AN INDEPENDENT BUT THIN VOICE
that Britain's new quality newspaper needs a more forceful tone
'THATCHER declares next election no contest' was the arresting main headline on Saturday's Independent. Golly! Had I mis- sed something vital in the speech I heard the previous afternoon? No — just an over-eager splash sub drumming up trade. In general, however, the new paper's headlines are models of sobriety and accuracy. Moreover most of them follow the excellent rule which is still observed on the better American papers: a headline Should contain a verb, preferably an active one in the present tense. Sobriety, indeed, is very much the keynote of the Independent as it is the hallmark of its founder-proprietor, Andreas Whittam Smith. The layout and typography seem to me excellent (and, after a shaky start, the paper has been running some stunning photographs). To be sure, the image is not yet metropolitan. Just as Today looked (and still looks) like a good local newspaper, the Independent has affinities to a regional one of the better Class. It has the visual persona of, say, the Glasgow Herald or, still more, of that sensible but short-lived Scottish Sunday, the Standard. Perhaps the paper to which it is most comparable is the Irish Times, at any rate in appearance. That is not intended as a criticism, still less as a sneer. Regional papers do not suffer from the fierce and even excessive competition which leads even the quality nationals to hype the news; they retain old-fashioned attitudes towards facts. The Independent's news pages are the best thing in it. The City coverage, as one might Perhaps have expected, is particularly good. But what impressed me most was the range, variety and quality of the foreign news, and the space devoted to it. It is true that some of these items were agency stories, openly labelled as such. But what is wrong with that? Much excellent agency material never reaches the British reader, except in cut and rewritten form, simply because our qualities keep up the pretence that they each run universal news-services of their own. I don't think the Indepen- dent's foreign coverage is yet as thorough as the International Herald Tribune's. But It is heading in that direction and will, I hope, stimulate the established qualities into giving foreign news a more generous display. The Independent then, is primarily a paper dealing in straight news—exactly as it promised. It is emphatically upmarket. It makes few concessions to falling standards of literacy and low tedium-thresholds. I cannot see it offering much competition to any of the tabloids, even the Daily Mail. It is aimed squarely at the Guardian, Times and Telegraph. What it is saying, in effect, is: all these existing 'qualities' have de- veloped vices, both political and journalis- tic. If they annoy you, turn to us, the purified model.
That is not an unintelligent appeal, and I can see it working with quite a number of readers, especially those who vote Social Democrat. The difficulty, of course, is that if you begin with a holier-than-them approach, you must take care not to develop any vices yourself. Unfortunately, vice is generally supposed to sell newspap- ers, even quality ones. That is why they run gossip columns. All editors hate them because they are expensive and cause endless trouble. Almost all submit to them, because their effect on circulation is, or is thought to be, demonstrable. All the same, I was sorry to see Whittam Smith genuflect at this shibboleth. And it dented his Simon Pure image the very first day. 'And what', asked its Diary, 'were Neil Kinnock and his entourage downing on the train from Blackpool to London last Friday? Bubbly, and in heroic quantities too.' One of the reasons I detest gossip columnists is that they are constantly making unpleasant insinuations on the basis of rumours they do not bother to check. The implication here was that Kinnock was a hypocrite, though an inquiry to his office would have elicited the fact that he was not on the train at all, let alone consuming champagne 'in heroic quantities'. The next day the Inde- pendent's diarist was obliged to admit as much but did not have the grace to make a proper apology, naming his source. 'My man', he wrote, 'clearly had several tots too many.' No: a gossip columnist clearly made one telephone call too few.
In more general terms, the Independent will have to resist the temptation to enliven its rather bland presentation of news and features with the spice of malice, venom and invective. There is not much point in banning extremism from the news pages if it pops up elsewhere. The paper has rightly decided to give extensive coverage to the arts and books, and it is of good quality, though I regret the missed opportunity to introduce some really new names in these well-trodden fields. I particularly like the device, borrowed from the New York Times, of reviewing a new book every day. But I was saddened to see, in the second issue, this space devoted to a crudely abrasive review of Lord Longford's recent book The Bishops, a tirade unredeemed by wit or elegance, and concluding with the inaccurate and libellous assertion: 'It is hard to believe The Bishops would have been published except by his family firm.' The editor has set his paper high standards and he should not tolerate hatchet-work which falls so obviously below them.
But there is one fundamental weakness of the Independent which must receive the editor's urgent attention. The paper, so far as I can tell, has no political philosophy, and this is reflected in its leaders. Some are simply vapid, as for instance its very first main leader on Argentina, which provoked unseemly mirth, I fear, in the press room at the Bournemouth Tory Conference.
Whittam Smith, I hasten to add, is absolutely right not to identify his paper with any party or even political tendency. But every good quality paper ought to have a world-view, a broad idea of how it wants society to be run, and public morals to operate, so that it has a judgmental framework against which events can be measured, as they occur. It is the lack of a world view, springing (as it must) from the powerful and decisive personality of its editor, which has prevented Today from having any real impact. Whittam Smith must be a remarkable man to have brought the Independent into existence at all, and to have given it such a dignified and in many ways promising start. But if he has a coherent and well-thought-out view of the world, he is keeping it carefully concealed.
Until that editorial view begins to emerge clearly, it is difficult to hazard a guess about the Independent's success. Among national newspaper professionals the initial verdict is 'worthy but dull', and the expectation is that the paper will run out of money in four to six months and will then fall prey to a large predator — Packer, Goldsmith, Fairfax, possibly even Maxwell if the Monopoly Commissioners allow. My own feeling is more optimistic. But I am sure the paper's chances of independent survival will improve pani passu with the emergence of a strong and confident editorial personality, ready to take definite and trenchant stands on the issues. You can't beat news in a news- paper, as Christianson said; but you need views too, especially in a quality.
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