My Mentor: Phillip Knightley on Harold Evans
'He had all-round ability. There wasn't a job in journalism he couldn't do'
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.I joined The Sunday Times in 1965 and Harry Evans arrived shortly after. The paper was changing from an old-fashioned, Tory-orientated newspaper into a dynamic exposure paper, and he was a breath of fresh air.
The Insight team got going and you were seconded there when things got interesting. The idea was to tell people what was really going on. Evans's role in that was absolute confidence in everybody working for him. He encouraged people to stretch themselves and never stinted on cost.
I realised I was working on something exceptional when someone said, "It's Paris Fashion Week. Let's have a new look at the fashion world". The next day, The Sunday Times had three fashion writers there, three reporters from Insight and two cameramen - and we got about 800 words!
But we had tried. If a similar idea had come up the following week, Evans would have said, "Go for it". He carried everybody's loyalty because of his all-round ability. There wasn't a job in journalism he couldn't do.
A big story was Thalidomide. If a section editor today went to the editor and said, "I want to do a story about a drug called Thalidomide. It's marketed for pregnant women but we suspect about 8,000 children have been born deformed because it's not safe. It's made by the biggest advertisers in our paper and they will fight all the way to prevent us from publishing. It mightn't stand up in the end, and if we include legal costs it might run to a couple of million", what editor would say go ahead?
Phillip Knightley was a Sunday Times investigative journalist for 20 years. Sir Harry Evans edited The Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments