Dear diary
THE PRESS DONALD McLACHLAN
Of all the features in a serious newspaper the diary is the one most likely to cause trouble and bring in the lawyers. Everyone secretly wants to get into the gossip column—as readers generally call these diaries—but few like all that they see there about themselves. Everyone likes to be quoted, but not in full. Everyone enjoys being interviewed, but only at a time and place of his own choosing. Infringe these qualifica- tions, as the daily reporter must, and his editor is on the edge of trouble. For there must be all the difference between doing this for the Beaver- brook-inspired Standard and doing it for The Times.
So far, 'As It Happens,' which was started be- fore the Thomson purchase, has shown reluc- tance to run such risks and has been judged a failure. It has never got rid of the barley-water and BBC flavour that was imparted to it under Sir William Haley; even now its writers have not mastered the trick of sounding personal without using the first person. It may also have suffered from the illusion, of which I was once myself a victim, that every specialist on the paper (for example the diplomatic correspon- dent and the art critic) is bursting with an un- written surplus of news which he is longing to present gratis to the diary. The reality is differ- ent; it is much more likely that those gentlemen will be critical and jealous of the diplomatic and art-gallery news that the diary's young reporters have ferreted out for themselves. It will be surprising if Mr Berthoud tackles a two- column diary six days a week without four or five assistants as well as the usual network.
Apart from the Londoner himself the com- petition at the moment, though strenuous, is not brilliant. Peterborough, in the Daily Tele- graph, makes the mistake of starting off each morning with a political story which not all of us can understand; and he is neither so crotchety nor so Bohemian as he was. Doubtless he will welcome the challenge of hard news. The Mail's Charles Greville is also understaffed and rather trivial. William Hickey in the Express, though often entertaining and sometimes a trend-setter, hardly competes with The Times. The Guardian's 'Miscellany' reads as if it were done by precious young men sending signals to their friends in Manchester. No, the real rivals are 'Men and Matters' in the Financial Times, more gossipy than it looks, and 'The Inside Page' in the Mirror: eccentric, surprising, often out of character with the rest of the paper, always changing its make-up.
We can assume that Berthoud's team will go first for exclusive stories of important people, in the arts and entertainment, in the universities and the publishing houses, in politics and public life, among the doctors and lawyers—for the paper has to recapture its role of parish maga- zine of the ruling class. Less easy to guess is how the diary will be used, if at all, for editorial purposes. Columns like this were at one time used for proprietors' feuds and editorial snip- ing. The Mirror sometimes uses its 'Inside Page' that way; witness the attack just a month ago on Messrs Crosland, Crossman and Jen- kins under the title The Three Wise Scribes of Westminster.'
`While Britain's Hannibal busily crosses his Alps, his Cabinet scribes pursue him with the eagerness of servants hungry for crumbs from the master's table. It is legend in Westminster that all three are keeping day-to-day diaries of Mr Wilson's appointments and activities.'
Who says diarists do not eat diarists? And then at the end, Mr Wilson hears the smack of firm editing : `In the final analysis, of course, the Socrates of Technocracy might feel like doing the whole thing himself, endowed as he is with the gift of total recall.'
I remember nothing of this kind in the 'Londoner's Diary' recently; but if it starts com- ing from Printing House Square there will be red faces among the top people.
Diaries add much to the interest of life, and we should give thanks to the men and women who toil hellishly at their telephones and files on our behalf. Specially, perhaps, to the Even- ing Standard for its stable of young columnists on which Fleet Street draws as heavily as it does on the Financial Times stud of city editors. At this moment there is a Magnus Linklater, who takes over from Berthoud at twenty-six, and a Moorehead and a Hastings to help him; thirty years ago there was a Harold Nicolson and a Bruce Lockhart. So Printing House Square, for a change, will be importing some of the tradition and skill of Beaverbrook News- papers.
While on the subject of The Times's features, may I ask on behalf of ordinary readers what Mr Clive Irving is trying to do in his Saturday column? He appears to be offering—on a news page—a course of lectures on the commercial and sociological approach to journalism, in style rather like the BBC'S Reith Lectures. His last contribution expounded what the first Lord Camrose foresaw unaided about forty years ago. One wonders how the young diarist and
the Emeritus Professor of Journalism will get along side by side on a Saturday. Besides, if daily newspapers start commenting weekly on the press what shall we poor weekly fellows do? Protest to the Monopolies Commission which gave Lord Thomson the green light?
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