Barry May - a brilliant editor

Barry May was a brilliant editor. And the brilliance of his The Baron was that it did not just serve to keep far-flung retired Reuter vets in touch with each others goings (too many of those in recent years, now sadly including his) and comings, but also with what was happening in and around the Old Firm.

As Barry fashioned it, The Baron also became a conduit for commentary on where the various new leaderships of
the past 15 years were taking the company, in particular its Editorial division. 

He gathered in, from a network of ex-correspondent correspondents, information that the company would rather not have seen published, as well as some it was happy to see. Displeasure, as he put it, was sometimes expressed. But insiders reported that The Baron was always carefully read in the upper reaches of management. And nothing that appeared on The Baron ever had to be retracted. 

In late 2021, after many days of indignant protests from retired journalists and top managers on The Baron, the
company  retracted a covenant it had foolishly signed honouring the British Armed Forces.

That may have been The Baron's finest hour.