A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THERE is a good deal moving or pending in the newspaper world, apart from the issue of the report of the Royal Commission on the Press. The report itself, indeed, is the authority for part of what is pending. Apart from one or two projected evening papers the proprietor of that slightly esoteric Conservative weekly the Recorder told the Commission he meant V.3 bring out the paper as a daily as soon as times were more aropitious ; the Co-operative Press (which runs Reynolds News) lso has a daily in mind. But it is a costly job—the common estimate of £2,000,000 has no very firm basis—to get a new aper on its feet, and intentions do not always materialise. Meanwhile two developments announced in the present week are interesting, without necessarily being welcome. The invasion of Worcestershire by the News of the World, which has just acquired a controlling interest in Berrow's Newspapers Ltd., is at first sight urprising. The News of the World already controls the Greyhound
xpress and Blighty, but neither of those organs has much in
n with the old, staid and respected weekly Berrow's Worcester Yournal, now 240 years old, and other allied local weeklies. The Berrow concern only became a public company some sixteen months ago, and now 75 per cent. of its ordinary shares go to the News of the World Ltd. More surprising still is the acquisition of the Melbourne Argus by the Daily Mirror. The ownership of the Mirror has always been something of a mystery, but in fact no one holds a controlling interest. The interlocking Daily Mirror News- papers Ltd. and Sunday Pictorial Newspapers both consist of a number of small shareholders, an arrangement which gives the directors, of which in both cases Mr. H. G. Bartholomew is chair- man, large powers. But what is the Mirror doing in Australia?
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