Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

John B. OakesJohn B. Oakes
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 512

would like to have changed, or, more importantly, when there are certain positions that, contrary to the advice of the editorial department (namely, myself and my own advisors on the editorial board) he disagrees with.

Now, this thing simply didn't arise prior to the last few months, and it's a question that it's impossible to see exactly how it can ever be straightened out in the formal sense. It probably can only be straightened out as mutual confidence increases over the years. We have discussed this very frankly and very candidly together. We're on extremely friendly terms, but it is impossible to define the exact limits where the publisher should or shouldn't interfere simply because what is involved here is a human relationship that is really impossible to put down in precise terms. If a phrase appears in an editorial that hasn't yet been published in an editorial in a galley-and by the way, I should explain that the publisher automatically sees all the editorials before they are printed. He doesn't necessarily read them, but he has the opportunity to. I, of course, feel that the publisher should not interfere in the sense of trying to change phrases or words because this is editing, except to an extremely rare degree. I think that this point has been accepted, although at first I believe that the present publisher's inclination was to try to get such words or phrases changed more than it seemed to me the proper function of the publisher would have called for. I think that this one has been pretty clearly straightened out now. But that's only the smallest of the problems.

The other and much more important problem is where there is a real disagreement on policy. Obviously if I were running a page which often took positions which the publisher disagreed with, then I should not remain as editor of that page under that publisher, and I





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help