The Press
Perilous Weekend
By RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL
THERE is never a dull moment in Fleet Street this autumn. This week we have the Weekend Telegraph, printed and bound in Darmstadt,' Stuttgart and Nuremberg, transported by lorry to the Hook of Holland and shipped to Harwich—a truly United European operation. It is still hoped that it will eventually prove possible to have the weekend supplement printed by Eric Bemrose Limited of Liverpool. This firm is a sub- sidiary of the News of the World, and should not be confused with Bemrose and Sons Limited of Derby, which is an entirely separate concern con- trolled by Sir Max Bemrose.
Copies of the Weekend Telegraph were already in the Fleet Street offices of the Telegraph's rivals by Tuesday, three days ahead of publication. I have not seen one myself, but two friends of mine who have, tell me that though the contents are a bit old hat and have been resurrected from the pages of Life Magazine of four or five months ago, the quality of the printing and the colour is quite exceptional and far superior to the colour supplements of the Sunday Times and the Observer. If Bemrose take over they may be hard put to it to maintain the levels of German production.
The Weekend Telegraph is circumscribed with perils. Already there has been trouble in the Daily Telegraph printing departments. In Mon- day's Daily Telegraph Mr. Berry revealed some of the difficulties he has been encountering in the Daily Telegraph machine room. He attributes the trouble to members of one of the nine unions con- cerned. One might infer from Mr. Berry's lengthy exposition that the union concerned was SLADE (Society of Lithographic Artists, Designers, En- gravers and Process Workers). I am told that it would be wrong to make this assumption : the trouble, in fact, has come from Mr. Briginshaw's NATSOPA (National Society of Operative Printers and Assistants). Whereas SLADE is a Small craft union, NATSOPA is a large mixed bag of men and women who tend presses, tie up bundles, or perform secretarial functions.
Though NATSOPA collectively may not be responsible for the sabotage at the Daily Tele- graph on four successive nights, its members cer- tainly were. In any case Mr. Briginshaw, speak- ing for his union, had told the Daily Telegraph and the Newspaper Proprietors Association that his union did not approve of the Weekend Tele- graph being printed in Germany. Mr. Berry's rightful insistence on this operation was un- doubtedly responsible for the sabotage. How stupid can the unions be?
Then, of course, there are the newsagents, of whose difficulties I have already written and about whom Mr. Berry maintains a moody silence. The Newsagents' Federation have advised their mem- bers not to deliver the supplement on Friday. It is a loose federation : many small newsagents, to whom it is not a burden, may deliver the supple- ment. The bigger ones who deliver many Daily Telegraphs will send them out on Saturday or tell their customers to come and get it.
I know of one newsagent near me who sells, in a prosperous residential area, eleven quires (286 copies) of the Daily Telegraph. He is firm in his intention of delivering no supplements on Friday, but of 'trying' to deliver them on Satur- day. He tells me it is not a question of money, but that it is physically impossible for him to deliver on the Friday. If this practice is followed on a large scale — particularly in those areas where the Daily Telegraph outsells all other papers—it may prove fatal to Mr. Berry's aspirations. The reader may be content to receive his supplement on a Saturday and read it at leisure : not so the advertisers. The slogan 'Always on Fridays' iterated and reiterated in the Weekend Tele- graph's promotion must lead advertisers to expect at least two shopping days after publication : now it looks as if, in many cases, they will be lucky to get a half-day.
As I write the newsagents have not been molli- fied, still less placated. They complain that they have never been consulted—only informed. Mr. Berry obviously means to 'take it at a gallop.' At this late hour it is the only way he can.
The Sun, after all its brash and expensive heraldry, has risen past its meridian and seems to be settling down slowly and uncomfortably to join the Daily Herald in the western skies. Messrs. King and Cudlipp spent so much of their shareholders' money that they convinced them- selves, if no one else, that they really had a new idea for brand-new people. No, it is the same old public and it is the same old newspaper, but fatter and therefore losing, more money. In the last week I have talked to at least twenty-five people concerned with newspapers: proprietors. managers, editors, reporters, newsagents and readers (these last perhaps most important of all); not any one of them had a kind word to say for the Sun. .
It is only fair to say that Sir Linton Andrews, writing 'of the Sun in World's Press News last week, said : 'It struck me as first-rate, indepen- dent, radical and feminist. It was a big, bouncing threepenny-worth, with plenty of features in news form, strong sport (a few winners in its first fort- night will do it a power of good) and a cheerful, forward-looking temperament.' The public does not seem to share this view, at least in my part of the world. On the opening Tuesday, one news- agent sold nine quires; a week later he only sold a quire and a half.
When the dust and the Sun have settled down on the autumn battlefield of Fleet Street, Mr. Cudlipp might pause for thought. He seems to think—and he has persuaded many Fleet Street men far younger than himself—that he created the Daily Mirror, for better or for worse. Has he never heard of a character called Bartholomew?
In the same way there are young Fleet Street aspirants who have fallen for another bogus legend : that of the late Arthur Christiansen. One of these ignorant young men recently described Christansen as the 'creator' of the Daily Express. Has he never heard of Beaverbrook, Robertson, Blumenfeld, or even Beverley Baxter?
It was rather like saying that Canon Collins was the architect of St. Paul's.
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