The Need for Editorial Independence

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 1, 17 January 1944, Page 9

The Need for Editorial Independence

There is no mechanical formula by which newspapers can be made worthy of their high responsibility in a modern democracy ; and a State press would be a mockery of press and democracy alike. But there are two simple rules by which the conditions might be established to allow right-minded and able newspaper men, without ignoring the commercial motives that must operate in every industry, to do their best work. The first looks backwards ; it is the old tradition of the best age of British journalism, summed up in C. P. Scott’s phrase—the treatment of news honestly, accurately and objectively, distinguishing, as the editor of The Spectator has recently urged, between the important and the trivial ; and the rigid, punctilious, unvarying separation of news from views, whether editorial or proprietorial. The second looks forward. Is it too much to expect that the great magnates of the newspaper world, some of them already deeply conscious of their duty to the community, may be prepared, while surrendering none of their proprietorial control over the balance-sheet, to abate their control over editorial policy ? As has been said, some boards and proprietors have, in effect, done so already. This is the right road ; but more is needed to give the assurance that is needed. The goal should be the general restoration of the conditions of virtual independence in which the best of British editors have flourished ; and the best means, undoubtedly, would be the general settingup of boards of independent trustees, to hold the proprietors’ powers of control in commission, to oversee and protect editors and their staffs, and to reconcile divergences between editorial and commercial considerations.