MEDIA STUDIES
I have received a letter from just another pompous company chairman. The trouble is, it's Hugo Young
STEPHEN GLOVE R
Last week the editor of this magazine published a letter from a Mr Andrew King attacking an article he had written. As Mr King was building up steam, he took a sideswipe at this column. At least, I assume that was what it was, unless he had in mind Paul Johnson's occasional effusions on the press. He referred to the 'radically boring page devoted to the miniature squabbles of preening scribblers left unread in 10,000 non-journalist households each week'. I think that's me.
I feel more than a sneaking sympathy for Mr King. Twenty years ago I would have put myself squarely in his camp. I thought then that journalists were nothing special. Their job, as I conceived it, was akin to that of a postman. Here was a bit of news, and there was someone who wanted to read about it, and the journalist obligingly sprinted between the two. If it was a task which demanded some skill, and was cer- tainly worth doing, it was nothing to get too worked up about, and did not justify the pomposities and pretensions of some of its practitioners.
Another correspondent of this magazine complained recently that I wrote about `funny little men', by which he meant jour- nalists of whom he had not heard. That prefigured Mr King's observations. Why do I no longer sign up to this way of thinking? We needn't become over-emotional about the importance of the fourth estate in order to agree that it is probably a good idea to keep an eye on the people who run it, and to discuss their errors and triumphs. It is no use resenting the media, and then dismiss- ing journalists as being of no importance. It is because journalists are powerful that we should sit up when they are tiresome or self-serving or a little bit pompous.
Which brings me to Hugo Young, a famous and powerful journalist. Mr Young possesses enormous dignity and gravitas. If you met him, as I briefly have on a couple of occasions, you might be put in mind of an exceptionally high-minded Victorian ecclesiastic. He glides rather than walks, bearing upon his owlish features an aspect of benevolence which appears to be tem- pered by a slight but continuing sense of disappointment at the ways of the world. Mr Young, who of course went to Balliol, is grand in a way that educated middle-class Englishmen once were but now hardly ever are. It would be difficult to imagine some- one who is less of a funny little man. This great personage wears two hats, one as an enlightened Guardian columnist, where he has attracted many admirers, and another as chairman of the Scott Trust, the non-profit-making body which owns the Guardian, the Observer and other bits and pieces. It is an unusual combination of roles. He is a journalist, discovering infor- mation and trying to make sense of the world for his readers. And he is chairman of what is in effect a large private company. You might say that he is poacher and gamekeeper at the same time, if it did not give the erroneous impression of him in his guise as columnist slipping through hedges and diving into ditches. Mr Young would always expect to pass through a gate, and it might well be held open for him by a Cabi- net minister.
For a time he wore his two hats well. Actually, there was nothing very taxing about his chairmanship of the Scott Trust. But then in April 1993 the trust made the momentous decision to buy the Observer for £27 million. I have written quite enough about this newspaper in recent weeks. Suf- fice it to repeat the main plot: three years on, the Scott Trust is on its third Observer editor, sales have slipped and losses are said to be running at nearly £10 million a year. It would be straining language to call this a success, and I suppose we should be think- ing of bucks and wondering where they should stop. If Mr Young were chairman of a public company, or a member of the Gov- ernment, columnists like — well, like Mr Young — would be suggesting he resign. How easy it is to tell people what to do, how much more difficult to do it oneself. I know this from personal experience, having tried to help run a newspaper group, and I do not reproach Mr Young. His lofty con- descension, untouched by any intimation of failure, is another matter. My suspicions were raised when he wrote to the Indepen- dent on 10 February 1995, after the Scott Trust had appointed Andrew Jaspan as edi- tor of the Observer. (He has now been 'I think we should put in a bid.' sacked.) Mr Young complained about 'the grotesque inaccuracy' of a report about `deep divisions' in the trust over Mr Jas- pan's appointment. 'This was all bunkum,' declared Mr Young. 'It was based on no conversation with any of the seven people in a position to know the truth ... It is salutary for a political journalist to be, for once, inside rather than outside a story, and thereby to understand more readily the irri- tation of politicians who are regularly the victim of similar presumptions.'
Oddly enough, I received a similar letter from Mr Young at the end of last week, marked neither private nor confidential. I had written here recently that the Scott Trust rejected an offer from Mohamed Al Fayed to buy the Observer by 'a margin of one vote'. This information came from a good source. However, Mr Young vehe- mently denies it. According to his letter, there was no vote at all, and only one mem- ber of the trust expressed interest in the offer before it was rejected. 'I have to reflect on your methods,' writes Mr Young in mildly insulting vein. 'You cannot have got your "information" from anyone at the meeting. It is too massively discrepant to have resulted from some misunderstanding, even if one of those present had been pre- pared to entertain a conversation with you, which I doubt. It seems to qualify, there- fore, for the category of sheer invention; something which, as an invigilator of the press, you might have been expected to frown on.'
Hmm. The reader will decide whether Mr Young's reaction is proportionate to the error which he alleges, or whether there may be some deeper cause for his fury. I am happy to take his word as a gentleman about the vote, though my source still swears he was right. My point is only that this is the letter of a pompous company chairman or heavy-handed politician rather than a journalist. Every reporter under- stands how difficult it can be to discover the whole truth, and there isn't a decent newspaperman alive who hasn't made errors of fact. I'm sure Mr Young has. No doubt we must all try harder, especially with those people — highly secretive politi- cians, the college of cardinals, the Ku-Klux Klan and members of that venerable broth- erhood called the Scott Trust — who won't `entertain a conversation' with mere jour- nalists. Come off it, Hugo! Whose side are you on?
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