MEDIA STUDIES
British editors are in a quandary: can they back the war if their readers don't?
STEPHEN GLOVER
War is traditionally good for newspapers. Of course, if newsprint is rationed and half your journalists go off to fight, it is not such a good thing. But during short. sharp conflicts, such as the Falklands, the Gulf war and even Kosovo. circulation has risen, particularly among the broadsheets. More thoughtful readers evidently want a level of analysis and the sort of detailed reporting that is scarcely available on television.
Nevertheless, this war, which I am assuming will happen, poses particular problems for editors. As things stand, there is widespread scepticism and a lot of outright opposition among the public at large. According to the Times/Populus poll on Tuesday. only 11 per cent of British people say that they would support Britain joining an American-led action if there were no second United Nations resolution. But if there were such a resolution, 62 per cent say they would be in favour of war.
So it is possible that most people, and therefore most newspaper readers, will be opposed to war. In fact, I would say that it is quite likely since, with the French and Germans monkeying about as they are, the prospect of a second resolution would appear to be receding. What happens if we do go to war in these circumstances? The conventional answer is that many people will rally to Our Boys. This is no doubt true. But if all did not go well, if the fighting were dragged out, if, God forbid, our soldiers died in any numbers — well, it is probable that many of these converts would prove to be temporary.
The bottom line, I think, is this. Readers do not like their newspapers to be too far from their own feelings in the event of war. Contrary to received opinion, newspapers can, and have, opposed particular wars. I do not mean wars of national survival, such as the first and second world wars, where criticism of general aims (though not of particular conduct) is deemed impermissible by almost everyone. But in lesser wars, when the future of the nation is not at stake, newspapers can ask fundamental questions without incurring the charge of disloyalty. During the Boer war, when the 'Jingo press', led by the Daily Telegraph. was demanding that Afrikaners be nailed to every tree, the Manchester Guardian was constantly troubled, and drew readers' attention to the high mortality rates in the new concentration camps.
The most famous example of anti-war journalism in modern times is the Observer's opposition to Suez. Many people draw the wrong conclusion about this affair. The newspaper published a leading article on 4 November 1956, drafted by Dingle Foot and rewritten by the editor, David Astor, which was fierce in its criticism of the Tory government. Hostilities had already begun. 'We had not realised,' ran the final sentence of the first paragraph, 'that our government was capable of such folly and crookedness.' This caused uproar. The Observer received 1,227 letters in response, of which 866 were hostile. Some readers gave up the paper, and the episode is widely seen as having paved the way to the supremacy of the Sunday Times, which had sold roughly the same number of copies as the Observer. The newspaper's error did not lie in attacking the government per se, but in affronting its readers. People forget that in those days the Observer was not predominantly read by hairy lefties. From 1908 until 1942 it had been edited by the Conservative intellectual J.L. Garvin. David Astor had only been at the helm since 1948, and although he had taken the paper in a more liberal direction he was carrying many Tories in his readership. It is a safe bet that most of those who deserted the paper were Conservative voters. After 1956 the Observer increasingly became the paper of the liberal Left.
In the coming war, do any newspapers risk alienating their readers as the Observer did in 1956? The answer is complicated by the eclectic nature of the opposition to the war. It does not neatly break down on a Right–Left axis, as you might have expected in the light of previous conflicts. According to the Times poll I have mentioned, Labour voters are more supportive of war than are Conservative or Lib Dem ones. More women have qualms than men. If you can imagine an archetypal Tory woman in the shires — 50plus. in charge of meals-on-wheels and the church flower rota — it is very likely that she is against the war. If she were to go on this
Saturday's march (which may be even bigger than the Countryside march which she may also have joined), she would find herself in her sensible tweed suit shoulder-to-shoulder with a lot of lefties. But even that group is not uniformly against war.
How does an editor navigate these dangerous shoals? One way is to sit on the fence. The Daily Mail (for which I write) has done this with some aplomb, questioning the need to invade Iraq while gleefully pelting the French and Germans with rotten apples when they get too uppity. My guess is that the paper will finally muster its considerable forces in the pro-war camp, but Mr Blair should not count on its support if things go badly wrong. The Daily Telegraph and the Sun are, by contrast, considerably more prowar than are most of their readers, though the Sun may be a little less gung-ho under its new editor, Rebekah Wade, than it was under her predecessor, David Yelland. If all goes well, these papers will be able to claim victory along with Tony Blair, but if there are difficulties they will find themselves stranded and cut off from many of their readers, some of whom will he distinctly unimpressed.
The newspapers of the Left provide an equally fascinating study. As I wrote last week, the Daily Mirror's opposition to war is sometimes wildly hysterical, and it risks alienating ordinary sceptics with its Pilgerbilge. The Guardian is behaving not unlike the Daily Mail, asking a lot of questions without saying that war would be unjustifiable in all eventualities. If there is a second United Nations resolution, the paper could still support war, but if there is not it will, like most of its readers, be firmly anti-war. Its sister paper the Observer is in a more ticklish position, having been something of a cheerleader for war, though last Sunday a slight rowing back was discernible. Its less successful rival the Independent on Sunday is making a great deal of its opposition to war, and claims to have put on 5,000 to 10,000 copies as a result. These two papers reflect the dilemma of the Left. It would be a great irony if by supporting this war the Observer lost readers, as it lost readers by opposing war in 1956. Colin Powell may say that he is sleeping like a baby — waking up every two hours — hut there will be some editors over the coming weeks who will also be asking themselves in the small hours whether they have made the right choice, and whether they have left themselves a plausible line of retreat.
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