David Mathew

Dave Mathew still epitomizes what I most admire about copy editors. He was a human spell-checker and could find any inconsistency in any story. He had a gentle hand with young sub-editors such as myself on the London World Desk, calling quiet attention to the idiotic changes I had made to innocent correspondents’ copy. He was the kind of journalist you want to be like. To this day I tell anyone who will listen about the example he set. ■