Rusbridger v. Neil: an everyday story of revenge among media folk
STEPHEN GLOVER
This is about a clash between two Fleet Street behemoths. It all began well. On 16 February, Andrew Neil, the Barclay brothers' chief honcho, emailed Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian. 'I hope this finds you well,' he started in sunny mood. He then explained why he had declined to talk to a journalist called Paul Murphy who was preparing a profile of him for the Guardian. 'It is clear he has already decided to do a hatchet job,' suggested Mr Neil. The Barclays' numero uno feared that the Guardian was miffed because of criticisms he had made of its media diary in a recent article in the Independent.
Mr Rusbridger's reply the next day was reassuring. 'I don't believe in revenge pieces,' he announced. And adopting his superior Lord Chief Justice tone, he added: 'I read your Indy article with interest and agreed with some of it, though I thought you overstated your case in parts and there was an element of throwing stones in glass houses. But I believe the media is there to be examined and invigilated and have never
— even at the height of The Spectator rantings about the Guardian — thought we should retaliate in like.' (Ha, ha.) Back shot Mr Neil's reply the same day. 'Thank you for your considered reply,' he wrote amicably. He then extolled his performance as publisher of the Scotsman and Sunday Business. 'The Barclays have had me sign a very lucrative new contract, so they must think I'm doing something right
— and they do matter!!' Mr Rusbridger replied that afternoon: 'Andrew — thanks. Very persuasive. I just wish you'd told all that to Paul. It's almost always best, in my experience, to engage and explain. . . . Thanks for elucidating, anyway. A.'
So Mr Neil may have expected that the profile of him would reflect some of Mr Rusbridger's understanding. If so, he was mistaken. The piece, published on 19 February, was a hatchet job, though a classy one, full of authoritative-sounding figures and disobliging quotes about Mr Neil. Its general thesis was that he had wasted millions of pounds of the Barclay brothers' money. He had killed off the European newspaper and, by doubling the cover price of the fledgling Sunday Business, nearly finished that off as well. As for the Scotsman, its circulation had admittedly climbed, but only after Mr Neil had slashed the cover price, at a considerable cost to the Barclays.
Mr Neil was presented as a black hole down which the Barclays were generously but foolishly pouring millions of pounds.
When Mr Neil let rip with his email to Mr Rusbridger on the morning of 19 February, the former lovey-dovey tone was replaced by Morse Code English. 'I assume you will give me the right of reply in next week's Media section. How many words?' Back came an immediate reply. 'Not a right,' chided Lord Chief Justice Rusbridger, 'but an opportunity. 700 words?' The next day Mr Neil accepted these terms. Terse emails passed between the two men, instead of the previous courtly exchanges, establishing the ground-rules for Mr Neil's article. 'All cuts and any changes MUST be cleared by me,' Mr Neil insisted on 22 February. But Mr Rusbridger ignored this demand. On the same day he informed Mr Neil: 'I have subbed down [your piece]. This is 958 words — more than we originally agreed, but less than you filed. All your points survive, but it has been stripped of the more colourful personal explanations against Paul Murphy and his alleged motives.'
Mr Neil replied immediately, returning to his old suggestion that the profile had been inspired by revenge. He also took exception to the photograph of him the Guardian had used. Mr Rusbridger's answer that afternoon was testy. 'Just to bury this once and for all: I didn't know about the piece until Friday's features meeting, by which time the piece was more or less on the page. It follows that no one was following my orders.' Mr Neil replied that he accepted that Mr Rusbridger had not commissioned the profile 'but it was still a revenge piece by Media Guardian'. He added: 'I am still furious that Murphy can piss all over me, but you take out my ripostes to him.' He then suggested that 'we can agree a reply based largely on your subbed version'.
It was still 22 February. Eight emails had passed between the two men in one day. On 23 February Mr Rusbridger agreed to Mr Neil's slight reworking of his right of reply, which accused Mr Murphy of 'distortion, untruths. . . sheer malevolence masquerading as serious analysis. . . bitchy and inaccurate fantasy'. But Mr Neil was not to be tamed. His final email, dated 25 February, took Mr Rusbridger to task for not having 'paid more attention to his piece before it was published'. Why had the points made in his email of 17 February (when he extolled his record as a publisher) not been reflected in Mr Murphy's profile? Mr Neil ended on his most belligerent note. 'You cheerfully say, after publishing an article designed to destroy me in the eyes of my colleagues and owners, that it is all "water under the bridge". I don't think so. We are in a state of war.'
War came on Monday 26 February. The Guardian published what Mr Neil had described as the 'sanitised' version of his right of reply. It was still strong stuff, depicting Mr Murphy in an unflattering light. Mr Neil published the unexpurgated version in the Scotsman, in which Mr Murphy was represented even more uncharitably. Mr Neil's argument was that the Scotsman was a triumph. If Sunday Business had lost sales, this was because of a lapse in editorial energy, which Mr Neil was correcting, rather than a precipitous price-rise. He fulminated about the Guardian's photograph of him which 'was blown up to make it look as if my eyes had been nibbled out by Hannibal Lecter'. He also fired off 1,000 emails to politicians and journalists, which ended: 'Feel free to pass this email to anybody you think might be interested in how low the Guardian can stoop when it wants to settle a score.'
Both men emerge from this spat in their natural colours. I doubt that the Guardian's original profile of Mr Neil was an act of revenge for something as petty as an attack by him on the newspaper's media diary. It was more likely motivated by genuine reservations about Mr Neil. Mr Rusbridger's suave tone in his early emails to Mr Neil suggests that he bore him no illwill. He was relaxed about the whole thing, and by his own admission took little interest in the profile. There was probably no 'revenge journalism' there. But Mr Neil's reaction, and the flood of emails to politicians and journalists, hardened Mr Rusbridger's heart. Despite his disavowals, he does know about 'revenge journalism'. He appears to have hit back via a usual channel, the Matthew Norman diary — or else the channel flowed spontaneously on his behalf. Since 23 February there have been five critical references to Mr Neil in this diary, whereas in the previous three months there were only two. Fair-minded readers will have to make up their own minds whether or not this is a coincidence.
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