The last true hacks
Alan Watkins
e Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain Stephen Koss lh (Hamish Hamilton L25) Professor Koss is one of those American academics who acquire an interest (in both senses of the word) in an aspect of British life or history, and then go on to learn more about it than the natives. In his case the field is political history in about the first quarter of the century. His only rival is probably another American, Pro- fessor A. M. Gollin. Their very industry Puts most of us to shame. Professor Koss is 'lot content to go to the standard bio- graPhies and the cuttings library. No pri- vate collection of papers, however Obscure, is safe from his attentions. In fact, I could have done with more cuttings — examples of what the newspapers said at the time — and fewer sentences (I make up an all-purpose example) on the lines of: Sanders El3alfour's secretary] wrote to Derby that 'Lloyd George was in a terrible temper' about what he took to be Garvin's malicious leader' as to which 'A. J. B., of course, knew no- thing,' although, according to Garvin, he had 'spent an agreeable evening with Balfour', evidence that was, however, seemingly contradicted by A. G. Gar- diner's recollection that Balfour and qarvin had had 'a frightful row' over tariffs./ That Professor Koss has consulted three kur fiour sets of papers and half-a-dozen to produce such a sentence does not make it any easier for the reader either to read it or, having got through it, to make sense of what, if anything, really hap- Pened — 1)0 not misunderstand me. Profes- sor Koss tries to write interestingly and e titenaluinglY. This sometimes leads his characters to blunder or blurt rather than, bnore simply, to state or say. But if the is ok is occasionally heavy going, as it is, it anPartlY because he is unwilling to tell us was about his cast, where so-and-so uc he gs edated, what his father did, where ,eaue from sa bee- 3' unwilling rather than 'unable' uuse he would certainly have been able to, had he chosen. He is, after all, Gardin- er's biographer too. This reticence is less defensible when he is dealing with journal- ists as distinct from politicians, not so much because journalists are more interesting than politicians as because even the special- ist reader usually knows less about them. The newspapermen tend to pop up like cardboard cut-outs: here a Massingham, there a Garvin, now a Gardiner, then a Gwynne.
One would search Professor Koss's pages vainly for the information that J. L. Garvin was the son of a Birkenhead Irish immigrant who was lost at sea when he was two and was brought up by his mother; that H. W. Massingham was the son of a Methodist-preacher-cum-male-secretary to a rich East Anglian Quaker family, was educated at King Edward VI School, Nor- wich, and was the father of the Observer's great political columnist, the late Hugh Massingham, who unaccountably finds no mention whatever in Professor Koss's work; that H. A. (Taffy') Gwynne was the son of a Swansea schoolmaster, was edu- cated at Swansea Grammar School and rose to journalistic prominence through striking up a youthful friendship with the King of Rumania; or that A. G. Gardiner was the son of a dissolute or improvident East Anglian cabinet maker, was largely self-educated and, like Garvin in this too, was brought up by his mother. This is not gossip or anecdote — which journalists are always being accused of both wanting and supplying — but straight biographical fact. It may not be important but it is certainly interesting. And, as J. L. Austin once said, importance may not be important, but truth is.
I do not choose these names by inadvert- ence. They occur in Professor Koss's book virtually to its end. For the other fault of the book is a monstrous lack of proportion about time. It is a long book, 686 pages, and Professor Koss takes up well over half of it to bring us to the end of the first world war. After nine-tenths of the book we are in the middle of the second world war. The entire post-war period is dealt with in about 60 pages, though there is some interesting and, to me, new information about the demise of the News Chronicle. There is no reason why exact proportional- ity should be observed. Some periods are more important than others. But this is ridiculous. Several explanations are possi- ble. Professor Koss is not the kind of writer to run out of steam, au very much con- traire, so we can discard that one. What is more likely is that he is more interested in and knows more about the first quarter or so of his period, not least because of the greater accessibility of original material.
But there is a more fundamental ex- planation, which is entailed by Professor Koss's view of his subject. He defines political influence as proprietors, politi- cians and editors working together in cahoots either to support a political party, or a faction within it, or to oppose a political party, or a faction within that. The newspapers, in other words, must be play- ing a game whose rules are fixed by the politicians. If they refuse to accept those rules, or decide to play a different game altogether, they cease to have political influence. It is no wonder really, not unaccountable at all, that Hugh Massing- ham, or Mr Henry Fairlie or Mr Peregrine Worsthorne for that matter, goes unmen- tioned. When proprietors cease being obe- dient to politicians, Professor Koss loses his bearings but still manages to keep going somehow. When editors cease being obe- dient to proprietors or, more confusing still, journalists to editors, Professor Koss wanders around in circles in a fog.
Proprietorial independence of politicians was established by Lord Northcliffe who, though a monster and mad, made enough money to give him his freedom. Editorial independence of proprietors is largely a post-war development, which has been by no means uniform and has numerous causes: the death or disappearance of overtly political proprietors such as Lord Beaverbrook, the incorporation of news- papers in organisations with many other varied interests, pre-conditions laid down by government (fulfilled in the case of the Observer, unfulfilled in that of The Times) and, not least, the rise of television, which can instantaneously transform editors in trouble into public figures in a small way of business, taking their case to the nation, saying `no comment at this stage . . . meetings are still going on . . . fun- damental issues involved,' for all the world as if they are Ministers of the Crown. Journalistic independence of editors de- rives partly from this same cause — the journalist can become a small public figure too today — and partly from the growth of the by-line and the signed column, which, though the public may not remember names, and though we have fewer news- papers, still gives the journalist the free- dom or power to take his wares elsewhere.
These developments are largely un- touched by Professor Koss. They do not accord with his definition of political influ- ence. This influence reached its apogee in the Victorian era, which was dealt with by him in a first volume. It had a silver age just before the first world war. After about 1920 it was downhill all the way. We are all in debt to him for his industry, learning,' accuracy (only H. Nicolson is mis-spelh and enthusiasm for his subject. But I vash he had written one book on the period in which he feels himself most comfortable, ending in the 1920s, and confined himself to that.
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