MEDIA STUDIES
Journalists must learn to take criticism. After all, last week The Spectator libelled, of all people, me!
STEPHEN GLOVER
By no means every grand journalist reacts in this manner. I wrote some pretty critical things about Andreas Whittam Smith while he was still editor of the Independent. I have teased Andrew Neil in his role as columnist for the Daily Mail and the Sunday Times. So far as I am aware, neither of these gentlemen has ever attempted to retaliate in print, although they have had every opportunity to do so. Like any sensible politician, they have affected not to notice, and gone on their way
as though I did not exist. •
There are journalists, who react different- ly. Perhaps they are simply so unused to public criticism, though they deal it out in spades, that they are stung into action. I think of dear old Peter Preston, recently toppled as editor-in-chief of the Guardian and the Observer. When I made some criti- cisms of his running of the Observer, Mr Preston proceeded to throw mud pies in my direction from the vantage point of the Pendennis diary column in the same news- paper. I can't remember what Mr Preston wrote but I think we may be sure that his gripes made little sense to the reader and offered no improvement to a column that stood much in need of it.
Then there is Max Hastings, former edi- tor of the Daily Telegraph and since the beginning of the year editor of the London Evening Standard. I have already written about his delicate sensibilities so we needn't go over that ground again. But he is still at it — or his lieutenants are. Five weeks ago I wrote about Max's new editor- ship in anxious tones, remarking that under his new regime the famous Londoner's Diary column 'breathed a rather grim spir- it' and seemed to be 'edited by a character with Dave Spartish tendencies'. It did not take long for Mr Spart to respond. On the day he read my observations he ran an item in Londoner's Diary about 'the fast-fading Spectator' even though that issue of the Evening Standard (6 June) carried a long article by Jan Morris reprinted from the very same 'fast-fading Spectator'.
If you can't get back at me, get back at the organ for which I write. That seems to be the thinking of the editor of Londoner's Diary, whose name I fear I do not know. It is all very petty, of course, and only worth men- tioning as an example of what some journal- ists will sink to. This particular chap has struck back on a subsequent occasion, when quite a jolly item in the Diary about The Spectator, presumably written by an oblivious sidekick, was replaced in later editions by an acerbic little piece. The point is that this set- tling of scores amounts to a conspiracy against the reader. He or she is unlikely to be able to see the real point, and so is an unknowing spectator of a tiresome vendetta.
For a long time I believed that Peter Stothard, editor of the Times, could rise above all this. I have sometimes criticised his newspaper, though I have also praised it. My objection, in a nutshell, has been that he has vulgarised it unnecessarily. But whenever I have met Mr Stothard by chance he has always been friendly, calling me names in a most affectionate way, and sometimes rebutting a particular point with gusto. I have always held him in warm esteem, and remember how at Oxford he used to drift around the place in a garment which, over the long years, appears in my mind as a kaftan. Until the last week or so, his denial that he ever wore such a thing has served as the only really serious dis- agreement between us.
Alas, no longer. Three weeks ago I took Mr Stothard to task for publishing an article by the wife of a man with whom the journal- ist Polly Toynbee has been having an affair. No more of that. According to my sources in
his office, Mr Stothard took this piece badly. Why he did so, when he has reacted so sto- ically to earlier criticism, we can only sur- mise. Perhaps, in his heart, he felt I was right. At any rate, on 3 July an item appeared in the Listener column on the Times's media page which I have reason to believe was inspired by Mr Stothard, It read:
TYpping Glover
News reaches the Listener from Conrad Black's Canary Wharf headquarters about his much prized Spectator magazine. Hot tip to replace the recently appointed wit and racon- teur, Frank Johnson, is the journal's media correspondent and former editor of the Inde- pendent on Sunday, Stephen Glover. Canary Wharfers who remember how Glover's last editorship nearly destroyed an entire newspa- per group can be confident for a little while longer, however. Johnson is said to be safe until the election.
Connoisseurs will recognise this as a mas- terly item, insulting as it does the editor of The Spectator and myself in equal measure. The first part is pure invention, calculated to damage this magazine and Mr Johnson. The second part libels me. A lawyer friend who views prospective settlements in terms of real estate says that this should be worth a small, broken-down cowshed in the Languedoc. But I shall choose instead to regard as flat- tering the idea that I was responsible for the near collapse of an entire newspaper empire when all I did was to help launch two nation- al newspapers which were regarded as criti- cal successes, the second of which, the Inde- pendent on Sunday, contained a supplement which was quickly copied by no less a news- paper than the Times.
My advice to Mr Stothard is to take criti- cism on the chin. As it happens, I was libelled not once but twice last week. The second libel occurred in the pages of, er, The Spectator. In a review about a new book by Jeffrey Bernard, Vicki Woods remarked that those who want to under- stand how much men hate women should 'press Bernard's little book into their hands — along with the selected writings of Stephen Glover and Martin Amis'. Messrs Bernard and Amis will have to look after themselves, but I challenge Ms Woods to find a single sentence I have written that is misogynist. This surely must be worth a rather large cowshed, but the editor of this magazine has not offered a single word of sympathy and affably refuses to say that it will not happen again.
Previous page
