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Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

John B. OakesJohn B. Oakes
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Part:         Session:         Page of 512

Q:

We've got some samples of those.

Oakes:

- those trends have developed right through. And I think that there's no question that the news executives realized and knew that I was doing this. Occasionally, I did it directly, commented directly to news executives, but it was evident that that kind of comment was resented, and so I didn't see any point in going on doing that.

I think that it may be worth pointing out also - in discussing the relationship between editor and publisher, which is of course our most difficult and delicate relationship because it involves such subtle relationships - it probably is worth pointing out that I was constantly warding off what I felt were increasing evidences, from the publisher, that he felt that we were anti-business. I felt that he was being pushed himself from Wall Street, from financial interests, and from members of his own board of directors, to put a little heat on me to modify the critical positions that we were taking sometimes, that did collide with business interests. Neither I nor my associates were in any sense anti-business as such, but what we did feel always, right through my entire regime and with whatever associates I had writing on economic matters, we certainly did feel that we, editorially, had to take an arm's-length view of the business community, as of every other special interest and not permit ourselves to be pressured into any kind of sympathetic view of business as such. While not anti-business, we wanted to be completely critical.

These kinds of issues would occur most frequently with respect to environmental questions, where we would be strongly disposed to environmental controls. It collided with some big business interests, most notably in connection with American Electric Power Company's





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