What is going on at the Telegraph?
WHAT ON EARTH is going on at The Daily Telegraph? The number of seemingly indiscriminate sackings of highly qualified journalists who have given that newspaper long and loyal service makes one wonder whether the Barclay Brothers are craving not so much for the paper’s development as for its demise.
In the 23 years I served Telegraph Newspapers, both the daily and the Sunday were what one could genuinely describe as a “happy ship”. No one was summarily dismissed. Today, editorial staff morale has sunk to below zero.
Paul Hill, a superb foreign manager, had given the Telegraph some 37 years of his life (he came to the paper as a youngster and is still well below retirement age). He was given a day to clear his desk and leave. John Carey, the FoC, who did everything in his power to help his many unhappy colleagues, was himself given a hasty push. The Barclay management do not appear to care for their reputation or the value of a much-respected newspaper.
Liz Lightfoot, among my several successors as education editor, was a superb reporter who provided the paper with good, thoroughly researched exclusives. She, too, was thrown out. Had she committed any misdemeanour? Had she behaved unethically? Certainly not. No one provided her or any of the many other victims of this mass assassination with a sensible reason.
Now the management has decided to get rid of all casuals and make the remaining staff work a ten-day fortnight. Loyalty has become meaningless.
All one can say is “Come back Peter Eastwood ... even Conrad Black. All is forgiven”.