The Media Column: 'On TV, an editor's personality is at the mercy of other intellects'

Rebekah Wade does not; nor does Paul Dacre. Kelvin MacKenzie was deeply reluctant, but Ian Hislop hardly stops, and Boris Johnson finds it hard to resist. Andrew Neil is, at least in this regard, as keen as Malcolm Muggeridge was. So, although he describes the experience as being like "watching a car crash involving myself", is Piers Morgan. My theme is television and radio appearances by newspaper editors ­ or, to be precise, whether they should make them or not.

Given the sums spent on broadcast advertisements for newspapers, it may seem a no-brainer. Why would any editor reject the opportunity to promote the product for nothing when the alternative costs thousands of pounds a second?

There are excellent editors who visibly disintegrate in television studios. One I know can write elegant copy at grand prix speed and lay out pages in his sleep. Confronted by a camera or microphone, he becomes less coherent than a toddler with a loaded nappy. For him, the dilemma is dead. He can't and, having proved it to his own satisfaction, no longer does.

Rebekah Wade is good on TV. The footage of her solitary, extended interview on Breakfast with Frost reveals an articulate and amusing personality. Those who know Paul Dacre tend toward the view that he could, if he chose to, give Jeremy Vine or James Naughtie hours of trenchant and informed commentary. Neither Wade nor Dacre lacks invitations to appear. They choose not to do so, because they prefer to let their papers speak for themselves.

That is not always a cop-out, though it was when Wade studiously refused to engage in the debate that she had provoked by naming and shaming alleged paedophiles during her stint at the News of the World. In print editorial, personality can be multi-faceted and judiciously controlled. On air, it is at the mercy of other intellects. Piers Morgan learnt that in a joust with Ian Hislop on Have I Got News for You. He is reputed to have begun his grudge match with the Private Eye man in retaliation for being humbled on that show. Wade, in contrast, proved the value of being hard to get by having the rumour that she might abandon Page Three breasts endlessly discussed on radio and television without uttering a syllable herself. Dacre's editorial columns are routinely examined in broadcast reviews of the newspapers, though perhaps not as often as the Daily Mail's influence deserves.

Neither editor denies the influence of television. But The Sun and the Mail are represented on the airwaves by veteran talents such as Trevor Kavanagh and Anne Leslie. It is not just that The Sun's political editor and the Mail's foreign correspondent are good performers. Their appearances on TV reveal depths of expertise below the rank of editor. They also reinforce a message of continuity. Kavanagh has outlasted several editors of The Sun. His pugnacious opinions have remained constant through changes of editorial policy.

There is a risk in associating a title too closely with the personality of one individual. Viewers who like the newspaper may be uncomfortable with the character of the editor. Boris Johnson is superb in print, and many find his bemused-toff demeanour beguiling on television, too. But even sublime performances carry a danger. Proprietors can be touchy about editors who achieve a profile beyond the job they are paid to do. Noël Coward thought television was for appearing on, not looking at. Where his editors are concerned, Rupert Murdoch believes the opposite, and there are indications that Conrad Black leans toward that view.

There is no clear evidence that editors who double up as celebrities enhance circulation. Ian Hislop's Private Eye sells 30 per cent more copies than it did when he took the editor's chair in 1986, but other editors and editors-in-chief have seen sales decline as their recognition rises. One proprietor who rejected me for an editorial appointment summed it up like this: "You express powerful opinions on television, but some of our readers detest them as much as others agree with them." It is easier to be a giant in the imagination of readers than on the tube in their living-room. Stardom may appeal to an editor's vanity. Advertising is much more reliable.

timlckhrst@aol.com