LORD BEAVERBROOK ON GREAT EDITORS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18871, 25 May 1923, Page 5

LORD BEAVERBROOK ON GREAT EDITORS

“The great editor must think with_ the people. That is why visualisation is a sure sign of talent in the boy, while the possession of style is so often a will-o'-the-wisp,” says Lord Beaverbrook in the Sunday express. “To put the matter in a slightly different form, what is required is the ‘ mass touch.’ If the young journalist had to ask the fairies for a gift, it is exactly this power he ought to choose. “Nothing will stop the journalist who possesses it. But the fact remains that this fundamental quality of the editor seems to belong in the main to men who have not made choice of the academic career as an ■ avenue into Fleet street. The conclusion which must inevitably be drawn from the lists I shall give is that a public school and university course is no advantage to the journalist who aspires to be an editor, and may possibly be an actual hindrance. The evidence suggests that the more famous the school or the more historic the university the less chance the student possesses of the editorial chair. And this is particularly curious, because one might expect editors to be chosen from the class which has been .through public school' or at least university. Yet how does the matter stand according to ‘ Who’s Who’T I. “London editors who have no public school or university training: 1. Daily Express, R. D. Blumenfeld. 2. Daily Chronicle, E. A. Perris. 3. Daily Telegraph, Sir J. M. Le Sage. 4. The Morning Post, H. A. Gwynne. 5. Sunday Times, Leonard Rees. 6. Sunday Express, James Douglas. 7. The Observer, J. L. Gavin. 8. Weekly Despatch, Bernard Falk. 9. The People, Robert Donald. 10. Evening Standard, James Heddle. 11. The Star, Wilson Pope. A Class of One.— “The second list of London editors comprises those who, while educated at public schools and universities, would, however wrongly, hardly pass the test applied by the Eton, Rugby, and Oxford, or the Harrow, Winchester, and Cambridge public school and university men. n. 1. Daily Mail) T. Marlowe, Queen’s College, Galway. 2. Evening News, C. J. Beattie—Robert Gordon’s College, Aberdeen ; Aberdeen University. 3. Daily News, J r S. Hodgson—Christ College, Brecon; Queen’s College, Oxford. 4. Pall Mall Gazette, D; M. Sutherland, Edinburgh University. “The final class consists of one single individual.

The Times, Geoffrey Dawson— Eton; Magdalen College, Oxford. “It will be observed that the greatest number of London editors have had no regular scholastic education at all, that the smaller schools and university foundations supply the residue, and that the highest traditional form of education boasts only one.

“The moral is obvious. The great majority of the editors are the men who began on the news and on the practical side. They have outpaced in the struggle the university graduate, who is apt to come to Fleet street in the role of a man of letters interested in public affairs. “The youth who aspires to journalism should, therefore, begin at the very bottom rung of the ladder, and, starting as a reporter, should go through the whole weary round of sub-editing before ho can hope to be a news editor. For not 'only will he learn in this way the whole technique of his profession, but he will be in constant touch with the actual raw material of hie trade—the news.”