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In the early 1990s, I was on the Editorial Board of the leading newspaper of record in Lagos, Nigeria until I left for the UK. It was called The Guardian; and  it is still there. I had been in the Nigerian media for a while and to be invited to join the Editorial Board of The Guardian in those days was regarded as an achievement. So I was pretty happy with myself. I later found out, though, that I had been hired more for my writing skills than my wisdom. That humbled me, believe me. And I was not alone in making that discovery. Most of the leader writers were in the same boat; they were mostly idealistic but gifted intellectual types.
 
Let me explain. The owners of The Guardian and its founding Editor-in-Chief had had the wisdom to recruit to the Editorial Board a group of older men known collectively as The Consultants. They were the Nigerian version of those citizens known in the UK as 'the great and the good.' They tended to be former state governors, former permanent secretaries in the civil service, former ambassadors, business magnates and so on.  The system was set up such that several of these gentlemen would attend the twice-weekly meetings of the Editorial Board. At these meetings, the top issues of the day would be debated, an editorial line agreed, and a writer would be assigned to draft the editorial opinion. I used to draft roughly two every week, apart from maintaining a weekly column.
 
It was during the debates leading to an editorial position that I gradually discovered that I had to grow up quick. Most of the writing members of the Editorial Board would take a strong, usually liberal and idealistic position on an important national or international issue. And we would want to write a thunderous opinion along those lines. Then the non-writing elder statesmen would begin to speak up. They would usually provide context and background, contribute telling anecdotes and so on. They would ask: 'Do you know how government actually works?' Or: 'Do you know how the UN Security Council actually arrives at a decision?' Or: ' I was with the head of state yesterday and that minister you want to blast was there. This is the backstory to the crisis...' 'Do you know how a major multinational corporation actually allocates resources or takes investment decisions?' And so on.

Gradually they made me realize - as they did the other writing members- that to write editorials for a newspaper of influence, you have to earn the respect of the leaders actually taking the key decisions, the leaders weighing the policy options. That means that your editorial opinion must be well-informed, cogently argued and, above all, grown up. In other words, the editorial opinion must reflect the complexity of the decision situation. Now, you can disagree with those in power, you can thunder all you want, but you must put yourself in the shoes of the decision-makers and treat the policy debate seriously. For that is also the only way you can properly guide public opinion. Your comments should be strong and clear but they have to be fair, balanced and grown up. Those elder statesmen helped, I realized gradually, to impose a standard.

That standard is the co-leadership standard: the idea that the news media are really co-participants in the governance of any political community. If the news media set about that task seriously,  they will acquire influence, they will help shape the public agenda in responsible ways, and they will help shape informed public opinion on the great issues of the day. I believe that this is the standard that should guide efforts to strengthen the media around the world.

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