The press
Murdoch's poisoned chalice
Paul Johnson
In accepting the poisoned chalice from Lord Thomson, Rupert Murdoch reserves the right at any stage to dash the damned thing to the floor. The 'monopoly' controversy is one good let-out. Everyone is hypocritical about monopolies; they seem very threatening to people whose jobs are not at risk. The Times itself huffed and puffed in 1976 when Murdoch looked like buying the Observer; today it has more important things, like survival, to worry about. The fact that the three big print unions do not want an investigation makes it easy for Margaret Thatcher to decline one. Even if Murdoch gets all of the Times papers, London will still have less of a monopoly newspaper structure than New York, Paris or West Germany. Murdoch would actually stir up competition, since he would make things more difficult for the Guardian, the Telegraph, both daily and Sunday, and the Observer. The only people who have genuine nightmares about press monopolies are innocent Professors of Journalism, like Jeremy Tunstall. It was said last week that getting Times Newspapers would make Murdoch 'the most powerful man in Britain'. That is grossly to exaggerate the influence of newspapers, let alone the ability these days of proprietors to control them. Murdoch is alleged to have destroyed Gough Whitlam. Nonsense: the 'tall poppy' was throughout the architect of his own destruction. Nor did Murdoch's New York Post have much to do with the Republican capture of New York state, another allegation made last week, Carter was quite capable of losing New York all by himself, and did so, as any resident of that city, from Senator Moynihan to Mayor Koch, will tell you. Nor is it true that Mrs Thatcher 'has frequently told political colleagues' that Murdoch's Sun .won her the last election'. Mrs Thatcher believes, and rightly, that she won it herself. Acquiring Times Newspapers will not greatly increase Murdoch's political power ut will, rather, make what he already Possesses more exposed, and therefore ulnerable. Social power is another matter of course. No doubt Murdoch would like to go to the Lords: I have yet to meet an Australian who would not.
My guess, however, is that Murdoch does not want the whole Times package. To him, the prize is the Sunday Times, a property to dream about, being a serious newspaper run on popular lines. Despite the battering of the last year or two, it still has an excellent editorial staff and an enormous money-making potential. There is a lot of expensive, relatively new and high-capacity machinery in the Gray's Inn Road, and if only Murdoch can secure anything approaching a reasonable manning level and guarantees of trouble-free production which are in fact honoured in practice, there is no reason at all why the Sunday Times should not be making profits of f10-15 million in a few years. The Sunday Times is a big, brash, news-gathering organisation, concentrating on investigatory journalism and not above high-grade sensationalism; all it needs to flourish is strong-minded, consistent management. In many ways Murdoch would make its ideal proprietor.
The Times is quite a different proposition. When the cartoonist Vicky moved from the News Chronicle to the Mirror he told me it was like leaving a lady with syphilis and taking up with an, honest whore. The Times, too, is a femme fatale: it sent Northcliffe off his rocker, proved too expensive even for the Astors and wrecked Thomson's reputation for business acumen. It could well drag down Murdoch and his entire empire, financially much less solid than Thomson's, if he is fool enough to saddle himself with it.
What is wrong with The Times, it seems to me, is not so much its costs of production, which could be put right, as its editorial staff, or rather large portions of it. William Rees-Mogg has run it in an altogether too soft-hearted fashion. While he made the leader page conform to his own high Tory philosophy, a kind of political anarchy has reigned in the rest of the paper. It is not so much that ranting demagogues like Eric Heffer are allowed to rehearse their. predictable views as regular features. More serious has been the penetration of the news columns by the Left and the manner in which politically activist reporters have paraded their opinions in the guise of facts. You expect that kind of thing from the Guardian, of course, but on The Times it strikes at the paper's central raison d'être as a journal of record.
The Times, in my judgment, has deteriorated markedly since the long break in publication. If journalists are paid to sit around and do nothing, they become bloody-minded, mutinous and easy prey to office agitators. During the weary months of inactivity, The Times's staff was systematically radicalised. The result was the journalists' strike of last autumn, a monstrous and wholly unjustified business which was, I believe, the last straw so far as the Thomson family were concerned and finally persuaded them to get rid of the whole mess. That strike could not have occurred on The Times five or even three years ago.
Last week, candidates from the Left made what appears to have been a clean sweep of the delegation which the Central London, or Fleet Street, branch sends to the annual delegate meeting of the National Union of Journalist's. According to one account, moderates at the special branch. meeting were dismayed to find 'a massive left-wing block vote' turning them out of their places. Who were the beneficiaries of this highly organised coup? Of the *12 successful candidates, no less than four came from The Times and a fifth from the Times Educational Supplement. Three Times people headed the list. That is a significant illustration of the problem Murdoch will face, and one reason why he will bt wise-to seek, during the next few weeks of in-fighting, to get the Sunday Times without the rest of the business. If, however, he is landed with The Times as well, what I shall be looking for is not so much whether he sticks to his guarantees of editorial independence — that should raise no difficulties — but whether and how he gets rid of the hard-nosed radicals who are entrenched in the building. If he rails in this, he will fail in everything.
Previous page
