“Sir, our newspaper has never been fuller,” said the editor proudly.
The owner looked pleased. “What have we put on the front page?”
“A full page advertisement for luxury apartments.”
“And the second?”
“A car advertisement.”
“What about the news?”
The editor lowered his voice. “Sir, the journalist has found something important. It could affect the whole country.”
“Could it affect our advertisers?”
“It might.”
“Then put it after the crossword.”
“Sir, the crossword is on the last page.”
“Precisely. And increase the size of the crossword!”
I am glad some newspapers including the ones I write for, have begun raising their heads and publishing findings that matter. But there are others, especially one, whose pages are so full of advertisements that the news seems to have entered through the wrong door and been asked to wait outside.
I understand that money matters. I do remember when I started writing my daily column for Dubai’s Khaleej Times. They paid me fantastically well, but within a year I had to make a decision. Should I simply entertain my readers, give them a laugh each morning and avoid anything that might make someone in power uncomfortable?
Or should I write what I believed to be true?
It was a difficult decision. I enjoyed making people laugh, and I valued the opportunity I had been given. But I realised that the truth was more important to my readers than sheer entertainment. If they gave me their time each morning, I owed them more than just humour. I owed them honesty.
A newspaper owes its readers the same.
In the book In His Hands, the owner of a newspaper decides that, from that day forward, he will be truthful to the page. Advertisers grow uneasy. Some pull away. For a while, his decision costs him dearly.
Then readers begin to stand with him. They recognise a paper that respects them enough to tell them what is happening. And the advertisers return, because advertisers go where the readers are.
Perhaps the owners of our silent newspapers should remember that. An advertiser does not buy space because he admires the proprietor’s courage in avoiding the news.
Finally he buys space because people read the paper. He needs to go where readers ae and readers go where the truth is being told.
Honest reporting takes careful work. Journalists must check facts, question sources and give people a fair chance to respond. Once they have done that work, their findings deserve to be published, even when the findings make powerful people unhappy.
So let the newsroom be noisy again. Let the editor ask, “Is this true? Have we checked it?” Let the owner ask, “Do our readers need to know?”
And when a journalist arrives with an important story, do not send her to the page after the crossword.
Make room.
The public can find advertisements everywhere. They still come to a newspaper hoping to find the truth..!
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Robert Clements is a newspaper columnist and writes a daily column, which has graced the pages of over 60 newspapers and magazines, from a daily column in the Khaleej Times, Dubai, the Morning Star, London, and in nearly every state in India, from The Statesman in Kolkata, to the Kashmir Times in Kashmir to the Trinity Mirror in Chennai.
You have nailed it, Bob.
Will the editors realize and acknowledge?
I’m surprised people still read newspapers or watch the news for that matter. We know nothing is true any more. What is being dished out is a narrative!
Sadly the editors are not the final say, the owners are. Most editors fear for their lives a few get paid off, a few have their values twisted differently and the remaining, true to their profession are steadfast. Alas these are too few.
It is sad to see how many newsrooms have gone silent.
When we look back at history, we remember the role newspapers once played in bringing people together, giving ordinary citizens a voice and helping them rise against injustice. Those in power were sometimes so threatened by that voice that newspapers had to be censored, restricted or shut down.
Perhaps that is why a free press matters so much.
I wish we could see that courage again—not newspapers speaking for those in power, but newspapers giving people the information they need to speak for themselves.
Because an informed citizen is not an easily silenced citizen.
And when people know what is happening, when they are willing to stand together around what is right, their collective voice can become impossible to ignore.
We are, after all, a democracy—of the people, by the people and for the people. What happens when those people begin to speak with one voice?
Perhaps that is precisely why a truthful newsroom still matters. A newspaper should not merely report what power wants us to hear. It should give people the truth they need to decide what they want to say.
In a world where so much gets blurred and distorted honest writing matters.
Well said . May the tribe of true journalists increase