Hammer and Tongs
ALOKE THAKORE
Right after Sham Lal, the former editor of The Times of India, passed away, the newspaper got Mr Rahul Dravid to be the guest editor for a day. This was not the first time they had done so. Earlier, The Economic Times, from the same stable, has had guest editors ranging from the finance minister to corporate leaders. Soon after Dravid, both TOI and ET heralded Women’s Day with guest editors. There was Ms. Shabana Azmi for TOI edit pages, and Ms. Naina Lal Kidwai, Ms. Vinita Bali, and Ms. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw for ET.
Now it cannot be anyone’s case that these women or the men who have come earlier as guest editors are unfit for the job. On the contrary, it will be recognized that some of these are eminently qualified in many ways, not the least of it in the ways of the world, to merit such a position. More accurately, journalism, like politics, it has to be recognized is a profession or work that requires no specialized or formal training or education. You cannot be a cobbler, doctor, chartered accountant, engineer, or an ironsmith without undergoing some training. But you can be a journalist. No other knowledge and demands are made of this job than some linguistic facility, increasingly even that seems unnecessary, and the ability to transform it into sentences, written or spoken. In other words, there should be no reason for one to grudge this business of guest editors since if anyone can be a journalist why not these gentleman and women.
And yet there is something of self-respect that attaches itself to any work that appears undermined with this practice. Try telling anyone who has acquired a skill-set that you can do the same and there is little doubt that you will see that person object. There is an unwritten code that only after having gone through a process of apprenticeship of some kind or the other, should one be allowed to do a job. The practice of guilds in medieval times or that of formal bodies that insist on examinations before granting membership is built around this idea. But it seems that with some newspapers, it is not even considered demeaning to get someone to become a guest editor for a day. It would require more than just a cavalier attitude towards one’s work to get someone else to do your job.
It may be that such guest editorships are given as a mark of gratitude. There is a tale told, whose authenticity I cannot vouch for and hope that some Mughal historian will enlighten me, but no doubt instructive, about Humayun’s gift of the throne for a day to the water-carrier who had saved his life. The tale goes that the water-carrier assumed the throne for a day and to mark his reign had leather coins issued. Many such stories abound about giving special privileges for a small period as either thanks or recompense. I do not want to hazard any guesses about what the act must be from these people that warrants that position as thanksgiving for a day.
But assume that there is little to be thanked for and these are nothing but gimmicks to do something different and to get people interested in reading the paper. How deeply would you want to devalue your own work to give the responsibility to another for even a day? Would you want a guest architect or civil engineer working on your home for a day? Would you want a guest doctor giving you some medicines? Would you want a guest investment expert handling your finances for a day? But it seems we do not mind having a guest editor putting together something for our daily understanding of the world around us.
There are reasons that one may hazard for this. One is that those who choose to indulge in this guest editor business think that readers are toddlers whose appetite for news and views will be whetted by putting some successful person on the page; a bauble to get us amused. Two, is that they think that their own work is of such a level that just about anyone can do the same and not know the difference. And further, if there is no difference felt then it speaks about the abilities of the editors who actually put these pages everyday to begin with. And yet one cannot be too harsh. What Azmi put together as the edit page could as easily have been done by a young copy-editor, which only means that Azmi’s role as guest editor was exactly the same as in the films. She was a performer and an entertainer. Or just may be, the daily editors are as much guest editors as those who come in for a day or two. Considering the television hat, political hat, middlemen hat, or businessmen hat that editors often wear, they are like guest editors and do not know the difference between their own selves and these people who come on board. The poor chaps at TOI and ET got inspired by the non-resident editors of other newspapers and decided to get some for their own papers. At least we should complement them for ensuring that their guest editors at least had some glamour and colour.
But these are just guesses. And I guess one would have to be completely woolly-headed to hope that journalists took their tasks more seriously. We all recognize that no qualifications are needed for journalism, and we do not even have to share our personal profiles as politicians are forced to when seeking electoral office. We face no public scrutiny. But what about having the sense of journalism as a vocation? But that would require one to think of journalism as a calling, than just a profession or job. And that’s a rank silly idea even to profess, let alone believe.
Aloke Thakore is a media consultant, journalist, and teacher. He can be reached at hammerntongs@fastmail.in