Rest in Trust
Frank Munsey contributed to the journalism of his day the talent of a meat-packer, the morals of a money-changer, and the manners of an undertaker. He and his kind have about succeeded in transforming a once noble profes- sion into an eight per cent. security. May he rest in trust.
AN American press tycoon was given this epitaph a quarter of a century ago by a dis- gruntled editor; and it is beginning to look as if it will soon have to be written here. When news- paper chains grow beyond a certain size they have to follow the customs of the City. It is not limply that—as the Prime Minister argued, in khat was on the whole a balanced comment— newspapers have to die if they cannot live on their profits. Nowadays, a newspaper may be condemned to death even when it is profitable —if other papers, promising much more profit, are bought, or if it does not happen to fit in with the revised production schedules which are re- quired to make the most efficient use of new printing presses. Even if a proprietor is genuinely anxious to preserve some steady, old-established journal, he may be frightened into closing it down; for take-over bidders are on the watch to buy up his business over his head if he does not make substantial profits throughout the whole range of his publications.
Inevitably the trend is to larger and fewer empires, and fewer national newspapers. Cecil Harmsworth King has more than once prophesied that only two or three nationals are
'Well, they 'ad to, really, so as not to °fiend the natives.'
likely to survive the coming circulation war— which hardly suggests that he will be ready to crusade valiantly to save the Herald. No doubt with a massive injection of Mirror money and Cudlipp vitality its recent revival could con- tinue; but the trouble will almost certainly be that there are safer and more profitable ways of spending money and energy than in rescue operations. If the Labour Party showed any prospect of offering an alternative government, there might be a greater inclination to keep the paper alive; but as the party stands—no.
It is not easy to suggest ways in which the present trend—or, rather, the worries arising from it—can be halted. A Royal Commission could not add much to what the last one said. Ad hoc trust-busting legislation to prevent an un- checked spread of monopoly, is worth consider- ing, difficult though it is to see what form it can take. The journalist who is proud enough of his independence to make himself unpopular is going to have to be just that more careful, as the number of newspaper groups he can work for grows fewer; and that will be a pity. Publish and be damned is a courageous motto: but it is no help to the journalist with no publisher.
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