English language journalism in India has inevitably seen the decline or relative marginalization of marquee editors. The inevitability is usually linked to the manner in which media owners have come to treat senior journalists. The argument runs somewhat along the following lines: Owners increasingly want a greater control of the operations of the paper because they want to pursue a safe editorial policy, which cannot be done if there is a strong personality as editor who enjoys a clout outside the organization and is looked upon as an intellectual or moral force to reckon with.
The variations on this theme are that the editor has necessarily to be a lapdog of the owner because there is envy among owners towards editors who are more famous or forceful and who might demand editorial independence, which the owners are not willing to grant. After all the financial stakes are just too high. While there is some merit to this view, the editorial workflow, which is often neglected in media criticism that usually responds to particular instances of reporting, provides some other reasons that deserve notice.
The sheer increase in the number of publications has meant that there is a demand for competent journalists. Competence in the world of English language journalism, as opposed to the Indian language press, turns on two incompatible skills. On the one hand, one needs people on the desk who are linguistically competent and can deliver error free pages. This requires a particular kind of education and knowledge that typically comes from those educated in English-medium schools who have not chosen other more safer and lucrative career options. One often hears the lament that even those who secure a high first in their baccalaureate examinations in English are wanting in language skills. On the other hand, those who are called upon to report necessarily need to have some understanding of Indian languages and a desire to rough it out in the hurly burly of reporting. It is atypical to find people of the first kind, the subbing kind, wanting to be reporters. So the people who are drawn to reporting do not have the requisite language skills to report in English and yet they are the best honed to gather information.
The problem in bringing out a daily newspaper then is one of carrying out the translation of the reporting team into a grammatically correct read. The importance of the sub, and those from among their ranks, cannot but be emphasized in such a scenario. The person who has some verbal facility and can run a desk is best suited to bring out a newspaper, and hence is most likely to be elevated to the editor’s chair. Such an elevation is more an organizational imperative than a journalistic one. It is not that these people because of the time spent as subs have some social ethics or understanding needed to be good editors, but they have the much-needed training to churn out the newspaper.
The problems that arise out of such a newsroom is that the reporter has to exchange his pen for managerial responsibilities. Since we do not have the practice, prevalent in many countries, of letting a good reporter continue to do that job and give her commensurate remuneration, the choice for a reporter who aspires both a financially better future and professional esteem is to move towards becoming a newsroom manager. Such managing is often given to those who would be better utilized, or feel challenged and invigorated doing reportorial tasks. But professional mobility demands that they give up reporting for the desk jobs. Journalism suffers.
The reporting team is adversely affected. One, the person leaves a professional interest and hence the newspaper loses a good reporter. Two, the team loses someone who could have mentored both in the newsgathering and writing process. The importance of mentoring in the newsgathering process is crucial to improvement on the job. Also, it sends a signal to those entering the profession that the ladder starts not so much at the reporting desk but at the subbing table.
The editor’s job, then, becomes less about providing leadership in terms of ideas, focus, and direction to the newsroom and more of delivering a newspaper to the production department. And this becomes more a managerial function than a leadership function. In such a scenario editors can be replaced seamlessly without any visible change in the newspaper because the task is ensuring that the shop floor delivers smoothly. Instead of merely blaming owners for the kind of editors that English language publications give us, it might be a beginning if some serious thought goes into reorganizing the newsroom, putting in place an incentive structure that will bring out the best journalism, and making more demands on the desk than just high school English.
