A Spectator's Notebook
MONDAY'S Panorama devoted a brief and infuriatingly inconsequen- tial few minutes to what was in- tended to be a discussion of the serious weeklies. It arose out of Lady. Rhondda's announcement that Time and Tide will have to cease publication unless help is forthcoming; but Lady Rhondda herself was hardly able to get a word in, and most of the time was spent speculating on the success of 'pop fiction' women's magazines, which .was hardly relevant. Advance obituaries for Time and Tide, I am sorry to see, have already been appearing; I trust they are premature—that the helper Lady Rhondda is looking for will be found. But the help will not, I hope, take the form of a subsidy. Lady Rhondda is quite wrong in thinking that most weeklies depend on subsi- dies; on the contrary, throughout press history they have nearly always—save in exceptional circumstances—been the kiss of death to serious journals. Certainly the Spectator could not have reached the ripe old age of 130 by relying on such help; it has always stood on its own feet; it will, I trust, always continue to do so.
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