The death of Harold Evans last night will mean tomorrow’s newspapers will be rightly filled with tributes to a pioneering editor. But he left the Sunday Times 40 years ago and did a lot more with his life than his 16 years in the editor’s chair. Specifically, he wrote about his trade, to share what he knew with others. The great lie about journalism (and about writing) is that you can’t learn it, that you’re either born with the gift or you’re not. That you either have the connections to get you into the industry, or you don’t.
Evans was born with talent, and plenty of it, but he started work for a newspaper aged 16, he taught himself shorthand and when he ended up editor of the Sunday Times – imported from a career in regional press – he found himself in another world.
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