Max Hastings musings from his memoirs
Just finished reading Max Hastings’ Editor.
As well as recommending that an editor must rule with fear, Max Hstings, former editor of the Daily Telegraph and London’s Evening Standard, offers some insight into the role of an editor on a national.
“Don Berry brilliantly expressed a fundemental thought about the paper the other day: he said that other titles are in the business of telling people each morning that the world is a quite different place from what it was yesterday. The Daily Telegraph is much more in the business of reassurance, of providing confirmation each morning for our readers that their world is looking pretty safe and stable.”
“Three factors determine whether talented writers stay with a newspaper: money; space; and relentless stroking…our docial and comliant
writers were, by and large, our least effective…Every editor, every boss of anything must play favourites. There is simply not enough time to play favourites.”
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