It is all set. The four people, who were shortlisted from the 26 who had applied to take over from Alan Rusbridger as The Guardian’s Editor-in-Chief, have made their cases.  The onus is now on the core editorial staff to decide who they want to lead the newsroom through a staff ballot.  Yes, you read that right. If you work with The Guardian, you can choose your boss.

The staff ballot is an arrangement where the core editorial staff at Guardian New Media (GNM), which publishes The Guardian and Observer newspapers and theguardian.com, Guardian US and Guardian Australia websites, participates in a ballot to decide the new editor.  However, the final say on the matter remains with the Scott Trust, which owns GNM.

While the idea of democratising the selection procedure sounds grand in an ideal world, is it one of those things that could go completely awry in practice? After all, much as we journalists love preaching rectitude to the world, newsroom politics can often get quite nasty – a concern that Liz Forgan, the chair of the Scott Trust has herself admitted to having.  Forgan said she is “ambivalent” about a staff ballot. “Obviously it’s a good way of establishing the level of support for different candidates but it’s also very divisive in a newsroom which is actually still supposed to be producing a newspaper,” she said.

Although very rare, Guardian is not the only organisation to let its staffers have a say in deciding whom they want as editor. Le Monde, one of France’s most iconic newspapers, has been doing it for quite some time.

More recently, The Economist too did something similar as it got its first female editor. An all-staff email containing the full list of candidates was sent out by the management. Notable, in spite of the email not carrying any request to keep it confidential, it wasn’t leaked to anyone outside The Economist office.

With some of the world’s most respected publications giving more say to its staffers in the process of selecting their editor, is it then time for Indian organisations to do the same? Or perhaps more pertinently, will democratising the selection of the editor work in Indian newsrooms?

Manu Joseph, former editor the magazine Open, doesn’t see any merit to the idea. In an email to Newslaundry, Joseph said, “Democratising the entire process of choosing an editor would be silly anywhere in the world, and hilarious in India.” He also added that the best editor need not be the one who is the most popular. “An editor should not be under pressure to stay popular,” he said.

Joseph, however, did concede that it could be useful to give the staff a voice in this matter as new insights into some of the candidates may come from this process. “But the eventual selection has to be done by the management because it is bound to make the best decision in self-interest,” he maintained.

Chitra Subramaniam Duella, Editor of the news portal Newsminute, also thinks that the process wouldn’t work in our newsrooms in India as “the leak culture is deeper than the reporting culture at the moment”. According to Duella, an attempt to democratise the selection process would only lead to “nepotism”. “It would embarrass not only potential candidates, it would also look very bad on the management,” she said.

Indulekha Aravind, Assistant Features Editor at Business Standard, though, is more optimistic and thinks “it’s a great idea to include the staff ballot in the selection process”. Explaining her stance, Aravind said it is important to include the views of the team who will be led by the new editor. “People may have different opinions but if, say, an overwhelming majority is not in favour of a particular candidate, the management would do well to think twice before foisting that person on the staff,” she said.

Aravind, however, is sceptical about whether it will work in India considering the ownership pattern of most Indian media houses. “Either the promoter is also the editor or the editor is handpicked by the promoter,” she stated. Aravind suggested that a good way forward for Indian media houses would to at least let employees air grievances anonymously.

Shivam Vij, Associate Editor at Scroll, said there would always be some who are unhappy, no matter what the selection process is. “It would be useful if the journalist community has some say in putting forth the best talent, but again, no matter what the procedure, any kind of selection process would involve lobbying, burnt egos, jealousy and so on,” he explained.

The result of The Guardian’s staff ballot will be out tomorrow. Whether the paper has indeed managed to democratise the process, we will only get to know if the Scott trust’s choice matches the staff’s.