Decades ago when I was on my freelance journalism jag I had an editor – a features editor – who was known as curmudgeon. I heard a story about the time he threw a typewriter out of the newsroom window. All the more effective given that the newsroom was on the third floor.
But he was also direct with it, and absolutely straight; the classic ‘rough diamond’. If you had his backing, you had it – no questions asked.
He had forgotten more about grammar than I was ever going to know, and he didn’t hesitate to share.
When I asked to get involved in the subbing of my work – because I didn’t like the butcher job being done by the subbies of the day – he agreed. It was a morning paper. ‘You’ll have to come in at 10.00 pm.’ Straight answer, no compromise on process for them. I did.
He was the one who suggested I should write a story on a British Duke-class frigate due to visit Wellington. The ANZUS row was at its height – New Zealand was a pariah for taking a stand against all things nuclear.
If the British ship was arriving at all, it couldn’t have nuclear weapons aboard. The end.
But there was an obvious story there, given the right questions. And so I attended the press conference in the wardroom and asked the Rear-Admiral in charge of the little flotilla, straight-faced, whether he had them or not.
‘Obviously the Royal Navy neither confirms nor denies the existence of such weapons aboard,’ he said, equally straight faced. ‘But the provisions of New Zealand’s law are also clear.’
Well, what else could he say? He knew it. I knew it. My editor knew it.
But it had been asked and answered. I wrote the story and my editor duly printed it.
This was a guy who knew how to get good stories, who knew what audiences wanted – and who had the confidence to act as he needed, who was straight – and who, beneath the bluster, was also kind. He inspired people to follow his lead, he got the job done, and people who worked for him knew he backed them.
A good philosophy, I think, for writers generally.
Copyright © Matthew Wright 2014
Matthew Wright 
Great story, good man.
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He was. He retired and ended up writing a hard-hitting regular column of his own for the same paper – but sadly, passed away a few years ago.
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