Professional vs family editors?
Many journalists within the paper will welcome the move, even if Varadarajan’s rival claimants do not. The problem in the Hindu has always been, how far up the editorial ladder can a truly talented professional go?
THE HOOT examines the argument for a non-family editor
In the latest round of family warfare in the Hindu, editor in chief N Ram has clearly outwitted his siblings by suddenly pitchforking the large divided family and the paper they own into a debate on what the editorial structure of a family-owned newspaper should be. Supported by a majority on the family board, he has proposed that the paper usher in its first non family editor, the indisputably bright and competent Siddharth Varadarajan, currently the national bureau chief of the paper.
N Ram says in a letter to staff “Separation of ownership and management is a principle many successful organizations maintain, and when it comes to newspaper organizations, eight of the top ten English newspapers in the country have a non-family professional as Editor.” If one were to take the top ten papers in the country rather than the ten English ones, of course the picture would be quite different. Several leading family owned papers are edited by family members, the Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhaskar and Malayala Manorama included. The Hindustan, from the HT Media group is an exception.
If the shareholders of Kasturi and Sons Ltd on May 20 endorse the latest Board decision, Varadarajan will become editor of the Hindu, in place of the current editor N Ravi who is Ram’s younger brother and was waiting for him to retire to succeed him as chief editor. This was fairly mind boggling news for those who know what a staunch, family-owned bastion the Hindu is. And for those who work in it.
Will it be the right move for the wrong reasons?
The issue is complicated by the fact that a part of the family who have worked as journalists all their professional lives and are currently editors at the paper, are sought to be put out to pasture and relegated to being on an editorial board. The editor N Ravi brought the fight out into the open when he wrote to some colleagues, “In a sudden change of rules and under the specious plea of separating ownership from management, along with my removal as editor, Nirmala Lakshman is to be forced to “step down” as joint editor and Malini Parthasarathy as executive editor.”
There is also the matter of timing. The allegation is that when N Ram’s retirement is imminent he is choosing to force some of his kin out of day to day operations of the paper. Also, he will not step down at the same time, that is to happen later although he is older.
Nobody disputes the standing of this 132-year-old newspaper, and the family that has controlled it editorially and managerially all these years can take credit for hiring fine professionals and allowing serious journalism to flourish. And for building it up as the country’s third-largest English daily.
But even so many journalists within the paper will welcome the move, even if Varadarajan’s rival claimants do not. The problem in the Hindu has always been, how far up the professional ladder can a truly talented professional go? You enter the paper knowing your place. Professionals whom the family owners value get abundant opportunity to travel in their jobs, and editorial freedom and space. They do not have to deal with the censorship of the market the way journalists in some of the other leading newspapers do. They make their names in the paper, usually on the editorial and op ed pages. P Sainath is a classic example. But they do not inevitably rise to editorial positions, and some of them may not care if they never become one of the editors. They have visibility and recognition without the editorship. Some build their bylines at the Hindu and then move on.
Should this situation change? As a matter of journalistic principle, it can hardly be argued that it should not. Katherine Graham’s daughter was a senior editor and contributing editor in Newsweek, it was possible to accommodate her without making her the editor of the publication.
There is also the issue of how equal professionals within a paper like the Hindu have been, if they were not special favourites. It has had a culture of being paternalistic. You had to know your place, but the paper took care of you if you were ever in trouble. As for editorial meetings to discuss issues? You could disagree with the party line but your views were unlikely to prevail.
Along with announcing this rather momentous change, the paper has put out a code of ethical values at a time when the chief editor is being accused, from within the family, of having subverted editorial independence and gone soft on A Raja, the central figure in the 2G scam.. The allegation from the current editor of the Hindu, N Ravi, is that the paper benefitted from a quid pro quo-- advertising given by the Telecom ministry. Apart from accusations of bias towards a minister embroiled in a scam, there are allegations from the minority faction on the board of political bias and a pro China line. The code of conduct announced by the paper does not engage with specific issues raised by the current editor, N Ravi.
Mr Ram held a press conference in Delhi to rebut the allegations about the Raja interview and the advertisement, making the point that 14 other papers got the same ad that the Hindu did. Market pressures being what they are, the Hindu was one of the last to succumb to the half jackets which newspapers nowadays come wrapped in, but succumb it did.
If the Hindu is to have a professional editor, Frontline, Sportstar, and Business Line will follow. The family is supposed to confine itself to an editorial board which will advise the editor. The transitional phase will doubtless be rocky. Malini Parthasarathy has been tweeting that she intends to fight. (“After me, the deluge”) Will the shareholders meeting set for May 20 propose a date by when the chief editor and others step down? What will the terms of the editorial board be? Will it insulate editors from family interference? Varadarajan will be a brave man to step into this minefield without terms and conditions which protect him.
Even as the family members at the top are being asked to step aside, both the majority and minority factions of the family have their progeny in place in desirable jobs. There was a time when the Hindu group had a number of professionals appointed as foreign correspondents across the globe, including a former foreign service officer. Today the number of foreign correspondent posts has come down and three plum ones in Washington, London and Beijing, including one in Business Line, have gone to the wet-behind-the-ears sons and daughter of those on the Hindu board, doubtless bright, talented, and appropriately educated.
The Hindu’s case, with four branches to the family which controls it and at least six family members in full-time employment with the company, throws up some specific issues. Can future generations continue to be accommodated as professionals within the paper? It is possible when there are a few children belonging to a single owner family. But what happens when there are 18 fifth generation inheritors as is the case here? The Forbes India story on the Hindu talks of eight of these young people writing to shareholders last August, (their own cousins, uncles and aunts, says the magazine) suggesting “ setting up an executive board with spots for professionals and a family board to separate ownership and management; it proposed hiring norms and performance frameworks for family members.” How promising. But the magazine says that now three of those who wrote that letter have been made foreign correspondents!
The professionals vs family members argument does not have any clear cut answers. Has having a professional editor meant that unethical business practices are not followed, or that the editor is able to stand up to the management in this respect? Has it meant that creeping influences of the market on editorial are resisted? The Times of India is a prime example of a paper which has pioneered amazing intertwining of commerce and editorial while having professionals at the helm of both editorial and management. The Dainik Bhaskar in Chhattisgarh is another example of a paper whose editorial policy is decided by the owner family’s business interests in the state, regardless of whether the local editor is a professional or not.
At the Hoot we get to know a lot of things we cannot print. That includes which editor of an English paper is having problems of day to day interference from his proprietor. No so long ago the editor of a Mumbai newspaper which has gone the paid news way, quit. Those who have served in the Times of India under professional editors know that that did not insulate them from the whims of the proprietors.
Is the Hindu’s new editorial code going to take care of the editorial biases that the paper has been accused of?
The new code says “The core editorial values, universally accepted today by all trustworthy newspapers and newspaper-owning companies, are truth-telling, freedom and independence, fairness and justice, good responsible citizenship, humaneness, and commitment to the social good.” But truth telling also demands less censorship in the newsroom and in editorial corridors, or some transparency with at least staffers as to the reasons for it. N Ravi’s letter refers to the paper’s “pronounced pro-China tilt, blacking out or downplaying any news that is less than complimentary to the Chinese Communist regime” among other complaints about editorial bias in the paper. One of the country leading public intellectuals stopped writing on the Hindu’s editorial page and let it be known that it was because he could not freely criticize the Left parties.
The Hindu has a Reader’s Editor who holds forth on social issues from time to time in his column. We look forward to the professional editor, whenever he takes over, making that office an effective listening post for aggrieved readers.
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