Peter Preston, a eulogy for a great editor
2018 is with us, and almost immediately those who follow the media feel a great loss. Peter Preston was the very personification of The Guardian when I started reading it in my early teenage years. His period at the head of the paper spanned a total of 20 years and he oversaw some of the most important changes in its history, including a major redesign, the overhaul of its editorial operations and the laying of the foundations for its subsequent global conquest -its online version nowadays has more readers in the US than in the UK.
Nevertheless, what I most recall from this period is the very different structure in the way news was reported around the world, and not least the relationship with foreign correspondents who, certainly in the case of The Guardian, normally had a very broad knowledge of the countries they were writing about. Not to mention the greater freedom to report from the perspective of what they saw on the ground rather than simply reinforcing their readers prejudices through with the excessive use of cliché. The UK society and political system, with all its many faults, also has many virtues however it is not the only benchmark on which all other systems should be judged. The way British history is taught hardly helps in this regard.
At The Guardian, in part thanks to its editor and his broad international experience - half his family live in Barcelona-, to name just one example, very clearly understood this, and his own rightings displayed objectivity and impartiality, which is very different to the equanimity displayed by so many nowadays when analysing issues of huge global significance. Maybe it was Tony Blair, with his so-called centrism, who convinced us that faced with two opposing views we should always seek a middle way. Today, in the context of Brexit and Catalonia, surely even he will recognise the need for journalists to consider that perhaps one of those opposing views, all things viewed equally, might actually be closer to the truth.
The past is not always better than the present however much can be learned from it. RIP Peter Preston. You will be sorely missed.
Nevertheless, what I most recall from this period is the very different structure in the way news was reported around the world, and not least the relationship with foreign correspondents who, certainly in the case of The Guardian, normally had a very broad knowledge of the countries they were writing about. Not to mention the greater freedom to report from the perspective of what they saw on the ground rather than simply reinforcing their readers prejudices through with the excessive use of cliché. The UK society and political system, with all its many faults, also has many virtues however it is not the only benchmark on which all other systems should be judged. The way British history is taught hardly helps in this regard.
At The Guardian, in part thanks to its editor and his broad international experience - half his family live in Barcelona-, to name just one example, very clearly understood this, and his own rightings displayed objectivity and impartiality, which is very different to the equanimity displayed by so many nowadays when analysing issues of huge global significance. Maybe it was Tony Blair, with his so-called centrism, who convinced us that faced with two opposing views we should always seek a middle way. Today, in the context of Brexit and Catalonia, surely even he will recognise the need for journalists to consider that perhaps one of those opposing views, all things viewed equally, might actually be closer to the truth.
The past is not always better than the present however much can be learned from it. RIP Peter Preston. You will be sorely missed.