On Saturday night (8 – 9 pm) Radio 4 aired The Editors with Andrew Neil, previous editor of the Sunday Times. Unfortunately I was unable to catch it, but due to the fabulous internet-age in which we live I tracked it down on the BBC website. It’s well worth a listen and doesn’t require full concentration. Look for The Archive Hour on http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/progs/listenagain.shtml. I’ll try not to get bogged down with all the detail, but a brief synopsis might give you an idea of what it was all about.
The dulcet, comforting, and occasionally soporific tones of Andrew Neil (who also presents The Daily Politics and This Week – the one in which Dianne Abbott and Michael Portillo practically make sweet love on the sofa – on the BBC) takes the listener through a selection of successful editors of national papers. He discusses the relationships between editors, proprietors and readers, chopped up with some interesting and revealing anecdotes and quotes from various big cheeses and commentators.
He introduces with the glory days of the Daily Mirror (5 million readership) and the relationship between editor Hugh Cudlipp and proprietor Cecil King. The Mirror was the paper for the working classes, edited by a man who left school at 14 who was equally comfortable talking to royals, TUC leaders and homeless drunks on Fleet Street.
The “memorable duet” of Arthur Christiansen and Lord Beaverbrook at the Daily Express is interesting as their “compulsive attraction to each other” coupled with diametrically opposed political standpoints propelled the paper. The Express’s appeal across the classes and skill at knowing what the news was and how to project it saw sales reach 4 million.
The programme touches on the Scott Trust, now owner of the Guardian and Observer, with a profile of Observer editor Astor, whose talent at recruiting and nurturing talent brought, among others, George Orwell to the paper.
Harry Evans’s skill at campaigns and investigations at the Sunday Times is exemplified by the thalidomide case. He likens a good campaign to a “midwife” that exposes reality, and emphasises facts to be more important than opinion.
As a brief aside, Neil discusses the relationship between editors and politicians. Editors are courted by politicians who believe that if they can get them on-side, they can affect what is written, and maybe even swing elections.
The programme understandably focuses on the Sun, particularly after Murdoch bought it from Cudlipp, with interesting quotes from Larry Lamb and Kelvin MacKenzie. Lamb compared the paper to evening TV programmes, rather than news bulletins, and MacKenzie defended the Sun’s (mis)treatment of anyone in the public eye (or not for that matter) if the reportage was in the public interest.
It concludes with the Daily Mail, briefly describing David English’s impact of understanding the mid-market audience and the female readership. The low-profile and high-paid current editor Paul Dacre is quoted from a rare interview on Desert Island Discs in which he says, “the editor who relies on market research is dead” so it’s all about “gut instinct”. The Mail stands up for “family values, self-reliance and aspiration”, while the Guardian is “patronising, right-on, and sanctimonious”.
So then, to conclude, it is clear that all successful editors are “strong characters, who imprinted theirs [characters] on their papers”, but their beliefs and philosophies can be hugely different. However, the days of this type of editor could be numbered because the 21st century has so many alternatives with the advent of the internet etc. “If so, British journalism and public discourse will be diminished.”
Extracts included: Cudlipp (Mirror), Christianson (Express), Astor (Observer), Evans (Sunday Times), Murdoch, Max Hastings (Daily Telegraph), Larry Lamb (the Sun), Kelvin McKenzie (the Sun), Derek Jameson (Star), David English (Daily Mail), Paul Dacre (Daily Mail), Michael Leapman (newspaper historian) and Ruth Dudley Edwards (journalist and historian)
Sunday, 18 November 2007
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