Anthony Michell Howard (born
12 February 1934) is
a prominent British
journalist,
broadcaster and writer. He was the editor of the
New Statesman,
The Listener and the deputy
editor of
The Observer. He
edited the
Crossman Diaries.
Early life
The son of
a Church of England clergyman,
Canon Guy Howard, he was educated at
Highgate
School
and Westminster School
and Christ Church, University of
Oxford
, where he was chairman of the Oxford University Labour Club
in 1954 and President of the Oxford Union
the following year.
Howard had
planned on a career as a barrister, having
been called to the Bar (Inner Temple
) in 1956 while fulfilling his National Service obligations in the
army, during which he saw active
service in the Suez War, but he
"stumbled" in to his career as a journalist in 1958, starting on
Reynolds News as a political
correspondent. Howard moved to the
Manchester Guardian in 1959.
The year after, he was
awarded a Harkness scholarship
to study in the United States
, though he remained on the Guardian’s
staff.
Career
Howard was political correspondent of the
New Statesman from 1961 until 1964. An
admirer of
Labour leader
Hugh Gaitskell during this period, he was a
strong advocate of the democratic process:
"I strongly believe that people should have the right
to elect their own rulers and for a long time I was deeply
affronted by what the Conservative Party did and never more
affronted than when Alec Douglas-Home became leader of the
Conservative Party. That seemed to me to be an Etonian fix
organised by Harold Macmillan."
In January
1965, Howard joined The Sunday
Times as its Whitehall
correspondent, a post he sees as being in advance
of modern practices. Cabinet Ministers were instructed by
Prime Minister
Harold Wilson's private
secretary not to co-operate with Howard. Civil servants received
similar instructions.
Howard though, was soon invited to become the
Observer’s chief Washington
correspondent, serving in the role from 1966 to 69,
later contributing a political column (1971-72). During his
period in America he made regular contributions to
The World At One on
Radio 4. "It got to where I was almost the
World at One Washington correspondent", he once
remarked.
As editor of the
New
Statesman (1972-78), succeeding
Richard Crossman, whose deputy he had been
(1970-72), he appointed
Robin Cook as the
magazine's parliamentary adviser in 1974,
[174240] (Cook also contributed articles),
James Fenton,
Christopher Hitchens and
Martin Amis as literary editor in 1977.
Under
Howard, the magazine published a rare non-British contributor:
Gabriel García
Márquez in March 1974, on the overthrow of Salvador Allende's elected government in
Chile
the previous September. Perhaps out of a
sense of mischief, he featured a series of diatribes against the
British
Left, by the journalist
and historian
Paul Johnson, a
drinking companion and friend, whose rightward drift was well
advanced by then. Howard was unable to halt the magazine's fall in
circulation, however. He then edited
The Listener for two
years (1979-81).
Howard was deputy editor of
The
Observer (1981-88), where one of his journalist protégés
was the journalist and (later novelist)
Robert Harris, whom he appointed as
the newspaper's political editor. His professional relationship
with the editor,
Donald Trelford,
ultimately broke down over allegations that Trelford had allowed
the newspaper’s proprietor
Tiny Rowland
to interfere in editorial content. After leaving
The Observer, following an ill-fated
editorial coup against Trelford, he was a reporter on
Newsnight and
Panorama (1989-92), having
previously presented
Channel Four’s
Face the Press (1982-85). His last editorial positions
before turning freelance were at
The
Times as Obituaries editor (1993-99) and Chief Political
Book Reviewer (1990-2004), though he contributed opinion columns to
the newspaper until September 2005, when his regular column was
discontinued.
Howard assisted
Michael Heseltine
on his memoirs,
Life in the Jungle: My Autobiography
(2000), and more recently published an official biography
Basil Hume: The Monk
Cardinal (2005), despite being an
agnostic.
Convivial and avuncular, Howard is frequently interviewed on radio
and TV, since the length of his career enables him to contextualize
contemporary political events from a longer perspective than
most.
Personal life
Howard married Carol Anne Gaynor, herself a journalist, in 1965. He
was awarded the
CBE in
1997.
He
lives in London
.
References
- Ciar Byrne "The Indestructible Journos", The
Independent, 12 June 2006. Retrieved on 20 October 2008.
- "Media: My Greatest Mistake: Anthony Howard,
Broadcaster and Political [Journalist]", The
Independent, 3 July 2003, as reproduced on the Find
Articles website. Retrieved on 17 June 2008.
- Quoted in Simon Elmes And Now on Radio 4, 2007, Random
House, p161.
Bibliography
- Richard Crossman (Anthony Howard (ed)) (1979) Diaries of a
Cabinet Minister: Selections, 1964-70 Hamish Hamilton
- Philip French & Michael Sissons (1963) The Age of
Austerity Hodder & Stoughton [reprinted by OUP 1986 (contributed chapter "'We
Are the Masters Now'" (on the Attlee government)
pp. 1-20)]
- Stephen Glover (ed) (1999) Secrets of the Press:
Journalists on Journalism Allen Lane (reprinted as The
Penguin Book of Journalism: Secrets of the Press Penguin 2000)
contributed chapter "Dealing with Mr Murdoch" pp. 260-71)
- Michael Heseltine (2000) Life in the Jungle: My
Autobiography Hodder & Stoughton [acknowledged
assistance]
- Anthony Howard and Richard West (1965) The Making of the
Prime Minister Jonathan Cape [USA edition: The Road to
Number 10 Macmillan 1965]
- Anthony Howard (1987) Rab: Life of R.A. Butler Jonathan Cape
- Anthony Howard (1990) Crossman: The Pursuit of Power
Jonathan Cape
- Anthony Howard (ed) (1993) Lives Remembered: "Times"
Obituaries, The Blewbury Press
- Anthony Howard (2005) Basil Hume: The Monk Cardinal
Headline Books
- John Raymond (ed) (1960) The Baldwin Age, Eyre &
Spottiswoode [contributor]
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