In my journalistic career I worked with six editors, who left the job for various reasons. Each time an editor leaves the newspaper the people in the newsroom react as if catastrophe had just struck. It has nothing to do with how we view the new editor. No, that was never the problem, because we always welcome the replacement. It has more to do with the feeling of having lost a great person with whom you have worked all this time and suddenly realizing that he will no longer be with you. It has to do with the feeling that you have just lost a boss with who you have managed to accommodate yourself and you wish things would continue like this.
It has always been like this. We feel sad seeing our editor go, but when the replacement comes, settles down and then leaves we find ourselves expressing the same sentiments. It is an experience that keeps repeating itself.
What counts more is not the way we feel toward our editors, or the nature of the feelings we hold toward them. Our reaction at the moment of departure is always the same. It is an expression of natural feeling that comes to the surface each time we face the difficulty of parting from someone we have shared good moments with.
The real question is how society views and judges editors who leave the post, whether they were sacked or whether they resigned. Sometimes an outgoing editor is viewed as if he had departed this life, not just left a job.
Leaving a newspaper does not mean the end of the world, it merely means stepping into the newsroom of another media organ. You can’t end a journalist’s life unless you put a bullet in his heart to silence him. This is what is usually being done to honest journalists by savage dictators and the enemies of freedom, who can’t tolerate the truth. Moving on, for journalists, should be a virtue and not a disadvantage.
Journalists have a natural disposition to live in a state of constant worry and confusion. They find happiness in working hard to produce something that reflects peoples’ concerns. Editors who leave their papers can always join others as writers, columnists or analysts. The vast experience they have accumulated over the years qualifies them to work anywhere. There are many media organs ready to pay what it takes to hire journalists forced out of their previous job, and it is through change and being constantly on the move that journalistic talent is polished.
Arab News From the Local Press 22 July 2003
