A Curious Sort of Madness
A curious sort of madness has taken hold at my previous newspaper, the Daily Telegraph. When the erstwhile painters and decorators the Barclay Brothers took over the Telegraph from Conrad Black there was general rejoicing. I’m still not quite sure why. Black had his own much publicised “issues”, I shall put it no stronger than that, but at least he had the good sense to put people in charge of the newspaper who knew what they were doing.
Like that of the Barclays, Black's acquisition of the Telegraph led to a major revamp. But he put clever and highly professional journalists in charge of it, led of course by Max Hastings, who as editor set in place a carefully managed series of evolutionary changes which improved the newspaper. The Telegraph was staffed by people whose skills were admired and envied by the rest of Fleet Street.
The new management put in place by the Barclays appear to have decided on a somewhat different approach. Where Hastings went for carefully managed evolution, they have gone for dramatic change, embracing the world of new media with astonishing abandon. I’m told it is all carefully thought-out, and this blog is scarcely in a position to criticise anyone for jumping on the new media bandwagon. But there are good reasons for questioning whether the new management at the Telegraph have the faintest idea of what they are doing.
The most obvious reason has been the sad loss of a number of those professional quality journalists that Hastings cultivated. So many have now gone that a roll call of names would only leave out others just as good. But the loss of Colin Randall is so ludicrously stupid that it has to be pinpointed as the moment when the new mangement finally showed beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are not – as they touchingly seem to believe - astute prophets of the new world leading the way to a journalistic nirvana. They are simply vandals destroying a once great newspaper.
Colin Randall has been the Daily Telegraph's Paris bureau chief since July 2004. In 28 years on the paper, he has been a district reporter, chief reporter and executive news editor. Having worked alongside him on numerous occasions, I can testify to his expertise as a print journalist. But in recent months he has also become a skilled and highly popular blogger.
It is not too late to read Colin’s work. Quite bizarrely, but thankfully, his blog is still up on the Telegraph website, now decorated with comments from readers decrying the Telegraph management for their crude decision to sack him. It is natural for a blogger to want people to comment on his or her own blog but while I still welcome comments here on this issue, just for once, I urge you to comment on someone else’s blog. If you have ever read his work and laughed, cried, or simply felt much better informed, go to Colin’s Blog now and let his former bosses at the Telegraph know how utterly, utterly foolish they are.
Just been to Colin R's blog.
Didn't know the Telegraph had made him redundant. Haven't read reading the Telegraph regularly for a while. Last time was when I was at mum-in-law's in England during the holidays - she's suscribed to the Telegraph for what seems like ages.
From what I gathered from the commenters in Colin's blog, a few of them might stop reading the T. I suppose T could still count on the likes of of mi Mum in law although there's no telling what she might do (she's one of those who stopped subscription to The Times when the new owner from Down Under took over) - heh!
Please tell Colin that all's not lost, he'll get another job. He could perhaps take over the editorial or management work at the European Voice; must say EV could do with a good, veteran newspaperman.
Posted by: The 3rd Column | 30 Sep 2006 00:19:48