Allan Barker: An econ hero

Allan himself would be mightily surprised at the above headline, wouldn't he? Let me explain.

When Allan ran REMA's Business News Unit in London, he was charged with converting the best stories from the specialist econ services into media-friendly prose, thereby increasing the audience for screen journalists' work and enhancing their reputations within the company. For decades econ style had been severely constrained by slow-speed teleprinters and then by formatting disciplines for Monitor News Retrieval. Fortunately by the end of the 1980s technological progress - in the shape of fancy editing terminals for journalists and jazzy new screens for clients - allowed many old writing constraints to be axed.

To keep copy tight econ stories had traditionally limited both background and context, since clients had deep specialist knowledge and didn't need to be told, for example, that the Bundesbank was the German central bank, or, that golden handcuffs referred to substantial incentives to tie an employee to a company.

Prior to Allan's BNU assignment few dual purpose stories really worked for both financial and media clients. Both continued to require tailored copy, but Allan's unit showed that a broad range of stories, with some stylistic compromises, could serve both audiences - often simply via an extra phrase here or an extra paragraph there. On rare occasions the Sarge's happiness quota hovered near exhaustion. He had the experience and personal authority to demand major recasts. Any econ reporters faced with a recast knew that wider exposure for their efforts was the reward. Allan rightly insisted on enough explanation in copy for even really pointy-headed topics to pass muster for his business wire and, wherever possible, win the ultimate accolade - a slot on the World Desk sked. Econ reporters in the field benefitted greatly from his distance mentoring, whilst many also enjoyed the valuable bonus of rostered stints on the BNU itself. Allan's leadership of that unit represented just a fraction of his overall career but was enough to make him, at least for me, one of econ's heroes.

About six years ago I bumped into Allan in West Worthing when he was looking for a local Volkswagen garage. We subsequently had a lovely country pub lunch near his Arundel home and then promptly lost touch. My loss. ■