JOURNALISTIC GROUNDNUTS
The press: Paul Johnson
on a socialist venture which never stood a chance
THE final collapse of News on Sunday can have come as no surprise to anyone. Once its disastrous first issue appeared on 26 April it was doomed, irretrievably in my view. Its 'rescue' in June by the Lancashire estate agent Owen Oyston merely delayed the end and poured good money after bad. Even now there are foolish misconceptions about why it failed.
The General Secretary of the National Union of Journalists, Harry Conroy, is quoted as saying: 'News on Sunday really failed because it was under-capitalised.' This appears to be a widely held view among trade union bosses. It is nonsense. No amount of money would have enabled such a misconceived venture to succeed. The market pronounced an accurate ver- dict at the start by declining to subscribe all the issue capital, so that only some last- minute arm-twisting of Labour-controlled institutions raised the rest of the money. Here was an unmistakable signal that something was wrong, and in a purely com- mercial enterprise the whole thing would probably have been called off. But this, of course, was a socialist scheme: that is, the investors were not using their own money but cash from municipal pension funds and trade union coffers. So they pressed on.
The paper never had a hope for three inter-connected reasons. First, there is no convincing evidence that a large number of people in Britain (800,000 was the original target figure, later lowered to 400,000) want a self-consciously political newspap- er, whether of the Left or the Right. Indeed there is much evidence to the contrary. If people desire to read even more about politics than they already get in existing newspapers, they buy one of the weekly journals of opinion — and, as the sad decline of the New Statesman in recent years makes plain, there is a severe limit to the amount of politics even this committed type of reader will take. The fact is, politics, politicians and above all political doctrines are held in low esteem in Britain today. One of the reasons for the success of Thatcherism is that it is, strictly speaking, an anti-politics movement, or rather non- movement. Most people believe that, over recent decades, politics have made things worse, not better, so any newspaper which deliberately sets out to stress politics is working right against the grain of popular inclination. I was already aware of this a quarter-century ago when I did a regular Saturday stint on Reynolds News. Hostility to politics has increased steadily since then. The News on Sunday ended with a sale of only 112,000 and in my judgment that is close to the maximum of 'natural' readers it could expect. Had more capital enabled it to continue longer, the circulation would have fallen still further, rather than risen.
The second reason the paper had no chance was that, against all the evidence, it tried to apply the principles of 'workers' control' to the production of a newspaper. Long before the launch I pointed out the dangers of such a course, and was con- descendingly rebuked by the then chair- man, a Yorkshire food tycoon. Workers' control in the newspaper business means journalists running the show, a certain formula for disaster. Journalists, after all, are essentially writers, and writers (by and large) are notorious for their inability to conduct their own affairs satisfactorily, let alone anyone else's.
Long experience has taught me that journalists entertain peculiar views about the commercial side of their trade, all of them wrong. At any cost they must be confined strictly to editorial matters. Even there, it is vital that they take orders rather than give them. Editing a paper, especially a new one, is a pretty desperate business even if you have full control. One of the reasons why Andreas Whittam Smith has succeeded with the Independent is the strength of his own personal position. Most editors find it hard enough just to fend off the efforts of management to interfere. If, in addition, an editor has the journalistic staff sitting in judgment on his decisions, and holding committee meetings during the production process, while the vital minutes to edition-time tick away, the chances that he will bring out a single- minded product with a definite stamp of character on it are virtually nil.
This fatal handicap was compounded, in the case of the News on Sunday, by the fact that the journalists second-guessing the editor were drawn largely from the cranky sectarian Left, and reinforced by a posse of political overseers from outside the trade. The outfit was thus saddled with anti- commercial ideological rules, on who did what and how and when, on the employ- ment of non-whites and women, and on appointment, promotion and assignment procedures. On any aspect of newspaper creation you care to mention, there was some kind of impractical rule, ultimately derived from the Gospel according to Karl. By the time these rules were relaxed, the damage had been done. Not surprisingly, in its six months lifetime the paper had no fewer than four editors, none of whom was able to exercise real authority. All success- ful journals revolve around the principle of editor's prerogative, which is neither democratic nor constitutional but author- itarian, and a good editor reigns through a combination of fear and respect. None of these elements was present or possible as a result of the way the paper was conceived.
I doubt if the kind of people who think a left-wing paper is necessary and have the urge to set one up will learn any lessons from this fiasco. They are the same kind who believe Labour loses elections because it preaches too little socialism. So they will make similar mistakes next time. The experience of the News on Sunday means that it will be many years before that next time comes. Meanwhile, £6 million of the workers' cash has gone down the drain without any actual workers being consulted about investing it in the first place. But that is democratic socialism all over, is it not, comrades?
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