An inspiration for young journalists and media aspirants everywhere

At two weeks short of 30, Amol Rajan (pictured) has been appointed editor of a leading British newspaper, The Independent.

And look at his pedigree, as outlined in a Guardian profile by the newspaper's media correspondent:

Described by colleagues as politically astute and progressive-minded, Rajan possesses a number of traits favoured by [proprietor Evgeny] Lebedev in his youthful senior editorial team....

A keen cricket fan, Rajan is the author of a 2011 book on the sport called Twirlymen: The Unlikely History of Cricket's Greatest Spin Bowlers. He is also a devoted foodie, writing a restaurant column for the Independent on Sunday and appearing as a judge on BBC1's MasterChef in April.

After graduating from Cambridge, Rajan worked briefly for the London Evening Standard before moving to Channel 5. Two years later, he joined the Independent as a news reporter, later moving on to stints as sports news correspondent, assistant comment editor and deputy comment editor.

What a terrific track record that is! Surely, Amol Rajan is an inspiration for young journalists and media aspirants everywhere.

• Read the Guardian profile here: New Independent editor makes Fleet Street history

But, as the Guardian's assistant comment editor writes, Rajan will have his work cut out for him. Read the article here: "It's great to see an ethnic minority editor of a British newspaper. I hope his appointment sends a message to the rest of the media".

• Since we are talking about editors, it will be interesting to get some insights into how the top honcho at one of the world's great newspapers goes about his job: "Editor Bill Keller on how The New York Times chooses Page 1 stories".

Is the editor someone hired by the newspaper owner to make sure there are no mista

R. Sukumar, editor of Mint, says he has been asked one particular question many times in his career: What does an editor do?

So, in his column in the paper last week, he set out to provide an answer, along the way explaining in detail the four main demands an integrated newsroom makes of an editor:

1. The ability to understand what kind of story works online.

2. The sensory bandwidth to deal with and process everything that’s happening and which is being aired on 24x7 news channels, Twitter timelines, wire feeds, and internal memos from reporters.

3. Physical and mental stamina, given the first two requirements.

4. An understanding of the digital medium.

Sukumar elaborates on each of those points in his article here.

• Also read: "Editor Bill Keller on how The New York Times chooses Page 1 stories".

"Mr Editor, your slips are showing!"

How does a film reviewer and national cultural editor of a leading newspaper react when he is accused — by a blogger, no less — of not knowing how to write in English?

If he is Mayank Shekhar of Hindustan Times, he waffles. Here's an excerpt from a Q&A with Shekhar on the Mumbai Boss website:

Have you have seen this (the critical blog post by Chetna Prakash)?
I’ve heard about it, not seen it. I’m flattered. This particular one I’ve glanced through because it was all over the place and guys in my team showed it to me, but it was a long time back. It comes with the job, especially because I’ve been a columnist and a critic so you have to take a stand, you can’t be sitting on the fence.

But her contention wasn’t that. It was that your English was incorrect.
Yeah, so when [my team] brought it to me, I explained to them what I meant and what this is and that’s very important because you don’t want your team thinking that you don’t know the language for god’s sake. There were a whole lot of things that were puns. Whole lot of stuff, which one could explain pretty easily.

So what did Chetna Prakash write actually? She took Shekhar to task for mangling the English language in his film reviews and she cited examples from his critiques of Peepli Live, We Are Family, and Kites. Study her blow-by-blow job here: The rise and rise of Mayank Shekhar: Or has Sarah Palin found her literary match?

Prakash also poses the question no journalist writing in English wants to be asked:

How can you be one of the most popular film reviewers of India, the national cultural editor of one of the country’s largest selling dailies, and a winner of the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism — when you have no concept of the English language, your primary tool of trade?

Whoa! That must have hurt. But if you're a senior English-newspaper journalist with a national readership, your writing skills better be up to par. Otherwise, you are just asking for it. As Mayank Shekhar did.

To give credit to Shekhar, though, his responses to questions about the influence of PR professionals on editorial content and about the vexed issue of plagiarism would resonate strongly with any good media professional, especially a journalist.

Here are his views on how to deal with plagiarism:

Would you fire someone whom you knew plagiarised something?
Would I fire someone if it was absolutely proven? Yes.

Has that happened?
In my current job, not a single case of proven plagiarism has been brought to my notice, for which I may have had to fire someone. Which isn’t to suggest that it doesn’t happen, surely it does, and perhaps is even rampant across the board, especially on the Internet, where all information is shared, and is rarely considered sacrosanct enough to merit credit, unfortunately. In my past jobs, whether I have directly fired anyone or not, I have come across instances where an entire interview has been made up and published, without the reporter ever having met or spoken to the person concerned. In such a circumstance, quite obviously, the said reporter has been asked to leave.

• The interview with Mayank Shekhar is part of a series on Mumbai Boss called "Editor's Notes". Read the Q&A with Open magazine's Manu Joseph here. Pay attention especially to Joseph's views on Open's code of ethics.

A splendid profile of the first woman to be named the editor of the New York Times

Once, it was preposterous to think that a woman could become the editor of the Times. When Eileen Shanahan, who went on to become a well-respected economics reporter, arrived for an interview with Clifton Daniel, the assistant managing editor, in 1962, she hid her desire to become an editor. “All I ever want is to be a reporter on the best newspaper in the world,” she told him.

“That’s good,” Daniel responded, as Shanahan told the story, “because I can assure you no woman will ever be an editor at the New York Times.”

JILL ABRAMSON

This is one of the many gems in a New Yorker profile of the new executive editor of the New York Times, Jill Abramson, by the respected journalist and author Ken Auletta.

There is more in the same vein:

Susan Chira, an assistant managing editor, says that she kept thinking that when she joined the Times, in 1981, many Times women were “sad, bitter, angry people who were talented but who had been thwarted.” Editors openly propositioned young women.

After giving us this little bit of history, Auletta plunges wholeheartedly into the business of helping us to understand what makes Jill Abramson tick. It is a splendid profile, worth reading not only for its insights into the decision-making process at one of the world's great newspapers but also for the quality of the writing itself. How much time and effort must have gone into putting together the thousands of words that make up this article!

Read the profile in its entirety here: Changing Times.

PS: Here's Ken Auletta on how Abramson first made it to the Times:

When the [Clarence Thomas confirmation] hearings ended, Abramson wrote [to] Maureen Dowd, who covered them for the Times, a mash note. Dowd, who later became a columnist, sent back a mash note of her own. Some years later, Dowd told Abramson that she was looking for more women to join the Times. “You know any sensational women out there?” Dowd asked.

“Yeah, me!” Abramson shot back.

Dowd reported this to the Washington bureau chief, Michael Oreskes, who invited Abramson to lunch. She joined the Times in September, 1997, and in December, 2000, she was named Washington bureau chief.

• In Talk to the Newsroom, a Q&A with Times editors, reporters, columnists, and executives, Jill Abramson offers some illuminating answers to questions posed by readers. Read especially her thoughts on whether young people will read newspapers and on how news affects real people.

• Also read Ken Auletta's illuminating book on the "business of news". It's available in the Commits library.