AND ANOTHER THING
The not-so-Dirty Digger throws a sacrilegious fire-cracker
PAUL JOHNSON
In assessing a famous man, it always helps to know his parents. Having met that delightful couple, Lord and Lady Stansgate, I never for one moment believed any of the demonology about Tony Benn. On the con- trary, I have always regarded him as quixot- ic, gallant, high-minded, patriotic, a perfect gentleman and, almost invariably, wrong. Recently, in Melbourne, I spent much time in the company of Dame Elizabeth Mur- doch, a vivacious old lady who radiates intelligence, charm and fun, and who told me, among other things, that she has 23 great-grandchildren. She confirmed my impression, formed long ago, that Rupert Murdoch, far from being a monster, is essentially well-meaning, someone who wants to make the world a better, or at any rate a more exciting, place.
Excitement: that is the key to him. He likes money only in so far as it brings him power; and he likes power chiefly because it gives him the opportunity to shock the complacent, to uproot the entrenched, to hound the idle and incompetent, and to turn the establishment upside down. He enjoys piling on circulation and ratings, and turning in record profits, because those are the measurements of success in his chosen profession, which he takes very seriously. But his greatest pleasure in life is letting off fire-crackers in the cathedrals of the media. Others, naturally, don't see it that way. Three years ago he was in dire trouble, and many crocodile tears slid down brassy cheeks at his approaching demise. But now that he has come back from the financial dead and is once more on the rampage, he is again caricatured as a combination of Tyrannosaurus Rex, terrorising and gob- bling, and a Rothschild-type conspirator weaving global webs of monopoly capital- ism.
Manufacturers who cut the price of their products expect to be treated as benefac- tors. Some hope. Murdoch's decision to reduce the price of the Times by 15p, or one-third, has aroused rage and dismay. Labour sees it as a sinister plot against the workers, Andreas Whittam Smith denounces it as a frontal assault on civilisa- tion, which he equates with his organ. Sir Gordon Borrie, formerly head of the Office of Fair Trading and now a director of the Mirror, which feels threatened by the Sun's earlier price cut, calls it 'predatory pricing'. The chattering classes consider it an affront to their financial self-esteem, assuming as it does that they have to count their pence when choosing their daily rag. The Govern- ment, hovering on the brink of paranoia, and judging that it now gets a better deal from the Independent or even the Guardian than from the Murdoch papers, is seriously thinking of calling in the Monopolies Com- mission. Cutting the cover price of his papers — what will the scoundrel think of next? It all reminds me of the diplomatic community's reaction to Talleyrand's death: whatever did he mean by that?'
I take a more simple view. Murdoch can- not bear owning a paper which is not the market-leader in its field. He is baffled and frustrated by his failure with the Times. He has been studying the history of the Tele- graph, and noted that it became market- leader by charging less than any other qual- ity paper, a consistent policy for a century until Conrad Black acquired it. So, like Northcliffe before him, he is determined to have a go and see how a cheap Times will fare. I think he will be proved wrong, as of course Northcliffe was. Black's high-price policy has done the Telegraph's circulation little harm, and its profits a power of good. Slashing the Sun's price, though expensive, may well have an appreciable sales effect and so justify itself in time, but at the upper end of the market quality matters more than price. If Murdoch feels he milked News International when his satellite net- work was a licence to lose money, and his conscience tells him he must pay it back now that BSkyB is about to start coining it, then he should use any extra cash to make the Times a better paper editorially. Spon- `Just remember — it's your own crotch you're supposed to grab.' soring the World Chess Championship with £7 million of Murdoch's money is the Thunderer's most sensible ploy in years. But much remains to be done to raise its news coverage to the level of the Telegraph's, or even of the Guardian's, and the Times will never beat the latter into third place until it gets a new generation of really good writ- ers. But all that will cost money — lots of it. Instead of subsidising its top people, Mur- doch should be doubling the Times's edito- rial budget.
Whittam Smith's accusation that Mur- doch is trying to put the Independent papers out of business merely reveals the way the Major-General's own mind works. He did everything in his power to strangle the Sun- day Correspondent and, if his bid had suc- ceeded, he would have murdered the Observer by now. Murdoch has never killed a paper in his life and enjoys nothing better than no-holds-barred competition. The real danger is that Whittam Smith will wreck the Independent himself by his dithering and his unwillingness to face unpalatable facts, such as his own dispensability. The two papers are visibly bleeding to death, notably by losing their best writers. There are many reasons for this, but poor morale, loss of confidence in the company's leader- ship and shortage of cash are clearly three of them.
Like everyone else, I want these two papers to survive, but they are probably doomed under the present structure. The best solution would be for them to take refuge under the Pearson umbrella. I doubt if the Monopolies Commission would object to the Financial Times and the Inde- pendent being under the same ownership. Failing that, they will have to bow the knee to Lord Rothermere. If he gets control at the right price, he is quite capable of pre- serving their editorial independence and integrity, especially since there is no other way, short- or long-term, of their turning in a profit. Such an outcome would have the additional merit of giving Murdoch, and Conrad Black for that matter, a much hard- er run for their money, and turning the top of the British national newspaper market into a real battleground. I would welcome such a fracas because, like Murdoch, I crave excitement. What I cannot bear is humbug. That is one reason why I will have • few regrets if the price of the Independent's survival turns out to be the exodus of its founder.
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