It led to a very strong culture. You might love the Guardian or despise it, but it had a definite sense of what it believed in and what its journalism was. It could sometimes feel an intimidating meeting – even for (or especially for) the editor. The culture was intended to be one of challenge: if we’d made a wrong decision, or slipped up factually or tonally, someone would speak up and demand an answer. But challenge was different from blame: it was not a meeting for dressing downs or bollockings. If someone had made an error the previous day we’d have a post-mortem or unpleasant conversation outside the room. We’d encourage people to want to contribute to this forum, not make them fear disapproval or denunciation.
There was a downside to this. It could, and sometimes did, lead to a form of group-think. However herbivorous the culture we tried to nurture, I was conscious of some members of staff who felt awkward about expressing views outside a (we hoped, fairly broad) consensus. But, more often, there would be a good discussion on two or three of the main issues of the day. We encouraged specialists (or outside visitors) to come in and discuss breaking stories. Leader writers could gauge the temperature of the paper before penning an editorial. And, from time to time, there would be the opposite of consensus: individuals, factions or groups would come and demand we change our line on Russia, bombing in Bosnia; intervention in Syria; Israel, blood sports or the Labour leadership.
The point was this: that the Guardian was not one editor’s plaything or megaphone. It emerged from a common conversation – and was open to internal challenge when editorial staff felt uneasy about aspects of our journalism or culture.
*
Within two years – slightly uncomfortable at the power I had acquired as editor – I gave some away. I wanted to make correction a natural part of the journalistic process, not a bitterly contested post-publication battleground designed to be as difficult as possible.
We created a new role on the Guardian: a readers’ editor. He/she would be the first port of call for anyone wanting to complain about anything we did or wrote. The readers’ editor would have daily space in the paper – off-limits to the editor – to correct or clarify anything and would also have a weekly column to raise broader issues of concern. It was written into the job description that the editor could not interfere. And the readers’ editor was given the security that he/she could not be removed by the editor, only by the Scott Trust.
On most papers editors had sat in judgement on themselves. They commissioned pieces, edited and published them – and then were supposed neutrally to assess whether their coverage had, in fact, been truthful, fair and accurate. An editor might ask a colleague – usually a managing editor – to handle a complaint, but he/she was in charge from beginning to end. It was an autocracy. That mattered even more in an age when some journalism was moving away from mere reportage and observation to something closer to advocacy or, in some cases, outright pursuit.
Allowing even a few inches of your own newspaper to be beyond your direct command meant that your own judgements, actions, ethical standards and editorial decisions could be held up to scrutiny beyond your control. That, over time, was bound to change your journalism. Sunlight is the best disinfectant: that was the journalist-as-hero story we told about what we do. So why wouldn’t a bit of sunlight be good for us, too?
The first readers’ editor was Ian Mayes, a former arts and obituaries editor then in his late 50s. We felt the first person in the role needed to have been a journalist – and one who would command instant respect from a newsroom which otherwise might be somewhat resistant to having their work publicly critiqued or rebutted. There were tensions and some resentment, but Ian’s experience, fairness and flashes of humour eventually won most people round.
One or two of his early corrections convinced staff and readers alike that he had a light touch about the fallibility of journalists:
In our interview with Sir Jack Hayward, the chairman of Wolverhampton Wanderers, page 20, Sport, yesterday, we mistakenly attributed to him the following comment: ‘Our team was the worst in the First Division and I’m sure it’ll be the worst in the Premier League.’ Sir Jack had just declined the offer of a hot drink. What he actually said was: ‘Our tea was the worst in the First Division and I’m sure it’ll be the worst in the Premier League.’ Profuse apologies.
In an article about the adverse health effects of certain kinds of clothing, pages 8 and 9, G2, August 5, we omitted a decimal point when quoting a doctor on the optimum temperature of testicles. They should be 2.2 degrees Celsius below core body temperature, not 22 degrees lower.
But in his columns he was capable of asking tough questions about our editorial decisions – often prompted by readers who had been unsettled by something we had done. Why had we used a shocking picture which included a corpse? Were we careful enough in our language around mental health or disability? Why so much bad language in the Guardian? Were we balanced in our views of the Kosovo conflict? Why were Guardian journalists so innumerate? Were we right to link to controversial websites?
In most cases Mayes didn’t come down on one side or another. He would often take readers’ concerns to the journalist involved and question them – sometimes doggedly – about their reasoning. We learned more about our readers through these interactions; and we hoped that Mayes’s writings, candidly explaining the workings of a newsroom, helped readers better understand our thinking and processes.
It was, I felt, good for us to be challenged in this way. Mayes was invaluable in helping devise systems for the ‘proper’ way to correct the record. A world in which – to coin a phrase – you were ‘never wrong for long’ posed the question of whether you went in for what Mayes termed ‘invisible mending’. Some news organisations would quietly amend whatever it was that they had published in error, no questions asked. Mayes felt differently: the act of publication was something on the record. If you wished to correct the record the correction should be visible.
We were some years off the advent of social media, in which any error was likely to be pounced on in a thousand hostile tweets. But we had some inkling that the iron grip of centralised control that a newspaper represented was not going to last.
I found liberation in having created this new role. There were few things editors can enjoy less than the furious early morning phone call or email from the irate subject of their journalism. Either the complainant is wrong – in which case there is time wasted in heated self-justification; or they’re right, wholly or partially. Immediately you’re into remorseful calculations about saving face. If readers knew we honestly and rapidly – even immediately – owned up to our mistakes they should, in theory, trust us more. That was the David Broder theory, and I bought it. Readers certainly made full use of the readers’ editor’s existence. Within five years Mayes was dealing with around 10,000 calls, emails and letters a year – leading to around 1,200 corrections, big and small. It’s not, I think, that we were any more error-prone than other papers. But if you win a reputation for openness, you’d better be ready to take it as seriously as your readers will.
Our journalism became better. If, as a journalist, you know there are a million sleuth-eyed editors out there waiting to leap on your tiniest mistake, it makes you more careful. It changes the tone of your writing. Our readers often know more than we do. That became a mantra of the new world, coined by the blogger and academic Dan Gillmor, in his 2004 book We the Media8 but it was already becoming evident in the late 1990s.
The act of creating a readers’ editor9 felt like a profound recognition of the changing nature of what we were engaged in. Journalism was not an infallible method guaranteed to result in something we would proclaim as The Truth – but a more flawed, tentative, iterative and interactive way of getting towards something truthful.
Admitting that felt both revolutionary and releasing.