A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
ASURPRISING paragraph in last Sunday's Observer describing Mr. Donald Tyerman, Deputy Editor of The Times, as a disappointed man because Sir William Haley had been appointed editor of that great journal may have been intended to please Mr. Tyerman; it would not have had that effect on me. In any case, Mr. Tyerman, who must be some nine or ten years younger than Sir William, may well have his opportunity yet. The-- new appointment was announced too late for comment here last week. Two questions suggest themselves. Why was Sir William offered the editorship, and why did he accept ? The obvious answer to the first is that the directors of The Times thought he would do the job well, and there is every ground for believing that he will. But the appointment signalises a new departure. Every previous Editor of The Times—Barnes, Delane, Chenery, Buckle, Dawson, Steed, Barrington Ward— has, so to speak, been bred on the premises. Now for the first time new blood is brought in at the top—for the fact that in his youth Sir William was a telephone-clerk in The Times office can hardly be considered relevant in this connection. It -seems to me a wise step: Various reasons have been suggested for Sir William's willingness to abandon the great position he holds at Langham Place and migrate, no doubt at some financial sacrifice, to Printing House Square. I should have thought that a single one was all-sufficient. Is there any position which a journalist with his heart in his profession— Journalism is, of course, Sir William's true profession—would exchange for the Editorship of The Times ? I should say singularly few. * • *
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