MEDIA STUDIES
The letter to the Times which somehow didn't appear
STEPHEN GLOVER
In war almost everyone slips up, and the Daily Telegraph has overreached itself once or twice in its battle with the Times. In my column of 7 March I wondered whether it was strictly accurate for that paper to refer to Rupert Murdoch as 'the biggest gangster of them all'. Surely Al Capone has a stronger suit to press, though, come to think of it, his name has already been hung by the Telegraph around the neck of Sir David English, chairman of the Daily Mail, in an earlier spat.
And then one cannot altogether ignore the tendentious way in which the Telegraph presents its monthly circulation figures. A couple of weeks ago the paper carried the headline on its front page, 'Sales up again as Times figures crumble'. What the paper did not say was that its own circulation had risen by a mere 0.65 per cent, while that of the Times had fallen by 3.38 per cent — not an unusual movement in circulation, and certainly not a crumble. The Times also employs highly selective and exaggerated language to describe its own sales perfor- mance. Readers don't respect these games.
So let no one imagine that I think the Daily Telegraph is perfect. Perhaps consid- eration may also be given to the fact that I shall no longer be writing a column for that paper, and therefore have even less cause than usual to invoke the usual health warn- ing. Of course I wish it well, but then, in another sense and for reasons in their way no less profound, I also wish the Times well. I don't want either side to drive the other out of business.
Brian MacArthur writes a weekly press column for the Times so sunny and genial in character that it rarely offends anyone, and pleasurably passes the time of day for many in Fleet Street. Four weeks ago, however, Mr MacArthur threw away his usual script and set about attacking the Daily Telegraph with gusto. If he was encouraged to do so by his editor, my old friend Peter Stothard, that argues no great wrong in him. Mr MacArthur appears to have worked himself up into a state of gen- uine, if unaccustomed, outrage.
He had read 'with mounting sorrow and disbelief the Telegraph's attacks on the Times and its proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, which he found frequently slanted. For example, in a recent prominent article about Mr Murdoch's purchase of the Dodgers baseball team, the Telegraph had cited critics who feared that he would vul- garise the Dodgers as he had vulgarised the Times. Not unreasonably, Mr MacArthur questioned whether it was possible to vul- garise a baseball team. In any case — and here I could feel my hand going up — Mr MacArthur wondered about the identity of these critics who believed that his paper had been vulgarised.
I won't summarise Mr MacArthur's entire piece but suffice it to say it was strong stuff. Charles Moore, editor of the Daily Telegraph, came in for quite a buffing. Mr MacArthur defended the conduct of the Times in the case of Jonathan Mirsky, whose critical articles on China had been kept out of the paper not out of respect for Mr Murdoch's Chinese interests (as Mr Mirsky and the Telegraph had suggested) but because they were boring. Mr Mac- Arthur ended his blast by accusing the Tele- graph of favouring its own proprietor's interests. 'Only yesterday the Telegraph was promoting with a picture on its front page a writer named Barbara Amiel. Who's Bar- bara Amiel? She's a talented writer but she is also Mrs Conrad Black.' Mr Black is the proprietor of the Daily Telegraph. Now is not the moment to analyse Mr MacArthur's argument. I can't help won- dering whether he isn't quite near the mark in his references to Mr Mirsky, but that is another matter. The point is that such an article was bound to attract a response from Mr Moore, who had been heavily crit- icised. In fact his letter for publication to the editor of the Times was surprisingly mild and very short. In the first of two para- graphs he mentioned Mr Mirsky as an example of one critic who thought that the Times had been vulgarised. In the second he reminded Mr Stothard that 'for years the Times employed Barbara Amiel and frequently promoted her column with a pic- ture on the front'. This is perfectly true. Mr MacArthur's jab against her was silly and unjust.
When this letter, dated 1 April, arrived at the Times Mr Stothard was away. His deputy, John Bryant, told Mr Moore during several phone conversations, and subse- quently by letter, that the Times was pre- pared to publish his second paragraph, about Barbara Amiel, but not the first, con- cerning Mr Mirsky's views on the Times's vulgarity. Mr Moore demurred in a private letter to Mr Stothard dated 6 April, which drew forth a lengthy reply on the same day that was surprisingly de haut en bas. Its gist was that the editor of the Daily Telegraph had lost his habitual sense of proportion. Mr Stothard also found fault with the rea- soning in the first paragraph of Mr Moore's letter for publication which he still refused to print. 'Despite your attempts in your first paragraph, Mr MacArthur's point is not met by your letter.'
This is not the first time Mr Stothard has declined to publish a reasonable letter from a respectable public figure. A few years ago William Rees-Mogg made an uncustomary statistical error in one of his columns which attracted a correction from Professor Wynne Godley that never saw the light of day. In June 1996 some very important people wrote to the editor of the Times protesting against the publication of a piece about Polly Toynbee's love life. This too got unaccountably lost in Mr Stothard's in- tray.
It is a cardinal principle that someone who is attacked in a newspaper should be given a right of reply. If such a letter is foul- mouthed, mendacious, long-winded or bor- ing, there may be a case for asking its writer to have another shot. This was not so with Mr Moore's brief offering, which was emol- lient to a fault. Why then not publish it? My guess is that Mr Stothard has been stung by recent assaults, and that he holds Mr Moore largely responsible for his woes. But if he was attempting to punish Mr Moore he could have hardly chosen a worse way. Once again it looks as though he cannot bear to carry criticisms of his paper or his proprietor in any shape or form.
Applications for the editorship of the New Statesman have closed, and an appointment is expected within days. Those who have applied include Peter Wilby (the New Statesman's literary editor), Peter Oborne (Express), Anne McElvoy (Inde- pendent), Steve Richards (New Statesman), Colin Hughes (ex-Independent) and per- haps Mary Ann Sieghart (Times). Contrary to some newspaper reports, Polly Toynbee did not apply.
This is a difficult field to read, and I'm not going to risk damaging the contender I support by mentioning his name. I'd say the choice will come down to a Blairite woman and an Old Labour man, with my candidate as an outside bet.
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