Remarks by Dame Marjorie Scardino at the Harold Wincott Annual Awards Lunch at Mansion

Remarks by Dame Marjorie Scardino at the Harold Wincott Annual Awards Lunch at Mansion

Remarks by Dame Marjorie Scardino at the Harold Wincott Annual Awards lunch at Mansion House on 23 May, 2013.

I feel very lucky to be here today. If myBoard at Pearson had ever chosen to sell the Financial Times at any point in my 16-year tenure, you’d be looking at my dead body right now. I’m also lucky to have been invited to speak amidst all these extraordinary journalists who have won the awards, the others who almost did, and those who will next year.

I spent 35 years as a publisher, but I always thought of myself as one of you. Not that I was ever the quality of business journalist who would have been eligible for the distinction of a Wincott. But my first adult job was for the Associated Press as an editor in a bureau in West Virginia, and journalism has been my preoccupation ever since.

I even married a journalist. And what’s worse, he and I started a newspaper together. He was a terrible pain as an editor and I had to keep his signed, undated resignation in my drawer at all times just in case I wanted to get rid of him without paying severance. But what a wonderful time we had! That newspaper taught us more than we’d ever have known about either journalism or business, not to mention psychology, sociology and a few other disciplines.

We had our share of bomb threats and subscription boycotts and, in the end, the paper went out of business, because what the editor put in the news columns kept running off the advertisers, and we hadn’t yet learned to charge enough for our content to make ends meet. But we were way ahead of our time: it took the rest of the newspaper industry 30 more years to learn how to go out of business.

But we’re certainly not here today to celebrate failures like ours. We’re here to celebrate your extraordinary ability to find and explain both failures and successes (both in the past and the future) in ways the rest of us can understand, and in ways that make us want to commit never to repeat the failures, (though we almost always do).

So what can I add to the substance of that work in my few minutes with the microphone? Very little.But I did think that, after the last year of competing proposals and commentaries on what’s needed to set the British press in order, I’d take this chance to suggest to you some thoughts – from several sources – about what journalism principles we might consider clinging to now:

  1. First, from PJ O’Rourke. Though he may not be as extraordinary a financial or economic or business journalist as each of you, he is certainly very funny (and inside “funny” is generally some pretty good insight.) He describes his job simply: “I am a journalist and, under the modern journalists’ code of Olympic objectivity and total purity of motive, I am absolved of responsibility. We journalists don’t have to step on roaches. All we have to do is turn on the kitchen light and watch the critters scurry.”
  2. Then, from writer Joan Didion, who sees her position as a journalist this way: “My advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does.”
  3. And then there’s William Allan White, the sage of Emporia, as he was known in turn-of-the-century America, a progressive Republican editor who, at 28, wrote the original essay, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”. White used the editorial columns in his Emporia Gazette to campaign for the little guy against the market manipulators and the monopolists and the frauds in both politics and business…a lot like you. In a small town, he ran a great paper, and he often railed against some of the less-than-honest papers in Kansas City. Complaining about one money-grubbing proprietor, he said that this man had ‘turned a once-honourable profession into nothing but a 2% annuity’, and I’m sure he didn’t stop at that. As was the case 100 years ago, a 2% annuity is not a bad return these days, but it’s hardly a goal for a newspaper.
  4. Finally, thoughts from a friend on the Pearson board who taught me a great deal about economics and, unwittingly, about publishing and life. His name was CK Prahalad. He was born in India, but made his mark as a professor of international business at some great universities in America. CK died suddenly three years ago and left a big void for many people. But he left a great legacy too. He was probably best known for a book called, “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid”, which many of you will know is about the market potential of the world’s poorest people. But he was equally dedicated to the subject of leadership. So for 33 years, once a year, every year, no matter what university he was teaching in, he gave the same lecture on leadership. That annual talk of his may not sound germane to your work, but some of its lessons are ones I think apply very well to the practice of journalism.

a)One of CK’s principles – his first one really – was to be a non-conformist. Like leadership, journalism is about the future and change….events that “move the ball”, something that makes news because, not surprisingly, it’s really new. You’re here today because you didn’t follow the herd. You weren’t seduced by fashion. You are non-conformists too, and you set the example for other journalists. So, according to CK, leaders can’t have an effect on the future if they simply do what everybody else is doing, or what they’ve always done themselves. Instead, they need to be pushing deeper into uncharted territory. Or, you could interpret that idea the way a weekly newspaper in Alaska did in adopting as its motto: “Sacred cows make the best hamburger.”

b)Another CK principle was, “put personal performance in perspective” because over a long career, everybody experiences both success and failure, so it is best to learn early to demonstrate humility in success and courage in failure. It’s rare that journalists who’ve had a long career are remembered for one big scoop or one deflating miss. The Watergate scandal might be that rare exception. They’re usually remembered more for their qualities: dedication to persistence, honesty, insight, things that shine in the long run. And there’s no better example of that than Harold Wincott.

c)And then there’s a C K rule probably applicable to editors: invest time and money in developing other people and be unstinting in helping colleagues realise their potential. There is no conflict between being a brilliant editor – and a non-conformist one at that – and lending your expertise and counsel to co-workers and even rivals. The internet gives us unlimited space for great journalism. And then there’s that old saying probably wrongly attributed to US President Harry Truman: “It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

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Finally, to add to all these suggestions by wise people, I have just a couple of homespun principles of my own that you may or may not find useful, but have helped me…and I’d like to think are points Harold Wincott would want me to make:

a)The first is – be prepared to laugh at yourself. Journalists deal with weighty ideas, complicated situations, market- and world-moving stories. They have to be careful not to take themselves too seriously or make their telling of the story as important as the story itself. Self-awareness and humility have to be their constant companions. One way to do this is to realise we all intrinsically foolish – and, thank God we have the power to know it – if we will. And for a journalist, it is helpful to realise you’re part of a larger army, waging a larger battle for a larger purpose – whether you’re holding power to account or enlightening or entertaining your readers, viewers, listeners.

b)And the final principle I commend to you is an equally plain idea that Harold, a kind and feeling man, might have liked: When in doubt, err on the side of generosity. This is the best business rule I’ve ever found – maybe the only one. It means: if it’s not clear, decide to believe people’s explanations and even excuses rather than doubt them. Demonstrate flexibility rather than dogmatism in enforcing rules. And enjoy and encourage those who want to re-write rules. You may be wrong with this approach some of the time, but surely being wrong on the generous side is much better than the alternative. I think this principle works in journalism too, whether dealing with news sources or colleagues. I’m not saying to tread softly or skirt around wrongdoing or give politicians or business people an easy ride. But even the most hard-hitting reporting can be done with grace and ethics...and with humanity.

So those are some thoughts to ponder instead of sitting around thinking about leaving journalism and taking that cushy job Goldman Sachs has just offered you. Against that possibility, I could preach on and on. But I’d just be stalling for time. So here’s the shorthand:

We all know that journalism really requires only two things (other than technology, a sound studio, a printing press, ie the power to publish). Those two things are courage and honesty, and especially the courage to stay honest.

The Journalist, Molly Ivins, said: “I don’t much mind that newspapers are dying. It’s watching them commit suicide that pisses me off.” If you can have courage and honesty – as those who are going to win these awards so clearly have – journalism in all its forms, whether on screens or Goggle glasses or paper, has a crucial and a bright future, no matter how many newspapers fail.

Thank-you