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ENTREPRENEURS
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By Christian May
Christian May is the Editor-In-Chief of City AM, a
Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufacturers
and Commerce; a Fellow of the British American
Project; and a member of the Advisory Council at the
Institute of Economic Affairs.
O
ver the years, I have developed a robust sense
of whether a threatening legal letter needs to
be taken seriously. And some of them are very
threatening indeed.
Walking the 昀椀ne line between truth and trouble — the editor’s
daily balancing act in a world where every word can tip the scales
Larger media organisations have in-house lawyers, but
at City AM we have an excellent lawyer on a retainer,
and I have reason to talk to him most weeks. It is those
conversations that have honed my sense of whether we
are gearing up for a 昀椀ght or, as is increasingly the case,
the furious legal bluster is actually just a PR response on
steroids. As editor-in-chief, legal responsibility for all our
published stories lies with me, and me alone. If things go
wrong, I can’t blame a junior: this is not the Civil Service.
I had just moved into a bachelor pad in the heart of the
Square Mile, having taken up the role of editor a month
earlier. Frankly, my head was still spinning from the
appointment. One day I was a 27-year-old PR guy in
Westminster, and the next I was being unveiled as the new
editor of City AM.
I think I can plot my trajectory as an editor through the
various legal threats I have had to deal with: I may be a
good judge of them now, but this wasn’t always the case.
The 昀椀rst such letter I received made my blood run cold, and
I still remember exactly where I was when I read it on my
phone.
The decision by the newspaper’s owners to recruit someone
as editor who had never worked as a journalist took plenty
of people by surprise, none more than me. I’d spent a few
years working in communications and lobbying for thinktanks, mostly of the free-market kind, and by the summer of
2015 I was Head of Communications and Campaigns at the
Institute of Directors.
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BOISDALELIFE.COM
ISSUE 24
