There is no question then of the decreasing importance of
editorials. The image of editorials as containing gospel truth may have faded;
but that they form the soul of a newspaper remains an unfaded fact. I remember
my professors in the college reading out in the class, editorials from ’The Hindu’. My teachers used to tell us that their professors used to read to the class editorials from the ’Times’ and
’The Guardian’. That gives us an idea of the importance that editorials have.
A revolution however has come in editorial writing.
Formerly, long ’three decked’ were famous and in fashion. No editorial was
complete unless it had a liberal sprinkling of Latin phrases, ’Inter alia’,
‘pari passu’, ’mutatis mutandis’ etc. In them one could find not a few words of
learned length and thundering sound reminiscent of Goldsmith’s Schoolmaster.
The explanation lies partly in this: these editorials were mainly addressed to
the enlightened members of the British public appealing to them that it was
quite British to keep India
in subjection. The slave and the slave-driver deserve much better. When this
was the purpose, the style and the language was adapted to it. The topics
naturally related to Swaraj and the political freedom of India .
Those days the economic and social problems came in for
editorial comment very seldom. The overwhelming emphasis was on politics. Apart
from that the topics related to international affairs. Simple, direct, straight-forward
editorials on all local topics will have a great influence. It will be a great
engine and agency for the exploitation of the small paper for the benefit of the public. Here again there is a tendency to use flamboyant language
particularly in the regional language papers. Jawaharlal Nehru used to say that
his servants often complained to him that they were not able to follow the
Hindi news and that it was too high-flow and pedantic for
them. Simple style need not become school-boyish. We can have what Swift calls,
’simplex munditis’, elegant simplicity.
The selection of editorial topics goes a long way to win
readers. The war in Vietnam ,
devaluation and drought, the bomb and the boundary questions are all there for
everyone to comment upon. One paper in our town which has nine dailies
(English, Hindi and Urdu) wrote two editorials on the visit of a highly
respected spiritual leader, His Holiness, Shri Jagadguru Sankaracharya of
Sringeri - one on the day of his arrival welcoming him and the other on the day
of departure summing up the impact of the visit. That got for the paper not a
few new readers besides making some of the old ones more loyal.
There are always methods by which the readers can be
fascinated. Many papers give ’A thought for the Day’ just above the editorial.
Mostly they are taken from quotation books available in the book shops and are
from foreign authors. One paper started giving quotations from Sanskrit
classics and with translation. There is nothing wonderful about it. But that was the first paper, possibly the only paper in
India
doing this sort of thing. It was original and it clicked. Readers wrote to say
how much they have enjoyed it and how they are looking forward to it everyday.
But this plan involves some labour; English quotations are readily available.
Anybody could have done it. But here is the one who did it
and reaped the harvest. It recalls the story of Columbus and making the egg stand. I would
like to see more attention paid to crisp and condensed writing. Language should
not be loose and sentences long-winding like the wind that blow, where it
listen. Gandhiji’s Harijan was in many ways an ideal paper. It accepted no
advertisements. Advertisers would have paid millions to get a few inches of
space in it. In fact many did make the offer. Gandhiji said, ‘No’. The paper
must pay its way by what its subscribers give. If it cannot do that, better
close down the show. The show did not close down; it went on magnificently well
with global circulation.
Till it functioned it functioned as the powerful voice of
