Impressed
George Hutchinson
The Press Inside Out Bill Grundy ( \N.H. Allen £3.95) Mr Grundy's book, as he tells us in his introduction, is addressed to the general reader who may wish to know more about the workings of the newspaper press rather than to the specialist. He has fulfilled his Purpose very well. But he has done more than that. His account will also interest Journalists and others in the trade, many of Whom might benefit from reading it by learning a thing or two about the modern history, present practices and future prospects of their chosen calling—much of it expressed in broad outline but all resting upon an informed, sympathetic and shrewd understanding of his subject.
Mr Grundy is not the most elegant of writers, but he is lively and racy in manner. He holds the attention, although he could do With a little editing. Moreover, he is widelyread arid something of a philosopher, as we Can see from many a glancing observation or apt aside. In short his book is rather more important than his own declared purpose or its physical appearance might suggest— after allowing for his somewhat gossipy Passages about individual proprietors, managers and editors (he is best on Cecil King and Hugh Cudlipp, being sensibly critical of both while admiring a brilliant vulgar talent in the latter).
It is a pity that Mr Grundy did not extend his study to the general periodical press, of Which journals like the Spectator—however few in number—are an example. This would surely have given additional point to what he has to say about the functions of the press
in the television era. Mr Grundy is saying— I think correctly—that 'for a large majority of the people of these islands, news is not what they buy a newspaper for. The nine o'clock news on BBC I or, more usually, ITN's News at Ten, plus the extremely short bulletins of Radios I and 2, are enough for most people.' From which he concludes (logically enough) that 'it seems likely that what newspapers can best provide are wellwritten features and clear background briefings.' This must be right—and in that process the political weeklies have a role.
The printed publication can do so much that broadcasts, in either form, can never do. Mr Grundy quotes Sir Michael Swann, chairman of the BBC: 'To turn The Times into a radio bulletin would take twenty-four hours solid ... The Times turned into a television news bulletin would last for two, three or four days. All of which is only to say that broadcasting suffers, necessarily, from a condensation factor of perhaps 100 or more by comparison with a newspaper.'
And all of which, if I may add to Sir Michael's assessment, gives cause for hope in the lowered and dejected atmosphere of the national newspaper press, provided that managements, rather than editors, can come to grips with the essential and crippling wrongs—of which overmanning on the industrial side is by far the worst, as Mr Grundy brings out.
There are grounds for hope, as well as despair, in the business of written journalism if only its leaders can rise to the challenge and opportunity. There is no need to be despondent—only rational: and that applies to management (often feeble in the large newspaper companies) no less than the unions (often obtuse). For all its faults, the press in Britain is not to be despised as an arm of liberty and democracy. It can save itself—and must imperatively do so if we are all to survive in freedom. Mr Grundy has made a modest contribution to that end. Wedgwood-Benn and Powell, were left for dead by the campaign—took their bow at the final curtain. Everything continued as though nothing had happened. But things could have been very different. Parliament's emphatic vote in favour of continued membership of the EEC could have been repudiated, and one of the major decisions in British history could have been taken as the result of an expedient introduced only in order to get Harold Wilson off the hook of internal Labour Party dissensions.
As in all farces, the motives of the main characters were not always what they seemed. Many of those who argued for a referendum—and campaigned against the decision to stay in Europe—did so at least partly because they saw in this an opportunity to break the establishmentarian, consensus mould of British politics. Many of those who opposed the idea of a referendum —and campaigned in favour of continued British membership--did so because of a basic distrust of direct democracy: because they felt that the people could not be relied upon to give a sensible verdict on so complex an issue. So, in a sense, the argument was as much about the nature of democracy as about Europe.
Hence the interest of this book : it not only gives an excellent and comprehensive account of the referendum campaign itself, written with a nice touch of detached irony, but it also provides an opportunity to assess the constitutional innovation itself. Should the referendum now be regarded as an acceptable means of deciding major issues, like devolution? Does the campaign tell us anything about the desirability or otherwise of using this ultimate weapon of decisionmaking?
For those of us who are committed Europeans (to declare my bias), it is tempting to conclude that the 1975 referendum demonstrated the maturity and sense of British voters and so should dissipate our fears about the dangers of direct democracy. But that would be a mistaken conclusion since, as Butler and Kitzinger show so admirably, the 1975 referendum took place in what surely ought to be regarded as unique circumstances. On one side, there were all th'e accepted and respected political leaders, from Wilson and Callaghan to Heath and Thatcher, as well as all the major newspapers. On the other side, there were the Abdullamites of British politics, the dissenters, the deviants and the fringefigures. In the last analysis, as this book suggests, this.was a vote of confidence not so much in the idea of Europe as in Britain's established political leadership. Had that leadership been split, the result might have been very different.
So it is not surprising that the elaborate, multi-million campaign—reinforced on the pro-European side with a specially imported' American expert in opinion-managementmade little impact on the attitudes of the public. The audience may have enjoyed the , play, but it is difficult to be sure what message—if any—actually got across.
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