INDEPENDENT SUCCESSION

Editors of the Journalist have always been elected — until 1982 by the Annual Delegate Meeting, since then by the whole membership. Since 1973 they have enjoyed editorial independence from the NUJ leadership.

The editors have been:

1908—18 Harry Richardson

1918—20 Frederick Mansfield

1920—22 C P Robertson

1922—24 Tommy Jay

1924—37 James Haslam

1937—41 F G Humphrey

1941—42 Owen Rattenbury

1942—48 Gordon Schaffer

1948—72 Allen Hutt

1972—73 Ted Simpson

1973—81 Ron Knowles

1982—85 Tony Craig

1985—88 Bernie Corbett

1988— Tim Gopsill

The members’ editor

RON KNOWLES was editor from 1973-1981, the period of greatest militancy in the NUJ’s history. He says the election and independence of the editor makes the Journalist the voice of the membership and gives it its greatest strength

THERE IS a special bond with the members in being the elected editor of the Journalist. It is a pact of support written in their votes and underlined by their trust. It’s a deal I fell into accidentally; one that gave me immense pleasure and fulfilment as the NUJ numbers grew rapidly through the 1970s and the early 1980s.

The job was such great fun that, had I been of independent means, I would gladly have done it unpaid. Instead, I found myself doing it on a handsome salary when becoming the first full-time editor in 1973.

After the then part-time editor, Allen Hutt, had refused to publish a letter because he was not inclined to give space to opinions contrary to those of the national executive, I was irked enough to challenge him. Election for the post, which Hutt had held for two decades, was by delegates at ADM. I campaigned on the issue of openness and, after years of sleepwalking into the job uncontested, Hutt survived by only a handful of votes.

The following year he did not stand and his NEC colleague Ted Simpson was being groomed by the union hierarchy to slide into the position. Simpson, a sub-editor with the London Evening Standard, had a London living standard and had to be looked after, so the job was advertised as a permanent post by NEC appointment at £3,500 pounds a year, then a reasonably competitive Fleet Street salary.

But ADM upset the arrangement by deciding that the post would be elected and subject to re-election every three years. Simpson did not have the stomach for that kind of democracy and backed out. I was subsequently nominated and elected uncontested myself. My election was greeted with dismay by most members of the NEC, who regarded me as a dangerous subversive.

It was a time of growing militancy and I was an early and ardent advocate of chapel power, a phenomenon that challenged the timidity and inertia of the NEC, whose response to incipient strike action was to put every issue into the suffocating, time-consuming disputes procedures where grassroots fire would fizzle out through lack of oxygen.

Chapel power was based on the quaint notion that if the leadership could not bring itself to support chapels to fight for better pay and conditions, it could at least keep out of their way while they went about the business themselves. Early successes spurred others and as chapels grew in confidence so did the number of strikes.

Invariably the Journalist threw its support behind the members in struggle. These battles began to throw up their own inspiring leaders, who became a force that transformed the NUJ in those years.

Soon there were thousands of local heroes when the entire Newspaper Society membership struck against an insulting offer in 1978. The members’ exploits over seven weeks of the bitter winter filled the pages of the Journalist and I believe that their courage, steadfastness, humour and organisational skills mark the high-point of the NUJ’s 100 years.

The Journalist had battles of its own, and the members were quick to support the paper that supported them. Shortly after taking office I turned up to a meeting of the Finance Committee just as the Treasurer, Harry Woodhead, was delivering his report on the union’s financial health. He stopped in mid-sentence and made it clear he would not continue until I left. The editor was not to be allowed to report such matters to the membership. News of this was greeted with outrage among members and meetings of the Finance Committee were henceforth open to the editor.

Whatever may change, one constant remains: the accountability of the editor of the Journalist through election. It is this that gives the editor independence and the strength to defend the members’ publication.

Ron Knowles, who emigrated to Australia in 1982, died there earlier this year. This article was written for the union’s centenary last year.