OBITUARY: Editor who laid the foundation
George Palmer, who edited the Financial Mail for 16 years, set in place the principles that would shape business journalism in SA
Days after the terrible events of June 16 1976, a National Party puppet told a German audience that Pretoria was unalterably wedded to "separate development". Apartheid, he declared, was "coming to fruition". Aghast at such arrogance, the then-editor of the Financial Mail, George Palmer, wrote in an editorial: "The fruits of the policy of apartheid are frustration, injustice, and hatred ... it is a policy which is rejected by the broad mass of the African people. Yet they are being subjected to it with a remorseless insensitivity that can only invite disaster." Palmer was a superb editor, and though he ended his 16-year term in this post in 1977 (and left SA), his legacy was of courage, a commitment to truth and adherence to journalistic principles. His death at 92 on the first day of this year — in a hospital in Palm Springs, US — has registered in far wider circles than just the SA media and the community the Financial Mail serves. As editor, he rejected the fatuous plea that busi...
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