UP TO A POINT, LORD COPPER
that recent gains in proprietorial power may prove illusory
THIS has been a year of mixed blessings for the British newspaper industry. Media shares were particularly badly hit by the stock market crash, which took the glitter away from Reuters, News International and other high performers. Yet the under- lying economic position remains healthier than for many decades. Except when prop- rietors seemed bent on self-inflicted wounds — Lord Stevens's calamitous attempt to turn the Star into Britain's first bonk newspaper was the outstanding ex- ample — all the big groups performed well. Even the Telegraph papers, once among the chronic sick, are back on the profit road. There are one or two worrying cases: the Observer, for instance, which had an unsuccessful relaunch of its magazine, is in danger of being pushed into third place among the Sunday qualities, and if this happens it is not clear whether Tiny Rowland will wish to sustain the burden, or to whom he will hand it. But in general nationals are performing well and jobs are safe.
There has, however, been an important shift in the balance of power within the industry. The year 1986 saw the destruc- tion of the monopoly power of the print unions; now 1987 has seen a shift of power from the journalists to management. This should surprise nobody. The ability of journalists to dictate terms to proprietors — the four-day week, sabbaticals etc was essentially a by-product of the sheer muscle of the print unions, which had reduced managements to a state of apathe- tic terror. Once print union power was broken, and granted the split between the National Union of Journalists and the Institute of Journalists, it was only a matter of time before the managers, who are rapidly recovering their self-confidence, began to erode the journalistic gains of recent years.
Needless to say, Rupert Murdoch's News International is taking the lead. He had to pay a high price to keep journalists loyal during the big Wapping fight, and for a time those on the Sun and the News of the World were averaging L32,000 a year. But the terms NI management are now pre- senting to those two papers, plus the Sunday Times, mark a return to realism. Most journalists on the Sun, it is proposed, will lose the four-day week. Sabbaticals on the Sun and the Sunday Times will end. Minimum salaries for those joining the tabloids from the provinces will be cut from £25,600 to possibly as low as £18,000. Many fringe benefits will be reduced. There will be much stricter working sche- dules for bank holidays. Of course these are negotiating proposals. But the fact that they are put forward at all reflects the changed power relationship. And what NI does today the rest of the nationals will probably do tomorrow.
Are we then entering a new age of the all-powerful proprietor? Yes, in some ways. These days, Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch bestride the London newspaper scene, and have even taken to breakfasting together, though I doubt to much purpose (each dislikes and suspects the other profoundly). Neither now has any trouble disposing of unloved staff. When Murdoch sacked Harry Evans as editor of the Times there was quite a `With double-glazing you use far less of this.' drama. If he now decided to dispose of the present editor — by no means unlikely not a voice would be raised. As for Maxwell, he shifts his editors around, and anyone else, at will and for impenetrable reasons of his own.
But it is not exactly back to the days of Lord Copper. I cannot see the NUJ, now a pitiful organisation and a classic example of how left-wing politics can destroy union negotiating power, causing these two pachyderms any trouble. But there is a third party to the debate, and an in- creasingly angry and restive one: the pub- lic.
At no time have the media in general, and national newspapers in particular, been so unpopular with so many people of all classes and persuasions. As someone remarked recently, journalists are now even more hated than social workers. There are all kinds of reasons for this fury. Press standards are now so ubiquitously low that virtually everyone has personal experience, or has a relative or friend with personal experience, of disgusting be- haviour. These stories circulate, usually in exaggerated form. Then, from time to time, they conglobulate (as Dr Johnson would say) around the particularly out- rageous treatment of a public figure, such as the recent harassment of the Princess of Wales. The experience of royalty becomes the experience of all.
Members of the public are cynically aware that polite protest is useless. Like the trade itself, they regard the Press Council as a feeble and ridiculous body. They prefer direct action. Jury service on a libel case is one way of taking it. Both the verdicts and the level of awards in recent months reflect public anger at the press and the way it behaves. Some of them have struck journalists as unreasonable. So they may be, but courts are always liable to come down heavily against certain types of unsocial conduct if the need arises. Juries socking the press for libel are voting not only in particular cases but against prevail- ing abuses.
Moreover, they rightly identify the prop- rietor, who has to pay the damages and costs, as the man responsible. They know that it is within the power of Murdoch, Maxwell, Stevens, Rothermere, Rowland and company to end the abuses they permit and in some case encourage. The recent trend in libel verdicts is the first public shot across the proprietorial bow. If no notice is taken and the perverted use of press freedom continues, I suspect that public anger will take a different turn and will begin to express itself politically. This may happen quite suddenly and devastatingly and take the form not merely of privacy legislation but of severe restrictions on ownership. Let proprietors be warned. Economic power has shifted in their direc- tion recently but it may turn out to be, if you'll permit the phrase, by no means copper-bottomed.
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