AND ANOTHER THING
An everyday tale of writing folk toiling in the Guardian saltmines
PAUL JOHNSON
The test of a publication's decency is the way it treats its writers, especially that vulnerable category, the freelances. Recently the Society of Authors asked me to look at the Guardian's record in this respect. On inquiry, I find it to be appalling. The Guardian has always been miserly in its payments, a practice dating from the days when it was a poor paper. Now it is rich, the meanness is simple avarice. It also pays late. Worst of all is the paper's attempt to put pressure on writers to surrender their copyright.
Resale of published material to newspa- pers throughout the world is now big busi- ness. The Guardian refuses to tell me how much it makes from syndication, but it is clearly serious money. It runs a subscription service in which overseas newspapers pay a hefty annual sum to be allowed to select from 20 pieces a day sent out to them, as well as having what are called 'lifting rights' from anything they fancy in the paper. The Guardian also markets its material through German and American agencies, through a commercial database called Profile, and by `spot sales' organised through its syndica- tion department.
The fly in this lucrative ointment is the legal right of individual contributors to share in the proceeds. According to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988), the 'general rule' is a 'reasonable presump- tion' that, when an author sends in an arti- cle, he does not assign copyright but merely a licence to publish on a specific occasion. Hence, when the article is syndicated, the author ought to be paid all or at any rate a large proportion of what is received. That does not suit the Guardian. It wants to keep all the money. So last summer it sent out letters to writers demanding they assign copyright to Guardian Newspapers Ltd (also owner of the Observer, to which the same terms apply). The Guardian is not the only paper to have done this, but its approach to writers is exceptionally tough.
The original letter demanding surrender of copyright insisted: 'These terms are cru- cial to our ability and willingness to publish freelance material and your work is pub- lished on the basis that you accept the terms set out in this letter.' In further cor- respondence, the Guardian laid down that its insistence 'has practical advantages over a licence by virtue of its clarity and relative simplicity of administration'. That of course is Guardian humbugspeak for 'We want all the money and no trouble'. There was an obvious threat behind all this. One contrib- utor, Lawrence Norfolk, got a letter from the Guardian Group's managing editor, Brian Whitaker, stating flatly — and in con- tradiction of the 1988 Act — that 'the com- pany acquire copyright in the published material unless otherwise agreed in writ- ing'. The letter added, 'If a contributor is unable to accept [the terms] we regret that it will not be possible to use his or her material. Following surrender of copyright, however, 'we shall then process your pay- ment as speedily as possible.'
The implication was that without surren- der the payment would be processed as slowly as possible. That is exactly what hap- pened in Norfolk's case. He refused to sign. Instead he sent an invoice. It was not paid. A month later he sent another. That was ignored too. Finally he sent a letter saying he was beginning proceedings in the county court to recover the debt. This at last pro- duced action. But many freelances, as the Guardian well knows, are in too weak a posi- tion to take the paper to court. Carol Lee, whose article in the winter 1997 issue of the Author is a seminal text on the Guardian's attitude to writers, relates the case of the contributor who dared to write to the Guardian complaining she had received an incomplete statement of the amount of syn- dication money she knew was due to her. The managing editor simply replied, 'I have instructed commissioning editors not to accept any more work from you in future.'
The implication of the managing editor's letters is that the Guardian (and presum- ably the Observer too) now runs a blacklist of writers who do not toe the company's line, and that heads of department are not allowed to make use of writers who are put on it. I doubt if the department heads like this. But when I asked the Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger, whether he endorsed Whitaker's approach, and whether his senior staff were happy with the system of banning writers who have the courage to ask for justice, he refused to reply. Indeed he declined to answer a single one of 18 questions, grouped under nine heads, which I put to him on the subject of the Guardian's financial treatment of writers.
The paper which campaigned against what it called Thatcherite philistinism' ought not, its readers might think, to snatch crumbs from writers' mouths. What makes the Guardian's policy so nasty is that, while it treats the 'little people' — to use the notorious expression of Mrs Helmsley with contumely, it backs down before the big names who make a fuss. Thus Fay Wel- don was furious when the paper sold an article of hers to the Daily Mail, a paper the Guardian affects to despise, and got a £375 fee, more than it had paid her in the first place; the paper proposed to take half the £375, though Weldon and her agent had sold it only first British serial rights. When she threatened never to write for the paper again they finally handed over the money. Weldon is a major novelist and a tough lady. So is Jeanette Winterson, who drew attention to the fact that the late Kathy Acker, who died of cancer last year, had lacked cash to take out medical insurance and had been unable to pay for some of the treatment she needed. In a letter to the paper, Winterson wrote, 'It might have helped if, say, the Guardian had paid her the syndication fee she requested for her Spice Girls interview.' Never mind; the Guardian gave the dead woman a long obit- uary. Words cost nothing.
As news of the Guardian's behaviour spread, pressure was put on Rusbridger by the Society of Authors, the NUJ and indi- viduals to behave less disgustingly. The Guardian has now grudgingly agreed to hand over to the writers 50 per cent of spot sales to overseas publications. That is not generous. The much poorer Independent gives writers 70 per cent. When I was at the New Statesman the figure was 75 per cent and I raised it to 80 per cent. But apart from spot sales the Guardian still, I gather, denies writers their share of syndication fees, and it refuses to stop pressing writers to give up their copyright. Most important of all in my opinion, while implicitly con- ceding the injustice of its past behaviour the Guardian has no proposal to reimburse the writers whose money it has pocketed. It occurs to me that one thing Eric Anderson, who has succeeded Jacob Roth- schild as chief dispenser of lottery money to the arts, might do to help literature is to set up a copyright protection fund. It would advise writers on their legal rights and if necessary finance their court battles. In the meantime, I beg writers who have had a raw deal to get in touch with me, and I will see what I can do.
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