Press: The Right to Edit

A meddling owner is rebuffed

When the Franco-British grocery and newspaper baron Sir James Goldsmith bought the French weekly L'Express in 1977, he promised to leave editorial policy in the practiced hands of Editorial Director Philippe Grumbach whose center-right leanings contributed to the magazine's close ties to President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. But a year later, says Grumbach, when it looked as if a Socialist-Communist coalition might come to power (it did not), Goldsmith began shopping for an editor more sympathetic to the left. Grumbach was kicked upstairs into an executive job sans power, secretary or office space. He protested and was fired.

Grumbach...