Letter: Observations on a new editor

Hugo Young
Friday 10 February 1995 00:02 GMT
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From Mr Hugo Young Sir: Now that Andrew Jaspan has been appointed editor of the Observer, I am able to correct the grotesque inaccuracy of your reporting. On Saturday, you stated as a fact that there were "deep divisions" on the selection committee charged by the Scott Trust with finding a new editor, identifying two of its members as favouring "a cost-cutter" and two others, myself included, as backing someone with apparently more ethereal qualities.

This was all bunkum. It was based on no conversation with any of the seven people in a position to know the truth. There was no such division. The committee was unanimous in its recommendation of Andrew Jaspan to the Trust. But your reporter's invention has one small merit. It is salutary for a political journalist to be, for once, inside rather than outside a story, and thereby to understand more readily the irritation of politicians who are regularly the victim of similar presumptions.

Yours sincerely, Hugo Young Chairman, The Scott Trust The Guardian London, EC1

8 February

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