I sympathise with Sarah Sands, who has spoken out at last about her short-lived editorship of the Sunday Telegraph. As Stephen Brook reports, she was prompted to do so because of comments made by Andrew Neil, an executive working for her former employers, the Barclay brothers. I'm not getting into the substantive argument between them. You can all make up your own minds on that, based on reading what each of them says, and based on what you remember of the Sands revamp of the paper.
My point is altogether different because it's about the unjust nature of gagging agreements that departing editors - and many senior executives - are required to sign on leaving their posts. Of course, they're not really "agreements" at all. They are imposed by owners and managers who, for one reason or another, seem not to understand the concept of freedom of expression. I experienced this when I departed as editor of the Daily Mirror back in 1991 and soon realised just how iniquitous it is to be gagged. Like Sands, I suffered from the fact that I was unable to answer back to the critics of my editorship. And, like her, one comment too many - in my case, by my former employer, Robert Maxwell - spurred me to speak out. In so doing, I ended up in court when Maxwell sued me for breach of contract, and I sincerely hope that doesn't happen to Sands. If it does, she might like to know that the judge, Mr Justice Rougier, found for me on the grounds that it was unfair for one party to the agreement to speak while the other could not.
But let me get back to the general principle. We work in a profession (or industry, whatever) that is founded on disclosure, on the notion that nothing should be secret. Yet almost every ex-editor (and this affects regional editors too) is inhibited from speaking. I understand that no editor should reveal a commercial secret, which includes, say, the existence of plans to turn a paper from broadsheet to tabloid, or the timing of a cover price rise or the salary of a columnist. But there is no earthly reason why ex-editors should not have the right to say that they felt let down by a lack of resources or that their editorial initiatives were stifled or, in my case, that my boss grossly interfered in editorial matters.
Some will say that editors would be free to speak if they simply walked away without taking a pay-off. If they take money then it's reasonable that employers should have their silence in return. Great in theory, folks, but utterly naive. Editors who are fired very rarely get the chance to be editors again. Their pay-offs compensate them for the fact that, in career terms, they need a financial cushion. That reality should not be used to prevent them from their right to free speech.
Andrew Neil, by exercising his right to speak, has probably done Sarah Sands a service. He has allowed her to exercise her right too. Perhaps another Barclay brothers executive would like to launch an attack on Dominic Lawson, the previous editor of the Sunday Telegraph. He is gagged too and I'm sure he would have an interesting story to tell about his treatment. Any takers?
