Kooks and Dukes, Counts and No-Accounts: Why Newspapers Do What They Do

Rudolf Carl Nassar is Co-ordinator of Humanities at Champlain Regional
College in Lennoxville, Quebec, and teaches courses in journalism and
international politics.

Most editors have their favorite stories about efforts to keep information out of newspapers or to alter the facts in a news story. These efforts are sometimes serious and menacing; at other times they are merely irritating or just downright humorous. In any case, they are recognized as part of an editor’s daily struggle to inform the readers of the newspaper to the best of his abilities. They are seen as the inevitable frictions that keep the wheels of the press turning. They come with the territory, so to speak.

No one knows this better, perhaps, than William C. Heine,a well-known former editor-in-chief of The London Free Press. In this highly readable, candid and lively collection of personal essays and accounts, he tells us all about the frictions, serious and funny, he encountered in a full life as a journalist, and 17 years behind the editor’s desk.

Strongly committed to the public’s right to know, he pulls no punches in defending the freedom of the press. Feistily, he takes on all those who would interfere with the free flow of information, be they local police authorities, special interest groups, advertisers, newspaper management, Ottawa’s Kent Commission, or UNESCO attempts to regulate news from the Third World.

Heine spares no one, not even himself. He finds fault in some of his own decisions, particularly those that led to conflict of interest:

 “You can’t cover a parade when you’re marching in it,” he quotes, adding: “Sooner or later someone wants you to march to their tune. As a reporter or editor you should march to a different drummer.”

Heine challenges police attempts to withhold information about arrests, with eloquence: “The public should know about every arrest. Anything less, will lead inevitably to police secrecy, and in time, to secret police.” He defends comprehensive coverage of trials convincingly: “Given less than full reporting, there will be a great many people asking a great many unanswered and unanswerable questions.”

Not only does Heine strive for openness and full disclosure, he writes incisively about threats of libel, the intricacies of crafting pre-election editorials that conflict with the publisher’s views, and the difficulties of handling controversial Middle East stories and sensitive issues such as drugs, alcohol, and suicide. In all these matters, his primary consideration is the newspaper’s obligation to serve the best interests of its readers.

Yet, in his own words, “there is some of the milk of human kindness” flowing in his accounts. Enough, one might add, to capture the quintessential in everyday people, as well as in the powerful and famous. He does not allow friction in press-police relations to sour his view of most policemen as “decent fellows.” Nor does he miss the revealing detail in his encounters with personae such as Pierre Trudeau, Lyndon Johnson, John Turner, and Mother Teresa.

Just as significantly, he is quick to see the funny side of the newspaper business. His accounts are sprinkled with hilarious episodes of pompous asses, newsroom rivalries, and irate calls from a lawyer at 3 a.m., a crackpot who believes the newspaper computer is tapping her brain, a reader who criticizes articles he has not read, and an advertiser who is put on hold for good measure.

Heines strikes one as an editor most journalists would have wanted to work for, and most newspaper readers would have liked to meet. He was passionate about his work and he has given us a thoroughly enjoyable and informative book about it. It’s the next best thing to knowing him personally.