An editor for all seasons (1941-2015)
Nowadays it is television that holds sway in Indian households, rich or poor. And television news channels have long overtaken print as the favourite source of news, views and opinions. Print, however has also grown typified by the number of newspapers and magazines in English and regional languages. Vinod Mehta, who died on 8 March this year, personified the ideal print media: provocative yet thoughtful, rejecting sacred cows yet never descending into yellow journalism, delightful and easy to read, yet not dumbing down the content.
Apart from the above, Mehta had personal qualities that made him an editor most reporters and journalists loved, nay, hankered to work with. Unlike many other editors (also known names to readers of English news publications in India), he did not demand indulgence of a manic ego, had no airs about being an opinion leader whose views were sought by kings and kingmakers, and treated his colleagues and juniors as equals.
The only question that he was keen on knowing was: what is the news story? Once he was convinced about that he backed the reporter, small or big, all the way, and stood by him/her, even shielding them from the vagaries of the management/owner’s demands and manipulation. His exposure of the ‘Radiia Tapes’ in Outlook was typical Mehta. He was perhaps the first (and he did it sincerely till the last) to carry letters to the editor that roundly criticised him, often abused him. His trademark chuckle was well known in newsrooms and the more abusive the letter, the heartier the chuckle. His face too had the characteristic expression of someone who truly appreciated the quirkiness of the world and reveled in putting it in print. As is well known, his pet dog was called ‘Editor’ and was frequently written about in his columns.
Of Mehta’s books Bombay: A Private View (1971), The Sanjay Story (2012), Meena Kumari (1972), Mr Editor, how close are you to the PM? (1999), Lucknow Boy: A Memoir (2010), Editor Unplugged (2014), the last two are bestsellers. The one on Meena Kumari was controversial, but then that was Mehta. He would never write a bland, hagiographic work ever.
His career path was interesting. He was offered the editorship of a failing Debonair magazine when he was 32. For 40 years after that, Mehta kept up his reputation for being fearless and fair. There were demonstrations outside his office(s), he was reviled and ridiculed in print and otherwise, but that was more grist to his mill. Neither was he a crusader in the caricature mode—out to change the world and be martyred. At all times, he was witty, funny, eccentric and most important, thoroughly readable. The newspapers he edited gained from his acumen: Sunday Observer, The Independent, The Indian Post, The Pioneer and lastly, Outlook magazine. He was democratic to the core in the newsroom, allowing colleagues to have the last word (but in controversial matters, it was his call always), if they disagreed with him. He was not an editor who sat in his cabin as those who worked with him can well vouch.
He was on his feet literally prowling around the newsroom with that benign, good humoured look, but it would be a mistake to think that he was unaware of what the juniormost reporter or page maker was up to. Both Lucknow Boy and Editor Unplugged are a treasure house of anecdotes, events, newsroom happenings related in typical Mehta fashion. Unlike most Indian memoirs, his are really frank, not shying away from assessments that are less than flattering even of celebrities and social lions and lionesses. His TV appearances on news panels made him familiar to a greater number, though it was always in print that he shone.
His end when it came in the AIIMS at Delhi, left countless number of people saddened. Not least, the manner of the breakdown in his health around three months before it. In these days of noisy journalism and pompous media celebrities, Mehta stood out. Indian journalism and all those whose lives he touched, will forever be in his debt.