MEDIA STUDIES
The Indie has improved, but the Sindie has the better thinkers
STEPHEN GLOVER
So — the Independent. Nine months have passed since Tony O'Reilly's Irish group gained complete control of the paper and its Sunday sister. Money has at last been poured in. There is more editorial space and more journalists to fill it. It feels like a proper newspaper again, with proper news and some good stories, such as the one this week alleging that that old rogue Lord Goodman fleeced poor Viscount Portman. All in all it's a considerable achievement. The Independent's new editor, Simon Kelner, has much to be proud of. Given his reputation as a hard-drinking ex- sports editor who was thought to believe that Hegel once played left-back for Black- burn Rovers, it is all rather surprising.
Where has it got him? Nowhere yet. December's sales figures of 218,389 are no better than those he inherited last May. All this must be very dispiriting. You get hold of a paper that has suffered under invest- ment for years and has more or less aban- doned the quaint old habit of putting news on the front page in favour of interpreta- tive, featurey pieces. You turn all that around and win the confidence of your staff and the respect of many other journalists. But the new readers don't materialise even though your management sinks several mil- lions pounds into promotion. There is very little justice in Fleet Street.
The truth is that it is difficult to win back disenchanted readers who were swept along by the early euphoria of the Independent. There have been so many botched re- launches and abortive re-designs since the paper began to go wrong in the early Nineties. Of course a hard core of readers has remained loyal — you still meet roman- tic types at dinner parties who aver undying affection for the paper and won't accept that it has gone an inch downhill — but many who flocked to the standard in 1986 have returned somewhat grumpily to the Times, Telegraph or Guardian. Others who took the Independent as a second newspa- per have simply given it up. To convince old readers that they should give it another shot, or new readers that it is worth trying, is going to be hard. But not impossible, I think. I still believe that the future of the Independent lies in being a cut above its somewhat dumbed- down rivals. In some respects it has achieved this under Mr Kelner's editor- ship, but the paper remains conspicuously weak where it should be strong — in the thinking department. I personally don't like having leaders and columns in a sec- ond section — which section, by the by, has a review front that is sometimes difficult to fill. But the real point is that the leaders are not as good as they should be and that few of the columnists are first rate. There is something slightly timid and predictable about the editorials. I remember a brilliant Independent leader once written by my old colleague Matthew Symonds — at a time when the paper unashamedly espoused free market economics — in defence of ticket touts.
Top rate columnists are, of course, noto- riously difficult to attract. For one thing they expect a lot of money these days — a recruit on another paper was offered a signing-on fee — and for another they may regard the Independent as a slightly dodgy proposition for paying off the mortgage. I expect the paper may solve all that in time. But it is not just about attracting stars. The Independent on Sunday, which admittedly has the irreplaceable Alan Watkins, runs very lively comment pages largely by luring outside writers of every political persua- sion. For some reason the dear old Sindy is not receiving the attention or attracting the praise it should. It is strong in the thinking department. Its pieces about the possible disestablishment of the Church of England in its most recent issue were the natural fare of intelligent Sunday journalism. With a little more investment — most of the new money has gone to the Independent — the Sindy could tilt at the Observer.
After so much has been lost, it would be silly to expect the Independent to recover in a few months. It will obviously take time. The paper's Irish owners say they are in no hurry: let's hope they continue to be patient with losses while they are also having prob- lems with their South African titles. If Mr Kelner does continue to improve the paper, if he does have the courage to elevate it above its rivals, then I believe it could `I've got Ms Meddle the social worker.' become something of a cause again for a certain group of people, and the word would be passed around the length and breadth of the land: the Independent is back.
Amanda Platell has been sacked. Readers may recall how in November the executive editor of the Express on Sunday came very close to losing her job after her paper had published a photograph of Reinaldo Avila da Silva, a young Brazilian gentleman who was a friend of Peter Man- delson. At that time Mr Mandelson, still a Cabinet minister, -complained bitterly to Lord Hollick and to Rosie Boycott, editor- in-chief of the Express titles. Ms Platel's life hung by a thread, but she survived, partly because Lord Hollick and Ms Boycott did not want to be seen to be caving into a min- ister's demands, and partly because Ms Boycott had herself approved publication of the photograph, and therefore could not legitimately pin all the blame on Ms Platell.
However, my fears that Ms Platell's card had been marked have been realised. Also `let go', from the Express on Sunday is Ian Walker, news editor, the man who despatched a reporter to Japan to interview the aforementioned Reinaldo Avila da Silva. It would be too much, I think, to imagine the figure of the Prince of Dark- ness, aka Peter Mandelson, arising from his political grave to drive a stake through the hearts of Ms Platell and Mr Walker by way of revenge. But it is very difficult to escape the conclusion that had Mr Mandelson not complained so vociferously two months ago the two of them might still be in their jobs. The official line — that is, Ms Boycott's line — is that Ms Platell was 'too down- market', to be allowed to continue in her job. This may be part of the truth but the other, and probably bigger, part is that Ms Boycott could not forgive Ms Platell for all the controversy and upset surrounding the publication of that picture. I believed she has behaved badly, the more so because she was initially enthusiastic about the photo- graph. Ms Platell has been sacrificed, and Mr Mandelson has got what he wants.
My apologies to the citizens of Chip- ping Sodbury for calling their town Chip- ping Sudbury last week. Fact is almost always stranger than fiction.
Previous page
