In a career that spanned three continents and in the early 1990s included the editorship of the Daily Mirror, David Banks, who has died aged 74 of pneumonia, showed a flair for dealing with challenges. Though the business is renowned for cynicism, back-stabbing and disloyalty, he navigated his way through newsrooms around the world leaving nothing but friends in his wake.
The episode that most severely tested the widespread good relations that “Banksy” enjoyed came when he left the Sun in 1985 as its assistant editor, apparently to spearhead the launch of Rupert Murdoch’s new London evening newspaper. He would be based in a new building in a part of the East End of London that few of us in the conference room for his send-off that evening had heard of, let alone visited.
However, it proved to be an elaborate ruse. Within days David flew to New York for a crash course in producing newspapers using computer technology. Six months later, in January 1986, when the Sun, the News of the World, the Times and the Sunday Times decamped overnight to Wapping, David was there, ready to teach hundreds of confused journalists how to master screen-based writing and editing. He had not hinted to even his closest friends that he knew of, and would be a part of, the huge upheaval to come.
Born in Warrington, Cheshire, David was the son of Helen (nee Renton) and Arthur Banks, a foreman at British Aluminium. He grew up on a council estate, and on leaving Boteler grammar school (now Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England high school) at the age of 16 he joined the Warrington Guardian. He took work – but not himself – seriously, a self-deprecating sense of humour being one of his greatest strengths.
He had an instinctive skill for writing punchy, attention-grabbing headlines and being able to captivate an audience in the pub or the boardroom. His oversized character – at 6ft 5in tall, he was a substantial figure – secured moves from Warrington to the Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne, and then to the Daily Mirror’s Manchester operation. It did not take long for the Mirror’s head office to come calling, and he prospered in London as production editor.
His friend and mentor Kelvin MacKenzie possessed an uncanny ability to spot talent. In 1979 he recruited David to join him at the New York Post, where he had been dispatched by Murdoch to introduce the US to Fleet Street-style tabloid journalism. As assistant managing editor, David helped energise a moribund newspaper, and when MacKenzie became editor of the Sun in 1981, David was not far behind, as night editor and later assistant editor.
In the Bouverie Street newsroom it was daunting to be confronted by this giant of a man, your copy in his hand, as he needed the answer to a glaringly obvious mistake in the story – “Mate, mate, go back and ask him this” – but he rarely raged or yelled. His frustrations were only born of a determination to make the newspaper the best. He was the first to help reporters, particularly young ones, hone their craft.
The Wapping revolution was a gruelling experience for journalists ferried in armoured buses past angry picket lines in and out of the News International compound every day. Whatever he may have felt personally, David was the ideal colleague for the moment, inexplicably breaking into the chorus from Oklahoma! during the darkest moments.
As one of the few people to understand the new computer system, he was asked by the Sunday Times to help lay out pages. A headline was suggested but David could not make Trade Talks Falter on Great Wall of China fit the allotted space. Desperate to meet deadline, he summoned up his tabloid creativity, admitting that for one edition the headline memorably read Trade Talks Falter on Big Wall of China – one of the many stories he was happy to tell against himself. He also wrote a Saturday opinion column for the Sun – Banks of England.
At the end of 1986 he left News International to join the New York Daily News. As deputy managing editor, in effect the No 3, he cast a huge shadow, literally and figuratively, over the newsroom in its celebrated East 42nd Street building. His task was to reinvigorate the News, his first edition hitting the streets with a front-page story about a gruesome murder, the headline CHOPPED TO PIECES printed at twice the newspaper’s traditional size. Pushing himself around the editorial floor on a roller chair, he urged the bemused staff to think bigger, bolder and brasher. While his Fleet Street stories and northern charisma left an impression still talked about when I became editor-in-chief of the News five years later, it was a brief and difficult marriage.
He rejoined the Murdoch organisation in 1987, sent to be deputy editor of the Australian and then editor of the Sydney Daily Telegraph-Mirror. He enjoyed six years of hard work in Australia, leavened by long family barbecues, and to many of us it seemed that he had found his natural home.
In 1992 he returned to London as editor of the Daily Mirror, a newspaper that in many ways most naturally reflected his politics. David wanted the Mirror to return to its roots as a campaigning tabloid, dealing less with celebrity news, with a mission to help those with no voice. Sadly it proved a poisoned chalice, as cost-cutting was already eating away at national newspapers.
Despite his physical presence, David was a sensitive man. He resented being instructed to cull staff and left the editor’s chair in 1994. After some less important roles at the Mirror Group, he reinvented himself as a radio host. From presenting LBC’s breakfast show (1997-99), he went to join his former newspaper colleague Nick Ferrari at Talk Radio (1999-2000), venting his feelings about politicians (for whom he had not a lot of regard), business moguls (even less) and celebrities (don’t ask).
In recent years, suffering from ill health, he found that his career had come full circle as he wrote columns for his old Newcastle paper, the Journal (2006-15), and then a local news website, voiceofthenorth.net, from his home in the Northumberland village of Crookham.
He was passionate about football, rugby and cricket. A keen guitarist, he loved music, particularly folk music, once playing live with Lindisfarne.
In 1975 he married Gemma Newton, the sister of a friend. She survives him along with their son, Tim, daughter, Tash, and grandchildren, Logan, Tyga and Xander.
• Arthur David Banks, journalist, born 13 February 1948; died 22 February 2022
