor’s representative or manager in command has not had training or experience as a publisher, he is not competent to exercise editorial control without detriment to the paper. His constant interference reduces it to sausages or fish and chips. He might destroy overnight the personality of the newspaper which is a deposit of years.
The position of the Indian Press and its editors was, haps, most authentically described in the Press Commission Report of 1954. The Press Commission noted:
There has been a general decline in the status and independence of the editor, and this decline is noticeable particularly in the case of daily newspapers. In the past, it was quite usual for the majority of the readers to be both aware and conscious of the role played by the editor in the formulation of the views set out in a paper, and It was quite usual to refer to the paper .not merely by its name but by the name of the editor. Such was the impression of the personality of the editor on the contents of the newspaper that it could be sensed not merely in the leading articles and opinion columns but even in the news columns. The position has changed today and we feel that the bulk of the newspaper readers today may be even unaware of who is the editor of their newspaper and indifferent to the name that appears in small, print on the last page.
This decline is not entirely associated with the form of ownership. The gradual extinction of the individuality of the editor can be correlated, however, to the growth in the size of the newspaper and the volume - and variety of its contents. The modern newspaper is such a complex production that it is not possible for any one individual to be personally responsible for every item that goes into it and to which he has given a special shape or form which would be distinctly his own.
It has been mentioned to us- that this decline of the status of the editor has nowhere been greater than in the case of certain chain papers. We have found that, in almost every instance we have come across, the editors of individual papers or a group or chain, have been allowed considerable latitude in respect of their individual policies, and only when the personal or group interests of the management are directly affected, they are all instructed to conform to a particular opinion. Such cases would come under the category’ of - Interference by the proprietor, and there is not much to differentiate the editor in a group from the editor of a single unit. The picturesque remark was also made that the editor’s position in such cases was comparable to that of an inmate of a harem. If the intention of the witness was to suggest that the different editors vie with one another in order to seek favours of the proprietor, we would only say that such an attitude is to be condemned and would be the negation of the independence of the editor which we are trying so hard to establish.
We do not deny to the owner or proprietor his basic right to have his point of view expressed through the paper. This right has been admitted by almost all the journalists to whom we have addressed the question and, needless to say, has been emphasised by the proprietors also. What we are anxious to avoid is, however the transformation of the editor into the ‘literary agent of the proprietor'.
Instances in which changes of policy had been suggested by the proprietors in order that they may benefit by a turn of events have been mentioned to us in several cases. In one such instance, one of the partners in the newspaper concern had the impression that the chances of one particular political Party at the elections were very Bright, and the policy of the paper, which before had been supporting another Party, was switched over and a prominent leader of the Party in favour was brought on to the editorial staff. After the elections, when that Party did not fare well, as the proprietor was reported to have hoped for, the policy was changed again and the political leader was dropped from the staff.. In another case it was mentioned that in a paper in Bombay which had written critically about the defeat at the elections of a former Minister, the editor was asked by the proprietor to change his policy to one of support to Government, in the hope of getting advertisements from them. In another paper, also at
Bombay, we were told that on one occasion, alternative editorials, one by the proprietor, and one by the editor, were kept ready up to a late hour at night until the proprietor could decide whether he was going to attack or support a particular Party in local politics.
One editor told us that after he had published an editorial criticising the State Government he was told that the policy was to support that Government, and that a few days later he received a letter from the proprietor saying, It seems we differ with each other. So I put this question to you: What should we do? He said he caught the meaning of the letter and wrote back, I understand your meaning. We differ. So I am not going to your office, and left the services of the paper.
It would be rather naive to expect a newspaper or periodical run by a leading light of a chamber of commerce to advocate Communism, or support a proposal for expropriation of capital. It is, however, legitimate to demand that in reporting news of happenings it should not over-emphasise one side of a picture or black out another or otherwise distort a despatch so as to mislead the reader,
We find that proprietors have managed to occupy very much more space than they deserve. We have before us a collection of cuttings of a Calcutta paper which offends regularly and inexcusably in this manner. Publicity is given to the most trivial activities of the proprietor and his family and is reinforced by photographs of such doings. In attempting excessive publicity of this nature, the paper has displayed a deplorable lapse from the canons of good taste and propriety.