'Readers are far more demanding, rightfully so'

Published on Thursday 7 September 2006 00:15

"IF EDITING were easy, our grannies would be doing it," declares Mike Gilson, the newly-appointed editor of The Scotsman.

Few would pretend editing at The Scotsman has ever been easy. Under the ownership of the Barclays and former editor-in-chief Andrew Neil, this newspaper went through seven editors in ten years. Gilson, 43, has been appointed following the departure of John McGurk to the Telegraph group in May this year.

He also arrives at The Scotsman's HQ in Edinburgh at a time when the paper, in common with other titles, has slowly lost circulation (in July the newspaper's circulation was 58,556, a year-on-year fall of 7.77 per cent).

Gilson, editor of the Portsmouth-based News, believes circulation is an industry-wide issue. "It is something we have to address and the role of the editor is changing all the time. The days of passing down my opinions or anyone's opinions to the readers on a tablet of stone are over, they are long over. Readers and audiences are far more demanding of us, and rightfully so. If editors can adapt to that, then there is a lot of hope across our offering.

"I think what we need to do is look at where we sit on the newsstands, look at what is unique about us and there is some work to be done on that score. I think steadying the ship, rather than spectacular growth, is the name of the game."

Gilson has spent the past decade as an editor within Johnston Press, the company that bought The Scotsman from the Barclays in a 160 million deal in December. For the past five years, he has been editor of the News, a daily selling 56,692. He has also been editor of the Peterborough Evening Telegraph, night editor of the Western Mail and news editor of the Hull Daily Mail.

Under Gilson's editorship, the News acquired a reputation as a campaigning paper, and won a Newspaper Society award for its successful campaign to create a medal for British veterans who sailed on Russian convoy ships during the Second World War.

Mike Hancock, the Liberal Democrat MP for Portsmouth South, says campaigns have been a hallmark of the Gilson years. "Mike has certainly shaken up politics and the presentational skills of every sort of organisation here, from the water authority to the health authority, councils, members of parliament - he isn't afraid of anyone.

"He is like an elephant, he has a very long memory, and so consequently - unlike other newspapers where they will have a campaign and forget them - he does tend to wind them round every now and again."

There had been constant speculation during the recruitment process that the post of Scotsman editor would go to a Scot. However Gilson, a father of two from Rochester in Kent, believes nationality is not an issue.

"First and foremost, I'm a journalist and the journalism is pretty simple. We shouldn't try and dress this up - we get information and we pass it on. How we do that is fundamentally a journalist's job, and that's why I accepted the job.

"The thing about any good editor is that he listens to his team and he comes to observe. You cannot get the reader to conform to your prejudice, you have to go out and listen and learn."

One criticism levelled at The Scotsman during the Andrew Neil administration was that it was relentlessly anti-Holyrood, a stance which was seen to reflect the ideological bent of its then editor-in-chief. It is an era that Gilson appears keen to distance himself from.

"What I would say is that you cannot disengage from your audience. At a time when Scotland is crackling with power and ideas and creativity, you can't turn against that. What you need to do is recognise it and debate it. I don't want to go back over what is effectively, in newspaper terms, ancient history, but what The Scotsman has go to do is come out pretty clearly and state what it supports, not harp on about what it is against. We will be clear on that.

"Our role seems pretty obvious to me. We are there for opinion formers, thinkers, those at the heart of decision- making and anyone looking for debate on politics, culture and our society .

"Oh and by the way let's not forget wit and humour. I certainly don't want us to be seen as unremittingly po-faced".

Gilson will be in post in the months running up to May 2007 Holyrood elections, which will be charged with an extra significance as they fall 300 years after the 1707 Act of Union. So will a Gilson-led Scotsman back calls for financial independence for Scotland? "On the election there's lots for us all to consider before coming down firmly anywhere", he replies diplomatically.

"Next year is a big year for Scotland, politically and historically, and we will be at the centre of that. What we've got to be ready to do is to say if there are dynamic people with dynamic ideas looking to move Scotland forward, they are worthy of our support. But at the same time our investigative edge must be sharp. It is a fine balancing act."

Gilson also has a clear line on how he sees The Scotsman's identity - is it a national newspaper which happens to be based in Edinburgh or is it above all a Scottish title?

"The Scotsman is a Scottish newspaper first and foremost. Our readers will want good writing about Scotland, good reporting about Scotland. Every day we should ask ourselves, 'What is it to be Scottish in the modern world?'" However, that focus does not mean The Scotsman will embrace a "myopic" world view, he insists.

A new-media enthusiast, Gilson is chairman of the Johnston Press digital-publishing working party, which advises how newsrooms might work in a digital era. He predicts that the digital publishing wing of The Scotsman, scotsman.com, will "move rapidly forward", adding: "We will look at the ways that digital interacts in our own newsroom and the way that we use that."

Union critics have accused Johnston Press of squeezing editorial budgets at The Scotsman and raised the spectre of job cuts. However, Gilson insists he is arriving in Edinburgh "with no hidden agenda".

He says: "The Scotsman is clearly a quality brand that needs the right levels of investment. I am absolutely certain about that and absolutely certain that will continue for as long as I'm editor.

"What I am coming to do is to focus on the journalism and to make sure that we tackle the sales decline that is happening, that we focus on it, and that we use our creativity. My job is to take all those issues away from our writers, to say to them, 'You focus on writing the piece that moves us.'

"Good journalists have nothing to fear from me whatsoever."