THE PEN AND THE BUCK
The press: Paul Johnson
thinks that morally wrathful writers cut foolish figures
NOTHING provides more wry amusement than the spectacle of writers running round in indignant circles. This tends to occur whenever their publisher changes hands or direction. It is a curious fact that when writers huddle together, especially over what they see as a `moral issue', they invariably talk less sense than even the most foolish of them does individually. There has, for instance, been a great squawking among contributors to Punch over recent changes there, including the appointment of a new editor, David Tho- mas. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, its drama critic, Sheridan Morley, explained why he was quitting: he and others had tried but failed to 'win it back for the journalists' and he was not prepared to see it turned into 'the high-profit glossy that its owners [United Newspapers] now seem to require'.
Oh really? I should have thought the owners were simply trying to save it from extinction. To read Morley's article you would think that until recently Punch had been one of the world's most scintillating magazines. I have not taken it regularly for a quarter of a century and do not know anyone who does. I see it occasionally in the London Library and years ago I used to do book reviews for it, but in all that time I cannot say it has once raised the ghost of a smile on my stony features. If a funny paper does not make you laugh, what is the point of it? The last time Punch was eagerly bought and talked about was under the brief but brilliant reign of Malcolm Muggeridge in the 1950s. Since then it has been strictly for the waiting-rooms. Morley refers to 'the great Lord Barnetson', who put together United and bought Punch from its original owners, Bradbury Agnew. But I seem to recall similar prognostica- tions of disaster from writers when Barnet- son first moved in.
Of course papers can go downhill as a result of a shift in publishing policy. There is disquieting news from the Illustrated London News, a once great weekly which has struggled on precariously as a monthly and has even enjoyed a revival under its most recent editor, Henry Porter. It is now to appear only six times a year with an `international' flavour. That certainly sounds like a death-warrant. Equally, many are unhappy about the vulgarisation of another distinguished weekly, the Listener. As recently as the editorship of Anthony Howard (1979-81) it was among the best of the weeklies and his successor, Russell Twisk, struggled successfully to keep up its standards. But under the new BBC-ITV joint ownership it has taken a disastrous nose-dive downmarket. Who, you might ask, is the new pilot? Why none other than the former Punch editor Sher- idan Morley extols, Alan Coren.
I am coming to the conclusion that writers are not good judges of their em- ployers. Look at the refuseniks, some of them able, who left the Sunday Times before and during Wapping, and thereaf- ter, helped by many other writers, sub- jected it to a campaign of denigration. They look pretty foolish today, with the paper riding higher than ever and enjoying great commercial success and political in- fluence. In his resignation article Morley praised the way in which the New Yorker has been revived under Bob Gottlieb. But when it changed hands and Gottlieb was installed, most of the paper's writers and others — raised their hands in horror and prophesied a reign of the Philistines. I argued in The Spectator at the time that they were almost certainly wrong. But even I, hard-boiled though I like to think myself, sometimes succumb to writer's angst. When there was a big shakeup at Country Life and a woman editor, Jenny Greene, was appointed, I objected strong- ly to her initial layout and type changes and accepted the prevailing view among herit- age scribes that the paper would lose its admirable character. The paper's architectural editor, Clive Aslet, wrote to me at the time saying I was mistaken. He has been proved correct. I have studied the paper carefully in recent weeks, and though I still do not like the layout and caption changes, I must admit that the fundamental content has not deteriorated and I still read it with delight.
Writers have likewise set up a caterwaul- ing about Rupert Murdoch's absorption of Collins. An author I had never heard of, whose books have apparently sold 40 million copies, spouted crossly about it on television. Ludovic Kennedy has been writing to the Times about it (he must be the most prolific author of letters to the editor since the late Konni Zilliacus). 'I shudder to think', he protested to the Daily Mail, 'what will happen when Mr Murdoch gets his hands on it.' There was another fuming letter from Michael Foot in the Independent, claiming that Murdoch 'has debased everything he has touched'. What neither Kennedy nor Foot seem to realise is that Murdoch has 'touched' and 'got his hands on' Collins ever since he became its largest shareholder as long ago as 1981. Kennedy's autobiography, currently fasci- nating readers of the Daily Telegraph, and Foot's new book on Byron, which I am reading with great interest, are both pub- lished by a firm on whose board Murdoch and his eminence grise Ted Pickering sit, and over 40 per cent of whose shares News International has held for years. So what's new? In what way has Foot's book been thereby 'debased'? I doubt if writers will notice any editorial difference now NI has taken full financial control, though, in view of its worldwide media links, they may eventually be pleasantly surprised come royalty time. I am tempted to propound another of Johnson's Laws: wise writers never read the City pages.
But writers are not the only people who have been making asses of themselves over this affair. Take, for instance, Bryan Gould MP. Protesting about the success of the Murdoch bid, he was quoted by the Daily Telegraph on the subject of the Dirty Digger: 'This is the man who would put bonking in the Bible if he thought there was a quick buck to be made.' It may be news to Gould that Collins has been making bucks from the Bible for many decades. Also, if he had actually read the Bible, he would realise what every English public schoolboy knows, that there is a great deal of bonking in it already. Moreover, the notion that Murdoch likes sleaze is ill-informed. Shortly before Christmas, when I told him I thought Wendy Henry was doing a good job at the News of the World, he pulled a long face and protested bitterly that there was too much sex in the paper. He would not mind so much, he added, if the wicked sex maniacs and perverts got their come- uppance in the last para of the story and were sent down for a stiff sentence — as always happened in the old NoW — but in the present paper they seemed to get off scot-free. That boded ill, I thought, for Ms Henry and a few days later the poor girl indeed got the boot. In publishing, as Gould ought to know, everything is much more complicated than it seems.
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