Editing? It's a business thing

Working for this man might be fun, but don't expect to go down the pub for lunch. Martin Townsend, the new man at the helm of the Sunday Express, tells David Lister that the old Fleet Street habits will not survive under his regime

Martin Townsend might seem to a detached observer to have the job from hell. The paper to which he was appointed six weeks ago is on a downward roll. The latest circulation figures (see below) show it is down month on month and year on year, has slipped well below the million sales mark, and is so far behind its mid-market rival the Mail on Sunday as to make the word rival only just linguistically correct. Added to that, Townsend's predecessor Michael Pilgrim left with a much-publicised memo accusing his proprietor Richard Desmond of asking him to "suppress stories for commercial reasons" and putting him "under ridiculous pressure to run unjustified stories to settle scores".

All this is water off the Townsend back. He gets on fine with Desmond, just as he did when he was editor of OK! magazine for three years beforehand. He'll happily give you a tale of an awkward boss, but it's not Desmond. It was David Montgomery when he took over as editor of the defunct Today newspaper and summoned Townsend, then the pop columnist, into his office. Townsend does a perfect Ulster accent as he recalls Montgomery telling him: "I don't believe in pop music. I don't believe it exists. I don't believe it is real."

It's moments like that which convince a pop columnist he should go freelance. And Townsend did for seven years, from 1987 to 1994, before joining the Mail on Sunday's You magazine as showbiz editor for two and a half years.

In earlier days he had been at Michael Portillo's old school, Harrow County boys' grammar, going on to study journalism at the London College of Printing and later working on Caravan magazine, even though he couldn't and can't drive. After You magazine he moved to OK!, where he became editor and had some notable exclusives, including the Catherine Zeta Jones/Michael Douglas wedding.

And then he became editor of the Sunday Express? This seemingly uncontroversial question provokes a surprising answer. It is one of the few times the gregarious Townsend has cause to pause. "Actually, I'm not the editor," he says, a little embarrassed.

It's moments like this that convince an interviewer and photographer to go freelance; but Townsend quickly explains: "I'm acting editor of the Sunday Express. Michael Pilgrim is still technically the editor, while his departure is negotiated."

Ah. That famous Pilgrim memo. Did it not alarm Townsend just a little? Won't he now be the one having to put in those score-settling stories, while suppressing others?

"I don't know what went on with Michael Pilgrim," he replies, "but I would say this. I worked a bit with Michael Pilgrim when I was on OK!, and I did really like him."

Martin Townsend does like people. He is a people person. And the 40-year-old is rather likeable himself. Not many editors come down to the foyer to greet you and accompany you back down when the interview is over. Not many, it must be said, who had never edited a national paper before would have brought in an old buddy and fellow executive from OK!, Phil McNeill, to be their deputy. That was after an initial bit of awkwardness with his inherited deputy Paul Dunn. Townsend invokes the vocabulary of pop columns gone by to explain it. "He was quite keen on long guitar solos and I like three-minute pop songs."

But whoever was in post was unlikely to last. Townsend has strong views about the editor/deputy relationship. "It was a massive culture shock coming to a national paper from a magazine. In a sense, for five years I had been completely focused on showbiz and I read the papers for weddings, babies and premieres. You have to become much broader in your reading and your outlook.

"It felt very lonely to begin with – the slow realisation that a lot of it is down to you. It's down to the editor. That's why I brought in Phil. I made a decision that the deputy had to be someone I knew extremely well and understood me and the way I work. I've known him for 20 years. He was art director at OK!. So it's been a shock for him as well. Bringing in someone from another newspaper could have meant another mountain to climb. The relationship between an editor and deputy has to be a very close one."

Their relationship is certainly a good one. McNeill once gave Townsend one of his first jobs, launching a pop magazine called The Hit at IPC. It folded after a few weeks.

Another jolly nice chap, as far as Townsend is concerned, is his proprietor. If others have found Richard Desmond interfering, hectoring and foul mouthed, you'd never know it from Townsend's description. "I think he is the most exciting and dynamic publisher I've ever worked for because he is so quick in reacting to what other papers are doing in terms of promotion. But he does let his editors edit. We sit down a couple of times a week and we talk about everything, the paper and what's going on in the world, and we formulate ideas about how we can carry the paper forward.

"The most important thing for us is that, as a company (I still think of myself as a Northern & Shell person), we are bringing a new approach to newspapers. They are a business. They have to make money. They have to be efficient. You can't have thousands of people going out to pubs at lunchtime. That old Fleet Street thing is so dead and gone. Our approach is running a newspaper strictly as a business, paying attention to it in relation to the rest of the market, not seeing it in isolation as the broadsheets do – and, basically enjoying it. It will be the least grey of the newspaper groups. I do genuinely have a lot of fun here; a lot of fun with the staff; a lot of fun with Richard."

The increasingly communal nature of the Express Group operation is also clear from talking to Townsend. He meets regularly with the editors of the Daily Express and Daily Star; and some staff are already working across the titles. "There's a seven-day operation on the Express," agrees Townsend, "but a lot of it is exchange of ideas."

With the Sunday Express itself, Townsend has rather confounded expectations. The paper isn't full of OK!-style glamour. He wants the paper to be "sharper" and definitely to appeal more to women readers. "We've been too masculine a paper. By sharper, I mean you just don't accept always the first headline you get. Build a bit of thinking time into the whole process."

So far, news pages have been respectable, with Townsend touches like the Yes and No opinion pieces (on whether parents should send their children on school trips, for example) and offbeat page threes, such as one on witches cursing the Harry Potter film. But bigger, and more, exclusives will be needed, as well some high-profile columnists.

Interestingly, one of his first ideas is to restore some of the Sunday Express's traditions. He has brought back William Hickey as the title of the diary. And he may not stop there. "I do hanker for the old days of the Sunday Express when they did line drawings with Second World War bombers."

Restoring those would certainly make the paper a talking point. And that's something it needs to be. At present it lacks identity, as Townsend admits. "The Sunday Express is a very strong brand, but it has been neglected for a very long time. Richard's acquisition means it will have someone taking care of it. Alongside financial investment, there's investment of thought."

His ebullient personality shines through again when he is asked about his family. "Please give the children a mention. There's Benedict, seven, an aspiring magician. Oliver is five and he's an artist; he makes paper sculptures. And Cordelia is 22 months, and when I get home at night I have to dance round the room with her."

Mum is a fellow journalist, Jane O'Gorman. She helps with the Sunday Express in an unofficial capacity. Townsend says: "My wife looks through the paper each Sunday. She says it shouldn't be too long before you see yourself, see stories about women, stories with a feminine slant. That's hard with pages about Michael Portillo, but you've got to find a different slant to stories."

And if that proves too difficult, or if relations with Desmond change for the worse, Townsend can always consult his wife in her professional capacity. Jane O'Gorman is also the Daily Star's agony aunt.