Some recollections of Peter Preston

Peter Preston: A giant of the British media scene.

DUBAI: Peter Preston, who died a few days ago, was one of the giants of the British media scene of the late-20th century and a courageous advocate on behalf of journalism and journalists everywhere.
As editor of the Guardian for 20 years, he transformed the paper from a worthy-but-dull mouthpiece of liberal opinion from the north of England, into a truly national channel of progressive views, and laid the foundation for its subsequent incarnation as a global voice for enlightened thinking. And — an equally impressive achievement — he made it fun.
I worked for “PP,” as Guardian journalists called him, as financial editor in the early 1990s, and from the very first meeting you could tell he was going to have some fun with me. The paper was not philosophically in tune with the world of high finance, to say the least, but he recognized it was an important source of stories, and of scandal.
“What do your ‘fancy Dan’ friends in the City think about it?” he would ask me of some big issue of the day. It could have been interpreted as a put-down, but there was an habitual twinkle in his eye that told you he was just playing devil’s advocate. He was really on your side, as the journalist, always.
I left the paper a short time before PP stepped down as editor in 1995 but returned as business editor of the Observer, the Sunday newspaper owned by the Guardian, and found myself in the frightening position of editing his copy. His weekly column on media matters was published in my section, and it was my responsibility to give it final editorial approval.
Of course, with a man of his experience and contacts, not to mention his writing skills, there was very little editing needed. The column became one of the most authoritative global voices on media matters, and I was proud to have it in my section.
He was, I must admit, far more prescient than me on the threat that new technology posed to traditional media. His column regularly contained warnings to old print men — like me and like him — that the times were changing, and that traditional media had to embrace the Internet if it was to survive. The strength of the Guardian and Observer online offering is testimony to the foresight of him and his successors in the editor’s chair.
PP was a son of the English Midlands, a region not renowned for its cosmopolitan vision, but he had a world view that shaped the Guardian’s international coverage. Maybe his childhood dance with death in the form of the disease polio — which killed his father and left him physically disadvantaged — put him naturally on the side of the underprivileged.
The paper was always a staunch defender of the rights of the Palestinian people, and he personally encouraged a succession of high-profile Middle East correspondents in rigorous coverage of its politics, economics and society.
He maintained a personal commitment to the region after he left the editorship, as a member of international media bodies that encouraged journalistic training in Turkey and Syria.
I was last in touch with him a couple of years ago, when he took time out to help my daughter with the thesis for her media degree. “So, have they made you a sheikh yet?” he asked me. I could hear the mischief in his voice then, and can see the twinkle in his eye now.
Peter Preston: May 23 1938 — January 6 2018