What does it take to be an editor? Education, knowledge, understanding? Well, no editor will give Amartya Sen a complex. Connections? The cast list keeps changing, networking is a continuous process. But all the learning and contacts will be of no use if you don?t have that one vital prerequisite: a gargantuan ego.
An unshakeable belief in oneself that will enable you to play god day in day out, deciding who is up and who is down, what is in and what is out, which policies are worth it, which aren?t. A cocky self-confidence that brooks no doubts, no other point of view, no compassion even. It?s the Gabbar Singh philosophy: ?Jo dar gaya, samjho mar gaya.?
If you don?t believe me, read The Insider: The Private Diaries Of A Scandalous Decade, the disarmingly frank memoirs of Piers Morgan, the unemployed editor we saw commentating on the royal wedding on BBC television last Saturday. Each page drips with self-love and self-importance.
A PR agent has the temerity to try to keep Morgan away from Elton John at a party. Next morning, ?I arrived, still steaming, and ordered every single thing? that had anything to do with any of that agent?s clients, removed. ?Within two hours, a grovelling fax arrived.?
Forced to publish an apology to Princess Diana?s brother, ?I deliberately chose a picture of him looking suitably smug and jowly to go with it. It won?t have much effect, but it made me feel better.?
After his first interview with a newly-elected Tony Blair, Morgan led with BLAIR: I BACK DIANA. ?The Palace aren?t going to like it very much, but I think he?s right to support her.?
One day, out of sheer boredom, ?I counted up all the times I had met Tony Blair,? and discovered, ?I had 22 lunches, 6 dinners, 6 interviews, 24 further one-to-one chats over tea and biscuits, and numerous phone calls with him.? (It?s a wonder the British prime minister still had time to wage a war, reform the Lords, tame the IRA, save the foxes, cope with mad cows...)
Such a self-congratulatory tone is the hallmark of all editors everywhere. It?s just that Indian editors are yet to graduate from bringing out collections of their newspaper pieces to such a frank retelling of their ways.
The mirror again
They come from small towns, do not dress trendy, are not ?English-medium?. Yet, when it came to naming names, they have been way smarter than their metropolitan rivals.
Not only is Dainik Jagaran?s Hindi channel called Channel 7, DNA (Daily News and Analysis), the name of the Bhopal-based Dainik Bhaskar?s soon-to-be-launched English daily, has broken the mould of adapting one of the many British titles ? Times, Telegraph, etc. Precisely what the Times of India has done for the paper it is starting next month ? Bombay Mirror.
No wonder the slogan ?Speak up, it?s in your DNA?, already plastered all over Mumbai, is evoking so much curiosity. One can hope for something fresh and innovative from something that has been named so imaginatively. What can you expect from Bombay Mirror but more of the same?
Not amused
One of the reasons why the CPI(M) held its 18th congress in Delhi, say sources, was the attention of the capital press this assured. It worked. The TV channels went to town, although no one could match NDTV?s enthusiasm. The newspapers, too, obliged. One day the Indian Express had four stories in the paper. Still, there is always a sting in the tale. All the coverage notwithstanding, the freshly elected first woman politburo member is not amused at one paper dubbing her and her husband as ?Jodi No. 1?.
