FAIRNESS to newspapers like the People, says its managing editor
in a letter published in our correspondence columns, is something that the Spectator's readers can hardly expect. I don't see why he should think that criticism of his paper, when it behaves badly, is unfair. His argument strikes me as remarkably feeble. The 'time-honoured custom,' as he must know very well, is that the Honours List is officially published in the first issue of the London Gazette in the New Year. Since the London Gazette is not published on Sunday, the news was embargoed until Monday. That was a perfectly reasonable arrangement. and there was nothing in the least heroic about the People's breaking the embargo in order to get the semblance of a 'scoop.' The ambitions of a newspaper to give its readers the latest news should not, in the words of the Yorkshire Post, be carried to 'dishonourable excess.' Mr. Stuart Campbell should think up some better excuses for his paper's misdemeanour. If he would like to abolish all those convenient arrangements by which certain kinds of news are released in good time to newspapers (so that they can deal with it more sensibly than they could if they were rushing hell-for-leather against the clock). then he should say so. He should certainly not limp lamely out of his embarrassment by suggesting that the other Sunday editors decided not to join in an orgy of embargo-breaking 'because of space problems.' That is the faux-naïf reduced to absurdity and beyond. The best that Mr. Stuart Campbell can do is to complain of my statement that the Press Association sent out details of the Honours List 'for the benefit of provincial !ION'S- papers.' Of course, as I said, the PA tape rains on the just and the unjust alike; but the fact is that those newspapers which benefited from the PA's Saturday transmission were those in the provinces which have no correspondent in the Lobby and which would obviously require some time to prepare biographical details of those who had been honoured. To talk of 'the rights of Sunday newspapers' is pompous and tenden- tious nonsense. What 'rights' does the People have over a piece of news whose originator, for the general convenience, does not wish it published until the People is wrapping up Monday's fish? It is attitudes like Mr. Campbell's which bring the popular press into disrepute and threaten that 'liberty' which more responsible newspapers make better use of.
Previous page
