Media: You have to be married to the job to succeed in this business, they'd say. To back it up, the more cultured broadsheet types might quote Yeats

For the past week journalists in Scotland and London have been mourning the death of Bobby Campbell. A former Clydeside shipyard worker and radical folk musician who came into journalism via Communist activism (he worked for the Morning Star before rising to the rank of chief sub- editor on both The Sunday Times and The Scotsman) this gruff but gentle Glaswegian did something in the last 13 years of his life which not many newspaper people are able to do - he put his children before his work.

That is not to say that he ever lost interest in the latter. As his ex- wife Bea Campbell observed, in a deeply moving obituary in The Guardian, Bobby Campbell steered The Scotsman into the Internet age with the same passionate commitment with which he had once marvelled at marine engineering on the Clyde and the old hot metal technology in newspapers. Still, his loyalty to "Scotland's national newspaper" came nowhere near his commitment to his sons, Roderick, Diarmid and Fergus.

His triplets gave him a triple reason for going on after his beloved third wife, Hon Perry, died of cancer in 1990. Bobby switched from news to features, adjusting his working hours and lifestyle so that fathering could come first.

Thankfully, this burning desire to do his best for his boys was accommodated for the next seven years by three successive editors of The Scotsman. As Brian Wilson MP noted last week, Hon's death when the triplets were only six was the sort of tragedy that would make a stone weep.

Bobby appreciated their compassion and understanding, shown first by Magnus Linklater and continued by his successors. I take this opportunity to applaud it.

But it is also true to say that the same trio of editors would have broken into a severe panic if the rest of their staff had ever threatened to re-order their priorities and put parenting on a par with the paper.

National newspaper journalism in general is not very compatible with active parenting. Indeed, it should probably be avoided by anyone who wants to remain a sane and balanced human being. The way papers are produced may have changed dramatically in the last decade - green screens replacing eyeshades and metal spikes - but a macho culture still reigns in the nation's newsrooms.

A "journalist's journalist" is all too often a neglectful spouse and an absent parent, a workaholic who ends up a divorcee and/or a drunken old soak. And it's not just newspaper journalism. Broadcasting can wreck your marriage and family life even more swiftly. The media in general tend to expect total immersion from their employees. Must it be this way? Do meeja people need to be disconnected, alienated human beings?

Yes, would be the short and brutal answer from many senior media executives. You have to be married to the job if you want to excel in this business, they'd say. To back this up, the more cultured broadsheet types might recite Yeats's observation that "the intellect of man is forced to choose perfection of the life, or of the work". Tabloid editors would probably put it more bluntly: hard news requires hard newsmen.

Obviously there are some journalistic roles that demand an inordinate devotion to duty. Political reporters, for example, probably do need to be workaholics to keep tabs on those even crazier workaholics, politicians.

Also, it must be recognised, there is a hidden danger in (often equally selfish) excessive devotion to family. Journalists have to be active citizens and citizenship demands a moral vision that extends beyond the garden gate - something the Reverend Blair will, hopefully, keep in mind when he delivers his next sermon.

That said, I strongly believe that the prevailing macho culture in newspapers needs to be challenged, not least because it excludes too many people who could be making a valuable contribution to newspapers and TV news programmes.

Active parenting need not conflict with committed journalism. It can be an ideal way of tuning into the major public policy issues. Bringing your child to school or to the dentist can give you as much insight into the current state of our education system and the NHS as some dry report from a think-tank or government department.

Journalists need to be wired into real life, and nothing connects you more with your community than having children. Kids are brilliant for networking.

Human contact of all sorts should be craved by the new generation of national newspaper journalists. Most of us have been scattered since the death of Fleet Street to soulless office towers, where we stare at computer screens and too often phone or fax our contacts rather than meet them face to face to exchange information or gossip.

I should swiftly add that I am not not a latter-day Luddite who hankers after the hot metal age. New technology has generally been a boon for journalists.

Bobby Campbell was a techie, but his fervour for all things computerised was nothing compared to his devotion to his family. Today, in Edinburgh, there are three fine teenagers who will remain forever grateful that he chose to put them first, and not tomorrow's chip wrappings.