Fleet Street Fracas
By RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL
TT has been an agreeable diversion from the I serious task of gardening to read last Sunday's criticisms in the Observer of the intrusion by the gutter press into people's private lives; and further to read the characteristically disingenuous attack made upon the Observer by the Daily Mirror last Tuesday. I wrote an article upon this general theme in the Spectator's issue of May 23 and the impending controversy—for such I hope it will be —compels me to return to it. It may be that the.
Observer will not find it necessary to make any • answer to an impudent ',challenge' coming from so disreputable a source; but it seems that this is not—as the Irishman said—a private row, but one in which all may join.
The Daily Mirror has• challenged 'Mr. David Astor to suliply the evidence that leads him to make 'outrageous charges' such as that news- papers suppress news about powerful people who might appeal to public sympathy or were able to hit back, by withholding advertising. It challenges him to furnish evidence about powerful people who obtain suppression by 'nobbling proprietors' and about his charge that other powerful people obtain suppression who might be able to hit back by 'nobbling editors.
I have stated that the Daily Mirror's attack was disingenuous—let me explain what I mean. There are many things within one's knowledge that can- not be proved in a court of law. 'Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird,' and I doubt whether Mr. David Astor will make the elementary error of falling'into the Daily Mirror's trap. But with a somewhat longer experience of Fleet Street than Mr. Astor (due to relative longevity) I may perhaps be permitted to put on record that the late Lord Rothermere abandoned his campaign in support• of Sir Oswald Mosley entirely as the result of pressure from advertisers (mostly tobacco people). This seems an effective answer to one of the Daily Mirror's hectoring challenges.
But I would like to broaden the front of Mr. Astor's attack on this form of intrusion into people's private lives. The Daily Mirror invites Mr. Astor to produce an example of 'one pro- prietor or one editor . . . who has been "nob- bled" by powerful people to conceal from the public news of their "scandalous behaviour." ' I can only answer this in a somewhat negative, but I judge, effective fashion. If the proprietor of one of the powerful national newspapers were to leave his wife and take a woman friend to Italy, would his editor publish the fact and obtain an interview with his wife? Would other newspapers do it? I judge not; even if the wife were so ill-bred as to wish to ventilate the matter in the press. The rule of dog don't eat dog still prevails in Fleet Street. Any rich man who desires privacy in his private life should buy a newspaper, unless he happens to be a powerful advertiser. If Mr. King and Mr. Cudlipp, who control and run the Daily Mirror, don't know this, they don't know much.
What the public is becoming increasingly con- cerned about is the abuse of power shown by the gutter press, particularly where it concerns intru- sion into the lives of other people. I can think of many rich men who control newspapers and whose private lives are much more interesting and spicy than that of the drab, unfortunate couple who have just been pilloried. How strange it is that we never hear about their private lives. I am not urging that we should read about them. I am merely suggesting that newspaper proprietors should accord the same privacy to their readers as they procure for themselves.
Nearly all the gutter press spend a lot of time urging egalitarianism and denouncing privi- lege. If these rich men are unable to sell their papers without violating other people's privileges, could they not at least divest themselves of the privileges which they have tacitly conspired to organise for themselves?
For those who are interested in the more pre- posterous forms of self-righteous humbug in- dulged in by the gutter press, Tuesday's Mirror story constitutes a collector's piece. Everyone should keep it handy. I could inform Mr. Cicil Harmsworth King and the readers of the Mirror of a score of relations, mistresses and lovers of people connected with the press whose names are never mentioned whatever they do. So I am sure could Mr. Astor. I doubt whether Mr. Astor will respond to this 'challenge' any more than I will. I have no desire to harry a man in his private life just because he owns a newspaper. I am certainly not going to imitate those rich newspaper pro- prietors who barge into the private lives of those of less circumstance than themselves. I am suffi- ciently old-fashioned to believe that the rich are just as much entitled as the poor to have privacy in their lives. I think this is a matter where privi- lege should not enter, and I find it exceptionally disgusting that those who are uniquely circum- stanced to protect themselves and their children should make more money than they can possibly spend by denying similar privileges to those less fortunate than themselves.
Chuck it, Mr. Cecil Harmsworth King—chuck. it, Mr. Hugh Cudlipp—chuck it, Mr. John Gordon. Someone less responsible than Mr. Astor or myself might start hitting back.
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