Pharmacists who feared that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council
had covert plans to curtail The Pharmaceutical Journal’s editorial freedom
should be reassured by its decision last week to accept the report and recommendations
of the brainstorming meeting on the publication’s future direction (p549).
The Council agreed with the brainstorming group that control of The Journal
and its sister publications should continue more or less on existing lines and
that editorial freedom should be preserved, within the constraints that apply
to any professional publication. The editor, as editorial director of PJ publications,
would continue to develop the strategic course for all PJ titles, would continue
to be editorially responsible direct to the Council, would continue to report
managerially to the Secretary and Registrar and would continue to have access
to the Society’s senior management team. The Council’s decision that
the editor should not be a member of that team but should attend by invitation
or request is essentially a continuation of the arrangement introduced when
the Society’s headquarters organisation was restructured two years ago.
The only significant change adopted by the Council was that an editorial advisory
board should be appointed to assist — but not to direct
— the editor. However, the Council made no decision as to how the board’s
members would be recruited. We would suggest that an advisory board
only works well if its members are appointed by the editor, as is common
practice.
On the topic of editorial freedom, both the brainstorming group and the Council
were guided by a letter from the director of the Centre for Journalism Studies
at Cardiff university (Professor Ian Hargreaves). Drawing on his past experience
editing the Independent and the New Statesman, Professor Hargreaves made it
clear that, in practice, editors have to be left to do the job to the best of
their ability without interference. They also need considerable independence
because of the legal liability they take on, both on their own behalf and on
behalf of the publisher. However, editorial independence never means that an
editor can do exactly as he chooses. All editors have to work within the constraint
of some institutional framework based on the ownership of the publication.
The Council’s acceptance of the brainstorming group’s recommendations
paves for way for the recruitment of a successor to Douglas Simpson. Since it
is now six weeks since his retirement, the recruitment process needs to start
immediately.