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1,998

The right of Michael Bromley and Hugh Stephenson

to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted
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AII rights reserved; no part of this publication may be

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Contributors

lntroduction

Ltd., 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9I-IE.

[,ART I

First published 1998

CHAPTER

ISBN

582 29332 4 PPR

CHAPTER
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

CIHAPTER

1
2
3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sex, lies, and democracy: the press and the public
Michael Bromley and Hugh Stephenson.
p. cm.

CI-IAPTER

edrted by

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-582-29332-4 (pbk. )
1. Press-Great Britain. I. Bromley, Michd,7947-

il.

Stephensory Hugh, 1,938-

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

11

Tickle the public: consltmerism rules

Hugh Stephenson

13

The 'tabloiding' of Britain: 'quality' newspapers

in the L990s Michael Bromley
Demographics and aalues: uthat the British
public reads and what it thinks about its
newspfrpers Robert M, Worcester

An ooeraiew of the current debate on press

regulation in Frane Christophe Texier

('l IAI'Tlilt

('l lAl'l'lilt H

REGULATIOI\ AND ACCOUNITABILITY

25

39
49

67

Managing the press in a medium-sized European /

63
Power lohn Tulloch
Demanding accountability: the press, the Royal
Commissions and the pressure for reform, L945-77
Tom

Set

L..u-

THE PRESS AND ITS DISCONTENTS

PRESS

97-26775

CIP

by 7 rn70/ 11 pt Palatino
Produced through Longman Mal aysia, LSP

l'A li'f Il

PN5114.548 1998
072-dc21

viii

Acknowledgements

O'Malley

Kith and sin: press accountabilita in the USA

Wullu lualtnil;
Mriliu tl,tttlity t'trtttrol in tfu LISA tnd Lurope
('lmttlt lflnt lln'l t'tttti

84
tl7

lll

CONTRIBUTORS

for the Study of Language and Society

at Aston University, Birmingham, and has also worked in the Department of Languages and European Studies. He has also taught at
Leeds and Warwick Universities. FIis research and teaching areas
are Media and Cultural Studies.

Christophe Texier is at the Institute

Barbara Thoma[3

is at the Institut fr Politische Wissenschaft at

Introduction

the

University of Hamburg.

lohn Tulloch is Associate Head of the School of Communicatioru

University of Westminster and a member of the Centre for
Communication and.Information Studies.

M. Worcestu ts chairman of MORI (Market and Opinion Research

International), visiting Professor in the Department of Journalism at
City University and Governor at the London School of Economics.

Robert

Acknoa)ledgements

We are grateful to the followi^g for permission to reproduce copyright

material:

National Union of ]ournalists for 'National Union of ]ournalists' Code

of Conduct'; Press Complaints Commission for a Table and 'The Press
Complaints Commission Code of Practice, 1995'.

It is instructive to observe, year CIn year, thirty or more young people

from around the worLd, who either are or intend to be journalists, and
who come to study journalism for a year at City University, encounteri.g the British press at first hand for the first time. Their reactions are
inariably ones of disbelref , dismay and, occasionally, ditgqtt. in tabloid terms, one might say SHOCK HORROR. Their overwhetrming view
is that no press is s intiusive, offensive, quasi-PornograPlhc, atr!8ant,
inaccurate, salacious and unprincipled. The press in other cultures
shares many of these traits, of course. The 'tabloid' we-ekly rl:'ragazine is
lirrgely a continental European product, and two of the three publicatios f tf,ls type with the largest UK circulations are owned by nonllritish companies. lRarely, however, does the press elsewhere aPPear to
Irrrve all of lhese characteristics together: Bild Zeitung in Germany may
lrc one of the partial exceptions (Weymouth 7996: 45-6)" Where sections
of the press in other cultures can be said to be as'tabloid'in their
,rpprouih, they are often marginalized, as in the USA where they hlve
lrccn moved .symbolically frm the news-stand to the s.uPermarket
slrelf. In the UK, even the Sport titles, which, in keeping with common
pructice, are largely excluded from consideration in this volume bei',l.,r" they don't sem to fit cornfortably under the category'yL?ss',
rrtrrrethele-ss take their place alongside titles such as the Financisl Times
,r

rrcl The Economist.

Moreover, and almost incidentally, the tsritish national press is also

fastly metropolitan, unashamedly partisan, and controlled !y-rtt
,rlnrost trrihealthy^oligopoly. Thus, the impression may be gained that
llrt. [)r't'ss in l]ritain is shaped exclusivelyby a mainstream, national 'tabIt,itl) r'u lt u '(', clttit na ting fronr Lrttclon and exemplified by T-he Surt
sptlrt,
n(.wril).1lx.r- s l)()lrrrlisl ('()rrs(.rvillisrrr iutcl [)Ft'tlccttPirtitlrr with scx,
-l'ltt'rt'liltlt()r('s('1.
('()nrlrt'tili()n:j,
iltttl
ll't'('()l'lt't's,
ily,
,,ll,ruvirrisrr,, ,l,.l,llrr

stt.rrl

l:::'l,,1li',1 ::l

:i';,,,';ii:'iil::,,';;

',;:,','l,l'l;,,1r,',];',r,ll)',',,"'i

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INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

The readership for national tabloid newspapers - The Mirror and the
Daily Star, and the Sunday titles the Neros of the World, People and Sunday
Mirror, as well as The Sun - is considerably greater than for any other
single, identifiable section of the British press. Each weekday and every
Sunday more than 20 million people read at least one of these papers
(Press Gazette, 74 Feb. 7997).' [The 'tabloid' concentration on sex and
celebrrty, also dominates much of the rrragazine market. As well as a
still-expanding 'celebrity' weekly sector more traditional women's magazLnes have increasingly turned to celebrities to maintain sales, while a
reliance on sex has permeated even so-called women's fashion titles,
and has been the basis for establishi.g a men's lifestyle sector (Jaynes
and Smallman 1997). As many as two-thirds of British adults probably
read a weekly rrragazine carrying substantial amounts of material on
sex, television and celebrities (Cutts 7997).
By comparison, the market for the 'serious' press is small. The five
broadsheet daily newspapers sell fewer than 3 million copies between
them. The sales of the four 'quality' Sun duy papers are about the srilr
This suggests a total readership for this type of press of no more than
7.5 million. No substantial weekly news rr.agazine sector exists in the
UK, except for TheEconomist, more than half of whose circulation is outside Britain. The so-called political weeklies - the l{ew Statesman and
Spectator - have struggled for many years even to survive. Given these
statistics, there has been a great deal of pessimism about the future of
the 'serious' press, in Britain as elsewhere (Dahlgren 7992:7).This has
tendecl to mask the underlying trends. The 'tabloid' national press, in
fact, has been in steeper decline in terms of circulation since 19BB than
the'qrality'press. This has been only partially mitigated by u policy of
crude price-cutting introduced by News International in 1993 (McNair
7996:9). The number of Britons reading a 'popula{ newspaper, in the
widest sense of the term, has probably almost halved from 45 million in
7959 (McNair 1996:159-60). It is this secular decline which has provided
the backdrop to the circulation 'wars' and editorial excesses among the tabloids since the 7970s. Furthermore, it became received wisdom that the
k"y readership was young and in the lower social class groups, target
pursued by the Daily Mirror since the mid-1930s. This readerphip
classified by u"process of reduction in the 7970s and 1980s to C's, but
undoubtedly a far more diverse and vague groupi.g than that - was
preponderantly a mid-market one until perhaps the early 1960s (Tunstall 7996: 9-10). Particularly after 7945, the Mirror attracted many of
these readers away from mid-market newspapers: its 'high point' has
been put in the period 1953 to 1967, although its circulation peaked in
the mid-1960s. All the same, the mid-market contained both the 'mass'
readership of the Daily Express, whose circulation reached 4 milli<"rn in
7949, and left-of-centre titles such as the Daily Herald, which was otrtselling the Daily Mail in 1945, and the I'/euts Chroniclc (Engcl lc)!Xr: 174,
182-3). In 7965 mid-market titles still accolrntt.d for 49 Pt'r'('('nt ol n,r
tional daily ncwsptp('r salt's. This 'tlltl p()[)tllitr ltt;trkt'l' rn,illl('t'('( I ,t\v.tV
llrt,rt,ir "1t,, (llr.ppt l,ly | (X)5. ? I 2 )
'l'ltt't'(' \,1,/,ri r)tl(' ttl,tl()t ttttrlrt'lyirrii

t(',ri,()n lol lltl:; ,t :,i1',trtltr,rtrl \\'ot l.ttt1'

class readership for far more sensational, scandal-mongering and salacious Sund,ay n"*rpup"rs had exiSted since the mid-nineteenth century'

ooity Mirro, hd^go.t" only so far in transferring !h[ apfrolg[fo

the dait/ press (Tunsttt tggO,it). Wnett Rupert Mu.rdo5! bought The
iun ingg, ttr" paper at first attempted to imitate the Mirror; then in
the 1970s it'adopie far more fully ti're values of the 'popular' Sunday
rheHerald, at a-stroke about 5
fress. Since fhr'surhad origrnal[ieplaced
sector. Coincidentally,
*ia-*arket
f
ttr"
ir,iIio, readers were moved"out
format rose from
in
tabloid
published
newsPaPers
national
of
number
the
.rty tttru" in 1962 to eleven in t99 Gromley 1995:.22). These changes
ia-inaeea prove attractive t9 y_or11ger, mor working-class readers: in
the mid-197bs 45 per cent of i5-2-4-yeat-olds read The Sun (Christmas
1992: 1,9) . ln 1995, ih, Sur, ttre Mirroi and the Daily Star still attracted, in
that order, younger and lower social class readerships. Not-surprisingly,
the broadstre* oitV Telegraph conversely had the olest and a far higher
social class readers'rip. Tie'distributionof readers amoxg the rest of the
rrational daily press cid not follow as simple l Plttg-rn, however'
Two of the iemaining mid-market titles, tneOaily Mail andDaily Ex,uplarket, appeal than-their designation
ltress, had, older and riorg
inight suggest: the third title in that s ector', Today (which closed in 1995)
il younger and more 'downmarket' one. The three other broadsheets,
'ftc fires, The Guardian and The lndependent were-predictably /ulmalkt,t,, but each had younger readerships than the Mirror,-and The Guardlrrr,s readership las poportionately younger than that of The Sun
('l'unstall 1gg6:bg).UnouLtedly ther had beln shifts in readin-g.habits'
lly 1997 the number o 15-24-year-olds_ reading The sun had fallen by
ntrre than one-third to 29 per cent, and t:rie Mrror was attractilg^oIy
ll) per cent of this age group, a decline_of 60 per cent onthe mid-1970s.
( )rr the other hand.,'h""n ri'rb". of 1.24-yeai-olds reading broadsheet
rlaily papers rose in the same period from 6 per cent to 14 per cent
(('hristmas 1'997 : 19).
'l'he statistical evid.ence suggests that while, as a rule, there is direct
trrrrclation between tabloid a broadsheet formats and values, and the
,rgt. irnd social class of readerships, the relationship is not fixed. In other
wi,r.ls, this relationship between the press and iti readers is not deternrirrt'd solely by 'the market'.

fni

Mtre than

political economY

Irrlr.r.trlrr.sr. bctwccrr thc press and its readers is rarely a private matter:
rl is nr.irrly irlwirys uroc'lt'latr.c.l rln behalf of some notion of 'the^public.inlr.rcst', ir l;rt.[or.inshrirrrrl in llrt,t'otlt'of Practice of the Press Complaints
( ',rrrrrri:;:;iot.t (l'( (').'l'lrc lix us ol tlris lrrxr[< is tlris intt'rct'ssitr, which takes
Irtr, Pl.lr1t.;1r,rl lonrrr;. rr1',rrl.rlion,rrrrl trrttltrrl. wlrit'lr is trstlirlly ctltlptllstlry

,yr(l (()1rpl()rrlv, ,,1 l,',,,.1 un(l('rwrrll('tr. il ttol t'ltlotr't'tl, lry tlrc Slirtr';:trttl
,l( r ()lrrl,rllrltl1,, 111 1yl11q l1 llrr. t orr:;t'rrlrtrl', ;r,tt'licr; r'tllr't ittlo volttttlitt v :tt'

l,llll',r'lll('lll" l\lott'ollr'rr llt'ttr ttol' lltr ltvo ttol l'' ttt l'ttttlctll lllc ttttltt";t

/NTRODUCTTON

tion of broad formal controls alone tends to prove counter-productive

it risks strippi*g the press of the credibility of critical indpendence.
Effective 'answerability' of the press is dependent on a complex matrix
of interconnected actions, processes and people, which facilitates criticism, monitoring, access and greater awareness. While Britain arguably
has the most sophisticated press in Europe, it can be said that in piactice
press 'answerability' works at a rather primitive level. A main conclusion to be drawn from this book is that, while many of the necess ary
processes and procedures for ensuring press 'answerability' exist, few
operate successfully, and for little of the time. The two main problems
identified in the chapters which follow are: (i) a lack of individuals and
groups willing systematically to utilize the means and measures available; and (ii; orrerlappi^g this, the inaccessibility of the press which may
as

be said to be overly protective of its so-called editorial integrity"

In givi^g weight to each element which makes up an 'answerability'
system, every press culture develops its own framework, which is also

constitutive of that culture. A society whose legal system traditionally

emphasizes the public responsibility of indidual participation in society,
while developing statutory and case law specifically exempting powerful
groups and individuals from the requirement of disclosure, is likely
to encourage a press which almost randomly intrudes into personal privary but is disabled in pursuing malfeasance among those holaing power.
A system_ of 'answerability' which challenged such fundamentl precepts would inevitably sit uneasily within the broader culture. The intnse
variability of media accountability systems (MAS) is a clear rnanifestatiotr of thc cultural basis of 'answerability': Bertrand counts more than
thirty (Cihapter B). It is surely here that we can begin to outline the peculiar c()nfiguration of the British press which is so noticeable to outsiders"
Tlrc iclca that the primacy of 'the market' by itself will superimpose unifornrity ancl priority is demonstrably untenable (Hetherington tq8q).
Thetre" is tro klngerr any serious debate about whether the press functions better in sorner kind of idealized F'ourth Estate role under the conditions of either a 'free' market or an interventionist state. Nor are the
values of the press any longer measured in terms of its constancy and
comprehensiveness which were so pri zed by eighteenth-century bourgeois readers. Distinctions are far more rarely drawn between 'argument [and] persuasion' and 'influence and interest' (Harris 1996: 706:7).
The so-called 'freeing' of the press to act as an independent critic and
formulator of public opinion in the mid-nineteenth cntury was driven
by an ideology comprised of both philosophy and commercial opportunism (Boyce 7978: 24*5). The abolition of the 'taxes on knowlge'
began with Gladstone's 'free trade' Budget of 1853 as part of the rcmoval of duty on hundreds of consumer goods. The-result was tlrat,
whereas the'mass'press came to depend on promoting its own st'linterests as an increasingly industnahzecl enterprisc, thc 'r1uirlity' l)r't.ss
rclied on pttlitical sp()niorship, srrbsirly anrl patn)ni'rg(. (liryt't' l()7,i: .)t .)).

('t'itit's tl'lrtttlr tltt'lt't ittttl lltt'r-irllrl lrirrrt'sulr*t.,lu('nll1z,lr'1,,ut'tl llr,rl llrc

l)t-t.s:l lt,t:; llr'r'tt lor) t)lttr'lt ,l ll,r:,1,tl',r.rll r.illt,.t llrr. (.()t lrol,rll:,1 :,l,rlr, ()t ( ()r
l)ot,tlr'r.t;r1l,1l (\,rylull.trrr lirrrrllr l()l';(f. ( rrrt,ut .urtl 1ir',rlorr ;ttttl) \r.1.

INTRODUCT'ION

rather than seeking a more delicate balance of forces, in the 1980s it was
widely assumed that the market alone could deliver a press responsive
to both its own readers and the wider public.
In many respects the apogee of this experiment was the removal of
the national nwspaper industry from its traditional location in Fleet
Street and its complete restructuring as a business in 1986-7. An essential precondition was a further concentration of the ownership of titles
and the emergence of a new group of press barons, epitomized both in
practice and symbolically by Rupert Murdoch. The favourable political
and economic context was provided by the Thatcher government after
1979. After Murdoch had removed his four newspapers from Fleet
Street to Wapping making more than 5000 print workers redundant,

Margaret Thaicher claimed, rather ambiguously, 'We have brought

sanity to Fleet Street.' The nVapping revolution' was widely hailed as a
liberation of the national newspaper industrp which would lead to a
'lowering of responsible, quality journalism and a greater diversity of
1t'hoice. This optimistic view received support initially from the launch
of new broadsheet titles, such as The Independu in 1989. In practice, howr.ver, the main consequence of the breaking of the power of the London
print unions by Murdoch over Wapping was to open the eyes of naliorral newspaper managements to the potential for profitability of aln'irdy well-established titles, if they were managed and marketed
,rligressively with the aim of maximizing revenues and minimizing costs.
The imediate consequence was, in fact, a crisis in what used to be
l;lt'ct Street. At no time since the end of the Second Wor1d War did it
:;('('rn more likely that explicit statutory control of the press would be inlnrtluced in response to a series of misdemeanours committed by tabh ritl newspapers. The crisis can be dated with some precision as lasting
trrrrn 1987 until 1993. In1,987 the Daily Star embarked on its notorious
l()r'.ry into 'bonk journalism', and the first of a number of MPs made an
,rttcrnpt to introduce legislation to control the activities of the press.
'l'lrt'rt' followed a series of press outrages including the misreporting
ol thc Hillsborough football-stadium disaster and intrusions into the
l,r'ivacy of members of the royal family - matched almost step-by-step
l,y warnings from government ministers, an inquiry chaired by David
t ,rlt'rrtt, who later produced a follow-up report, a National Heritage sek'r'l t'onrmittee report, a White Paper on privacy legislation from the
I , rr tl ('harrcellor, and a number of high profile libel cases. Moreover, the
lrcytl;ry ol'thc tabloid press had already passed: the height of the popul,rrily ol thc bc'st-selling national daily newspaper of the 1970s and
l')l'{os, 'l'lrc Srrrr, t':rmc in thc early years of the decade (Church 1997:278).
l,i'llrt'rrrosl lrirrt tlrc crisis seieimed to pass, ironically, when, after the
r.' clt'tliorr o lolrrt M;rior's govt'rlrtrtc'trt in 1992, much of the tabloid
rr,rliorr,rl plcss lrt'1',irrr lo irlrirrrtlrln its tratlitiorral stlp-rpttrt for tl-rtl Cltrserr,rlrvr' l',rrl v irr 1',r'rrcr',rl, ,rrr,l M,rjol irr lrit1'[i1'1;l;11', attt] ttl l)ltrstl('il ltcw
llr,'rrrt'ol lxrlili..rl ':,lt'.rzr", r'r1ro1;1111'.t tttllttlrr't'ol tttittislt'ts'ittttl Mlts'
,.(.\lr,ll,urrl lur,ul( r,rl ('lnl),ul,r",rrrcttl:' ll ..ttt lrr',t11',trtrl llr,rl llrr'l)l('ss il
,.,.11 r,':.1rorrrlr.rI l,r Ilrr''lor nu,l.rl,l, l,.t, l. l,l.lr ol ol,tttiott'1',r'ttr't,tlr'tl,rl llttl;
Itttt,.llrr,,rr1,lr,r r illtltiltltrr[trl l0 til.tl.ttt1' llr,'l't t . lllltorltt,,',1 ltt lt)tll .t',.t

/N'/'R ODL/C?'ION

successor body to the much criticized Press Council, an effective selfregulatory instrument. All the same, there was little evidence, until at
least 7995, of the tabloid press recognizing a need to change its journalistic values (McNair 1996: 765-77). Indeed , tt is argued by Bromley
(Chapter 2) that a legacy of this period has been the adoption of many
of those values by other sectors of the press. In broader terms, the late
1980s and the early 1990s hold the k"y to understanding the mutual relationship between the press and its audiences, and they are a major
concern of this book.
What has emerged from this period of crisis is a renewal of the commitment to voluntarism; a reiteration of the distaste of jurisprudence; and a
restatement of the liberal belief that the considerable disadvantages do
not outweigh the often hidden benefits of toleratirg a largely unfettered
press. The place of the reader and the public in this arrangement, however, is uncertain and problematical.

Pria acy and citizenship

Invasions of privacy appear more important to the press than they are
to the public at large. Britain in the mid-1990s is a more invasive society,
as Worcester's data show (Chapter 3). It remains an open question
whether the press is the cause or effect of this. What is undeniable is
that in the course of the past century the press has reported more fully
and more deeply into the realm of private life. As Stephenson (Chapter
1) points out, the public fascination with revelations of the lives of the
rich and famous has a relatively long history. This has played
a role,
"silence
too, in the process of democ rattzationl and the conspiracy of
entered into by the press and others over the relationship between the
King and Mrs Simpson in the 1930s remains a potent symbol of the demeaning and clamaging nature of secrecy and deference in the British
system of governance. Yet such arguably beneficial exposs have traditionally been accompanied by more prurient journalism fixated with
sex, and dubious journalistic methods which have not fallen short of
telling lies.
Thus, while particularly since the late 1980s there has been a burgeoning of titles whose primary purpose is to expose what was once
considered to be wholly private, as Bromley argues (Chapter 2), there is
an honourable tradition to both sensationalism and press expos. Moreover, many of the 'victims' of this press treatment not only willingly
collaborate in their own exposure, but often exist, to solicit it. Celebrity
journalism would hardly flourish if there were not people deliberately
seeking iconization" Yet one aspect of such trivializatiorr of thc prcss,
Bromley suggests, is the underminirg of jourrlalists' por('('ptions ol' Ilrt.ir
role as quasi-professilnals gltic-lccl in tht'ir work lry whirt is irr'llrt'pulrlic itttt'rt's['. Wrlr('('st('r's 1-rlll t't'sttlls 1lirzt' ('r-('(lt'nt.t' lrl llri:; irr:;t't rnrly
;rrrlrlit' lt-ttsl irr joul'tt,tli:;l:; r'(',r('ltt', I ,t l),tt'l it rrl,rrl1, lt,rr, l)onrl ,rl llrr lrrrrr'
tVlt,'n,l lrllr't',il1r r'rrl tn\',t',lrlll:, rrl lrl lr',t( \' \\'.t:, iltr tr',1',ilt1,,

INTRODUCTION

It also coincided with the emergence of journalism as a graduate profession. By 1,996 more than 80 per"cent of new entrants into journalism
nua .o*pt"ted university edcatiot.2 Sitt"" 1970, iournalism has been
taught ai a university subiect, chiefly at postgraduate level until a_large
.,rrbu, of undergrauat courses wergintrduced in the early 1990s.
Nevertheless, the?eveloPment of an ethos of professionalism has been
slow. Thoma3's survey f nritirh journalism schools (Chapter 10l_.dpcovered a new, although as yet inhoate, movement to integrate ethics
into a curriculum until"now lrgely prescribed by industrial bodies, particularly employers. Despite th"e otinue-d opposition of the industrial
of a new
ir;ilG bodies'and the iesistance of students, the.possibilityjournali.sm
from
g"n"ruio.r of more reflective practitioners emerging
schools is now a real one. Many f the university lecturers and tutors interviewed gave the impression that this was- project initiated by the
trliversit'es as part of their wider remit to develop critical reflection in
their studentr. th" 'real world', Page suggests (Chapter 9), is having an
irnpact, too, however. The increasd relInce on codes of conduct and
of the PCC - al1r..i.ii. *i.fr has resulted from the establishment
itrough the National Union of Journalists' code dates back to 1936 - has
tx,gu to set new paradigms, ffecting the asjrumptions made about the
,.,,i of journalistsin socity. The need for reflectin is greater and more
rrrgenti as the idea diminihes that a journalist need only 'publish and
lx'damned'.
The main outcome of such heightened awareness of the cons-equena
t (,s ()f publication ought to be a [reater protection for the.pu]lic as
ot
remit
service'
the'public
as
that
arguts,
Steplenson
whole.^However,
llrt, press has diminiJhed, to, be i"ptu"F by aggressive marketing driven
l,y lir-rsiness objectives, readers hve become consumers of E:isure prorlrrcts devoid of any meaningful moral dimension. The PCC does not,
,rrrtl cannot, adequately perfoim the role of protector_of the generalnublit. i. its pr"r"r,i form, Tulloch claims (Chaper 5). Its existence is too
krst'ly *""^ into the complel- web of-patronage.and subservience
'
wlric6 characterizes 'the Estblishmen. In practice its interests lie, as
,,rr.rlplified by its adiudications, with the 'rih and famous' rather than
rlr,' orclinary itizen.'Behind this inactivity on behalf of the-public at
l,rrlit' lics a inability to tackle the core prollem-of the lack of account,rt,ll'ity of p.werful personal ownershif. O'Malley produces evidence
rr'lr,rpr,rr ) tftut prtli" concern over uch matters intensified in the
l(,,10s, ancl that dmands for greater and more transparent publicre,.l,r,nsi[,ility irr tlre press grew Into the 1970s and possibly beyond. That
fit to set up
, rrr llrr.t'r' 6t'r.1si61s irctwn 1947 and1974 governments saw
they.took
which
to
he
extent
('onrrrrissious
indicatc's
thc
press
on
Itpy,rl
'l-his [',rcak with tlrc nint:teenth century liberal
sr.riorrsly.
tlisrlrrit,t
l,rlrlit
tr,r,lilirrr l1lw,rrtls'lr'.rrk,rrr ol.Ilrr'prt'ss' wirs itst'lI sigrrificant. In thtl end,
Ir,rr^,r.r,r'r., il Irrr1,1..1 irrrlxrssilrk'lrl irrsliltllt'llt'('il[('l''altswt'rirhility'of tlrc
r.ri:;rrl lrV lrtolrt'ir'lrlt's,ttrtl trritttitlit'rs irlrltrl Iltt'
I,rt.r;:, i1 llr,.l,r.r,,rl ,rl.rr-rrr:;
llttr',tl uI :.l.tlr' ttllr't lt'tr'tttt'
'tlrt'tllllt rtttlltt'l'
lL.'rll'trltl l)t()lx):i(':;
I 1.'1,1o1'111r'. 't l,tt'.tttr".:' lrtttt
,lt ( olllll,llrllil\/
ol
tttltlt.t
',\"'lcttl
,,1
.r
rrrrrllilrlcr
{t lr.r;,1,.r li) 1i,,, ,,,111,1rp1

IMIRODUCTION

1N7'/<ODUCTION

centrally involving active citizens in partnership with media professionals. Elements of such a system have enjoyed some success in the USA
and attracted interest in the UK, as Thoma8's research confirms. Nevertheless, active cttrzenship, although it may often find expression in consumer activism, remains a more potent concept on the other side lf the
Atlantic. This does not mean that the greater European inclination to
rely on the collectivist response of state regulation is a manifestation of
the inability of individuals and groups to act effectively in the event of
rnedia abuses. Indeed, as Calctt rgues (Chapter 7-2), given thc inability or unwillingness of the British State over fifty years to confrcnt
the consequences of the concentration of ownership of the press, orclinary
citizens can expect little effective protection from that quarter. The dccline
in newspaper readerships charted by Worcester is perhaps one inclication of ctttzens calling the press to account. Another, Calcutt suggests, is
cultural resistance to the images and messages purveyed by the press.
More interactively readers have demanded the press account for itself in print through the mechanism of letters to the editor. Correspondence columns meet many of the criteria set by Bertrand for media
accountability: ideally, they are open for criticism and monitoring. They
may also indirectly serve the function of sensitizrng both media professionals and citizens. In so far as national daily newspapers, as businesses, have adopted the notion of 'giving the customers what they
want', they have to varying degrees modified their approaches to corre-

spondence with their readers to meet their changirg expectations.

Broml*y (Chapter 11) suggests that this has not resulted in greater accountability or transparency, however. On the contrary, editorial control over access to correspondence columns may have further

marginalized readers as potential watchdogs of the press.

There is little evidence, despite cultural stereotyping, that the British
public has been unduly passive in its relationships with the press. As
Texier points out (Chapter 4), there is a tendency to view the British
press as exceptional. This may have derived from the idea that Britain
occupied a place in respect of its press somewhere between the more
highly regulated systems of continental Europe and the libertarianism
of the US. In the 7990s, at least, experiences appear to be converging.

Texier and ]aehnig (Chapter 7) illustrate the extent to which newspapers and publics in both Western Europe and North America share
the struggle to redefine their relationships to each other in the face of
significant changes in the political economy of the press. The assumption of the 1980s that these changes by themselves would reconstitute
those relationships can no longer be held to be true. The era of economic
liberalization, with its faith in 'the customer as king', has no more delivered press 'answerability' than did the period of social democracy
which preceded it.
In the US a new partncrship of citizens anc-l jotrrrrulists, fonnt'rl urrrlt'r
bhe iclentity of 'pttblic' or 'civit" iorrrrr;rlisnr, is s('('rr [ry r)lilnv ils ollcrirrl,,
llrc lrt'sl wilV,ri ('nsrrrirrt,, lltr',1('('()unl,rlrilitv ol lltr'l)t't':;:, A:, f.r,'llnr1,,
lrtliltls rlltl, tt),ttlV lrcl llri:, I:; n() nr()r'(' llt,ur ,t rlr,(' lo lrr,,l.,trt', llr,' lrlr ol
llr,' l)t tttl nl('(lt,l ,ll ,t ltttrc rvlr,'rr llrr' 'utlot nr,rltorr ',utrr'1 lrrlilrrr',r1 llu,',r

tens to obliterate them. The conviction that such electronically delivered

communications are inherently interactive, more accessible and less

subject to professional editorial control, it is argued,.will make them

moie accontable and help them supersede the press. Alternatively, the
traditional media have already begun to colonize the Internet, if only to
protect a f3.5bn-a-year UK newsPaPer industry: in 1995 it was estimated that more tlian 300 European newsPaPers were on the worldwide web, and most of the majr British press conglomerates have a
presence there (Tumber and Bromley 1997: 13). Digitalization is as unilkely as liberalization has been to render the press accountable.

Death of a princess
AII these issues were given added importance with the death of Diana,
l,nncess of Wales in acar accident in Paris in August 1997 while being
photolrursued by paparazzi on motorcycles, apparently intent-on g"FoB
jiraphs of hr with her friend Dodi Al Fayed. There followed anunpre,r'dnted outpouring of public grief and anger, much of it aimed at the
I'rcss. Blame was laid on the methods of the mainly non-British-paparazz
.,rr.l on the newspaper and magazine editors and proprietors wh9 bougft
rlrt'ir photograptri tCutt Dgn. few former tabloid newspapel editors adrrrirre pub'icly to feelings of culpability, and the editor o The Guardian
';,ritl intrest i the relationship between the princess and Mr Al Fayed
lr,rd served to send the press 'liurtling out of control' (BB,C1997);but the
plr.ss's most articuLateildefence was that editorial judgement was driven
;;olt'ly by market considerations. News and photographs of the princess
r,rist'd circulations; the trade in them would stop only if the public ap;r'titc abated, Max Hastings, editor of the London Eaening Standard, ariirrrrl, and the chairman of the PCC's code of practice committee, Sir
i t,rvicl English, believed the public's reaction betrayed its own sense of
'liuilt' (BBC 1997). Furthermore, commenting on photographs of the
,r'irrt'css and Mr Al Fayed taken prior to their deaths by a papyV719
f
ir,lr.r supposedly
mad ffi million from them, Peter Preston (1997),
-tiut
that the culture of business competitiveness, which was
l,oirrlt'cl
I, r r, t'tl almost everywhere, encourage d paparazzi methods. Moreover,
tlrr. prirrccss had heiself profited from this activity, having courted publrr ily kr cstablish and maintain her public role, making what sometimes
.rI1,1,;11'1'.1 'ir []austirtn bargain . . . wiih the media' (Robertson 1997).
'l'lris tragic crtsc rc-focttsccl attention on debates over privacy, press
rrrtrrrsion, lrlrassnrcnt by photographers and journalists, and the editorr,rl v.rlrrt.s ol rrt'wsPir1rt.ri. it lrlir.itrl atlclccl prcsstrre on the system of volrrrrl,rly st'll rr.1',rrl;riioir o1r.r'irltrl lry tht'l'('(',arrtl lt'cl ttl rttncwccl cal.ls ftlr
lr.1',r:;l,rliorr.'l'lrr't.rlt,rrl ol llrr'sPonliul('()u:i tttitss lrtthlir'trtrtttrnilrg wlrich
lr,lkrr,r,trl llrr',r,. i,lt'rrl :;rr1',1',r'r;lrrl .r lrrlt'rrli,rl lot',t l,tt'rryirlt't'itt'livr'r'iIiz'tt
l,,trlrr rl,,rlirrrr irr ln,ll.lnl', llrr'lrtr':;:;,ttt:;rvr't,tltl,'ltrt tl:;.tt litttr:;.rrltl l,ltilo:';
,r;,111, 111 (,\'i,t nll,, l,rrl,lr, ll1',rrrr.., \,Vlr,'llrt'r. rrlltrrr,rlcl\,, llri:; 1,rtlt'rrlr,rl
tvur rl, l 1,,' t,',rlr',,', 1 ! r'rrr.rrtrrr l .ttt,,l,,'11 ( ll lt",l loll
r

//VTI(ODUCTTON

Panr I

Notes
Based on Audit Bureau of Circulation figures for ]anuary 1.997.
Readership of daily papers includes figures for the Daily Record,
Glasgow; that for Sunday papers excludes figures for the Sunday Sport.
This figure was supplied by the Newspaper Society in January 1997.
References
BBC (1997) Today, Radio 4, Sept. 3.

Boyce, G. (1978)'The Fourth Estate: the reappraisal of a concept', in

Boyce, G., Curran, J. and Wingate, P. (eds) Newspaper History: Fr<tm
the 1"7th Century to the Presenf, Constable, London, 1,940.
Bromley, M. (1995) The Press in Twentieth-Century Britain, University of

Huddersfield, Huddersfield.
Christrnas, L. (7997)']olly reads', The Journalist's Handbook 49 April: 76-19.
Church, I. (ed.) (1.997) Social Trends 27,The Stationery Office, London.
Culf, A., (1,997)'Press chances it on Privacy', The Guardian Sept. 3: 6.
Curran, J. and Seaton, I. 0991) Power utithout Responsibility: The Press and
Broadcasting in Britain, th edn, Routledge, London.
Cutts, P. (7997) 'Magazine data' , Magazine News 40 March: 22-3.
Dahlgren, P. (1992)'Introduction', in Dahlgren, P. and Sparks, C. (eds)
lournalism and Popular Culture, Sage, London.
Engel, M. (1996) Tickle the Public: One Hundred Years of the Popular Press,

Victor Gollancz, London.

Harris, B. (1,996) Politics and the Rise of the Press: Britain and France,1.6201800, Routledge, London.
Hetherington, A. (1989) 'The mass media', in Kavanagh, D. and Seldon,
A. (eds) The Thatcher Effect: A Decade of Change, Oxford University
Press, London, 290104.
|aynes, M. and Smallman, A (7997)'Consumer rnagazine .NBCs', Press
Gazette2l Feb:11-13.
B. (1996) News and Journalism in the UK,2nd edn, Routledge,

- McNair,

London.

Preston, P., (1997)'Science Friction', The Guardian Weekend Aug. 16: 5.

Robertson, G. (7997)'Press for a legal right to inquire - but not to in-

trude', The Guardian Sept. 2: 18.

Tumber, H. and Bromley, M. (1997)'Political communication in cyberspace', paper delivered to the International Conference on Media and
Politics, Brussels, Catholic University, 28 Feb.
Tunstall, I. 0996) Newspaper Power: The New National Press in Britain,
Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Weymouth, T. (7996)'The media in Britain', in Weymouth, T. and

Lamizet, B. (eds) Markets and Myths: Forces t'or Change in thc uroyon
Mcdiu, Longnran, Lonrk.r, 37-75.

Whiltarrr Snrith, A. (l9lt())' nt'w "goklcn irgtr'?',llrili::lt lotrttrtrli:;trt

t,ir,it,l(l) l() 2l

lit

The press frnd

its discontents

CHAPTER

Tickle the public: Consumerism rltles

Hugh Stephenson

l'r'ivate Members' Bills are a curious feature of the British parliamentary

',ystem. They almost never turn into legislation and the rare exceptions
,nllr do so because the government of the duy decides for some reason
lo take a particular Bill under its protective wing" But every now and
llrcn a head of steam builds up behind a particular Private Member's

lfill to a point where the administration, though still having no intenIron of accepting the legislation initiated by a backbencher, concludes
llr,rt it must at least seem to respond.
Such was the situation in the summer of 7989 with two Private Mem|
'r'r's' Ilills introduced by the MPs who had won first and second" place
r n thc ballot for the 19BB / Ag parliamentary session. john Browne, the
( onscrvative Member of Parliament for Winchester, had introduced a
lfrll ()r'r the protection of privacy.His own financial and marital affairs
Ir,r,l [',ccn extensively raked over by the newspapers and he was sub-

rt'rrtly deselected as a candidate by his constituency association before

()()2 general election. And Tony Worthington, the Ctydebank Labour
I
[\{r'rrrlrt'r of Parliament, had introduced a Bill to establish a statutory

',r'r lr
I

lx'

rlilrl o rcply for those finding their names in the media. Both Bills
('ivt'tl strbstantial cross-party support in the House of Commons. The
I lorrrt.()fficc dicl not like either Bill as drafted, but it became clear when
llr,'llrownt'llill re'ached its Report stage (having had its first and second
r r ', rt I ir rlis ir rrd lur ving been through committee) that it would require
rvlrr1,1,t'tl vott's [o stop it going to its third and final reading. Mrs
r
r

('(

llr,rlt'lrt'r''s ('rt['rint'[ c]icl trot Iiker the prospect of having to use the Whips
t'lo l.,ill ir nr('i)sur'('irrtroclut'ccl by lne of its own backbenchers and
Ir,rr'nr1,, r,vitl(':iu[)lx'l il('ross lht'1-roliticirl sPt'ctruITt. It, therefore/ reached

( lllrt

l,r llrt' lirrrr. lrrlrr()ln'('tl t't)nll)r'()rrrist.. ll oll-r'r't'tl Iltt' l lottse a c()lttlnittct of

rrrrlun \/ lrr rclun) f olrrr llrr)\,ryn(' ,111r't'r'r.1 lo willrtlt'itw ltis llill ittrc-l Iht'
\\1,rr llurrl',lorr lllll :;utul,u ly l,'ll
llrrr:, (,nnr rnlo lrr'ul)', llrr l.,t:,1 ('lt,nt, r' li,tlrlrllt lrr ot-rlr.l' lrl ('()ntlrll'l
,rlrrr
llro\\'tl(' :, tn,ur\' ',ul)l)ollr't', nt llr,' l l,,u',r'. lo 1r11l lltr' llr1',ltlcn('t'r; ()ll
f
llr,'

tt,tlt()tl.tl

ltt,".',

,lttrl

lo 1',t\t'

llr,'

t'tl(ltltt\'

,t t lr'.tl

r,('lt:.('

,rl ,ltl,'t

llrrlt,
lrr:,

l).rr r,l \1,'ll,,r llr,'rr .r tunror nurtr',lrt nt llr,' ll,,nrr'( )llr, r' I'r,,, lrr,,', I

SEX, LIES ND DEMOCRACY

TICKLE THE PUBLIC: CONSUMER/SM RUTES

now celebrated soundbite. The press, he said, was drinking in the Last
Chance Saloon. If it did not get its self-regulatory act together this time,
with the help of what became known as the Calcutt Committee, narneless things (by implication statutory controls) would be visited upon it.
For several months uncertainty reigned, because the Home Office had
not prepared the ground for its proposed enquiry. Another Royal Commission was out of the questior, because Mrs Thatcher had closed this
route on the grounds that Royal Commissions were cumbersome substitutes for the smack of firm government. However, neither the exact
form of the enquiry nor its chairperson had been agreed. In the interests
of savi^g public expenditure, private pressure was put on the press to
fund the proposed enquiry itself. But these overtures were firmly resisted. In the event the I{rme Office settled on a conventional departmental committee of enqurcy, with the barrister, David Calcutt QC, as
chairmar"r.' Its terms of

."i"."r

rce were:

lhc press was no longer imminent. The whole issue was finally kicked
i rr to touch in ]uly 7995 when the new Secret ary of State for National
I lt'ritage, Virginia Bottomley, published the government's reply to the
Nertional Heritage Select Committee's 7993 recommendations. This reply
t't)ntained a reriarkably robust defence of the status yuo, perhaps tn"e
rrrost robust in any published government document in modern times.
It asserted: 'The right to receive and impart ideas and information, in
r r[ lrer words, to freedom of expression, is one of the cornerstones of a
t lt'rnoCratic society.' It referred to the protection of freedom of expression
rrrshined in Article 79 of the International Covenant of Cil and Political
l(ights and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights,
lo both of which the United Kingdom is a signatory. In rejecting the
r('('()mmendations of the Select Committee and from Sir David Calcutt,
rl went on to say:

A free press is vital to a free country. Many would think the imposition of
statutory control on newspapers invidious because it might open the way for
rt'gulating content, thereby laying the Government open to charges of press
t'('nSorship. Furthermore, the Government does not believe that it would be
right in this field to delegate decisions about when a statutory remedy
slrruld be granted to a regulator such as a tribunal. (National Heritage 7995)

In the light of the recent public concern about intrusions into the private lives
of individuals by certain sections of the press, to consider what rneasures
(whether legislative or otherwise) are needed to give further protection to in-

dividual privacy from the activities of the press and improve recourse
against the press for the indiviciual citizen, taking account of existing

remedies, including the law on defamation and breach of confidence; and to

make recommendations. (Calcutt 1 990:1 )

Without question, during the six years or so from 19BB there was an air
of continual crisis in the three-way relationship between the press (particularly the national tabloid press), the general public and the government. The sense of crisis continued until the summer of 7995, with the
Lord Chancellor's Department and the House of Commons National
Heritage Committee, under its Labour chairman Gerald Kaufmn,being
in favour of introducing a new civil wrong of infringement of privaqr and
Calcutt (by now Sir David) in his personal review (Calcutt 7993) of
things since his first Report in 7990 being strongly in favour of the Press
Complaints Commission being replaced by a statutory Press Complaints Tribunal.
As time wore on it became clear that there were divisions within the
government over how to proceed. A government White Paper expected
in the summer of 1993, though drafted, did not emerge from the
Cabinet sub-committee dealing with it. There was considerable confusion between the Home Office (and after its creation the Department of
National Heritage) on the one hand and the Lord Chancellor's Department on the other. Sensing these divisions, the Association of British
Editors, the Guild of Editors and the International Press Institute
mounted a lobby and published an 'Alternative White I'aper' at the
start of 7994, analysi.g the weaknesses of thc variolrs pr()p()sals for
change that had been put forwarcl (Stcph('ns()r'r 1994). Ily tlrt' t'nrl o'
1994, with the, next g('nori)l t'lcction int'rt'itsirrl',ly ('irst irr1l its sll,ttlow Irt'ltlI't'
it irnrl witlr llrt' lrirli()nirl rttt'tliit t'r)nlirrrrirrll :iu('('(':j:jlrrllv lo r-,tlllr' olrrr
M,t jot''s l,)()\/('ilnl('lll rvilll ('\l)rt:;ttt't':, ol :,t'\u,rl l)('( ( ,t,ltll,,:, ,tttr l lllt,ttl( Ltl
:,f,',ltr', il 1r,.,',un(', l,',il llt,tl ',ltl,,,l,tttlr,tl lr'1't:,l.rlron lrr, lt,ttt)',,'llr.",l,tlur, ol
f

l;or the time being the issue of press self-regulation had been removed
orrr the political agenda.
Nt'vertheless, for five years or more until that moment it had been
rv it lt'ly accepted wisdom that the offendirg sections of the press were
| ,,','orning ever more sensational and ever less responsible. Public supl,or l lor this view was reflected in a series of high six-figure jrry awards
,urtl otrt-of-court settlements in libel cases involvirg public figures. The
',ttt'o some of the libel settlements during this period clearly implied
llr,rl llrt'y were intended to be more as a punishment of irresponsible'
n('rv.[r,rpers than as a measure of the'wronged-'person's personal hurt.
llro:;t'irrllLri^g that the press was incapable of effective self-regulation
,urrl llrirt s()me kind of statutory intervention, akin to the controls on the
r r )nlcrrl of broadcasting, were necessary and inevitable became confir l'rrl llr.rt public opinion and the political tide were with them.
I'lrt'(ruthority of the Press Council, the print media's voluntary selfrr'l',ul,rli()n systcm set up in 1953 in belated response to the criticisms of
llr. l(),'l() l(oyirl (lornrnission on the Press, had been coming under inr r('.r:;irri,, t'r'itit'isnr tltrring the 1980s. The most coherent single attack on
rl r,unt' irr tlrt' lorrn ol'a r('port writtcn by the barrister Geoffrey RobertIr

',rrn ()n llrt'lr.lsis

ol iul ('n(lrriry into its wrlrkings by u groLtp of individ-

,r,,1', ' liolrt'r'l:;or)':i t'('lx lt'l t't'vicwt'tl tht' wily in whicr ,r-tjot national
nr'\\',,1,,,1x'r' lir,,ur-('s llrlrrlctl ()r' nl(x'kt'tl l'r't'ss ('()uncil ar-ljtrrlicati()ns (Roh-

rr l',on l(),ti l ,l) lrr ()n(' r,r,r', ltolrt't'l:;on ttrllr'tl, Sit' f rlltrr f tttrtlr, tltt' t'dittlr
rrl llrr' ,',tttt,ltttt l, rlrl','i,',, r rilrr'rz,r'rl lol \\,ttlnll,, .ul ()llt'rt:-,irrt' l',r('iirl slut', lt,ttl

tr'grr',rlrrl tl ,ntrl r r)lttrlrt ,tll,tr 1..('rl tlr,' lro l,r,'r', l, l,rltnl)()11.', lrrrr slrilrt'tl,
lrtnn()ut l,'','. ltvll:, tvlt,r :,rl (f n llrr' l'rr",', ( 'outrt rl' (.',tttttltttl I t1,/r':;';, I lir'1r

lrttrlrrt l(l','li) ,'\troll11'1 ,r,l;urltr,rltotr ul ( )r l,,l,r't l(,1i.' ( ()n,1,'lnnrrl llt,'

TICKLE THE PUBLIC; CONSUMER/SM RULES

SEX, LIES ND DEMOCRACY

Sun for publishing a 'sensationalized, distorted and racially emotive account of a demonstration by black people'. The Sun responded (B October 7982) under the headline 'Paper They Can't Gug' by repeating the
original charges, attacki^g those who had brought the complaint to the
Press Council and boasting that 'The Sun is flattered to be singled out as
the target for complaint'.
Geoffrey Robertson also drew attention to the general flouti^g in

1983 of the Press Council's declaration of principle on cheque-book

journalism in the case of Peter Sutcliffe, the 'Yorkshire Ripper'. The
Press Council conducted a thorough investigation of the conduct of
newspapers in reporting the case and in buyi^g up the stories of members of Sutcliffe's family and other witnesses (Press Council 1983). Its
criticisms were particularly severe of the Daily Mail and of its editor, Sir
David English. It found that it had been hampered in its consideration
of complaints against the paper 'by the behaviour of the Daily Mail
which failed to disclose to the Council material clearly germane to the
inquiry' .It regretted 'a persistent refusal by the editor of the Daily Mail
to attend an oral inquiry and answer the complaints committee's questions in the presence of the crmplainant' .It found that, in the matter of
cheque-book journalism, 'the explanation offered by the newspaper
amounts to a confession that the Daily Mail was guilty of gross misconduct' (Press Council X9B3: 748-54). The response to the Press Council's
report by Sir David English in his own newspaper (under the headline
'Decision that Shackles Freedom') was to describe it as 'short-term,
short-sighted and smug' and as proof 'yet again that the Press Council
still does not truly understand the concept of a Free Press'.
Beyond this striking evidence about the unwillingness of such prominent national journalists and tabloid newspapers to accept the authority
of the very self-regulatory body that they were supposedly supporting,
Geoffrey Robertson also carne to a further critical general conclusion of
the Press Council's performance:
Attention is drawn to the council's capacity for delay at every stage, the obstacles placed in the path of complainants, its lack of powers to ensure compliance with its rrrlings, and its failure to develop coherent standards,
amongst other debilitating features of its operations. The evidence makes a
powerful case for reform, if not for outright replacement, of the council by a
new body empowered by law to enforce its rulings. (Robertson 1983: 734)

Given this background, it is not easy to explain why it was not until the
end of the decade that the national press found itself in a state of crisis
ais--ais parliament and public opinion. In many ways things were
palpably better by 7990 than they had been at other times in the previous twenty years. In a concerted move, responding to thc rnoocl of thcr
moment, all national claily and Sunday n)wspap('rs (with lht'sirrglr'('xct'ptir)t-l ()f tht' Fittnttcinl 'l'itttt's, which itt ru)y ('ils(' wruj rj( )nr('n,lr,rl oulsitlt.
Ilrt'li('n('r'ill r.lt'l',itl(',llroul lrrt'ss('tltit's) It,)tl .tl)l)(rirrlr', I llr,'rr ,11'p1 r(',r,lcrs'
l't'1rl'(':;('nl,tliVt" ()l' '( )tnlrtt,l:-,lil,ln' ttrlllt llr(',ilnr ol ('tt',llt nt:', ,t Itrllrt ,lt',tl
(tlt lltr',ll)l)(',ll',lltrr ol ,t l,r'llrt .lr',tl) lol t(',t(1,'r'. tr lt,r ( rftttl'l,tllt,',I ,tlrottl

some aspect of a paper's behaviour. The Press Council had undertaken

fundamental review of its own proceedings and had published for the
first tirne a code of practice. Previously it had only bsed its adjudications on cumulative 'case law'.

ar

Indeed a strong case could be made for the view that the popular
press in the late 1980s was behavi^g no worse (and perhaps even-a bit
l-retter) than it had done for a century and longer. Matthew Engel's regltly published study of the last hundred years of the popular press in
llritain, entitled Tickle the Public, is replete with headline and articles
tlrat, with little or no change, might be found in today's Sun,News of the
World, or Mirror (Engel 7996). The title of his book is taken from an
ir nonymous nineteenth-century verse about Fleet Street which ran thus:
Tickle the public, make 'em grin, The more you tickle, the more you'll win;
Teach the public, you'lI never get rich, You'll live like a beggar and die in a
ditch. (Engel 1996:17)

With the Sunday popular press the position has been even clearer for
_longe1. E_ngeJ quotes lines from a contemporary poet about the
l,tttnch of the Sunday Monitor in about 1779, mor than decade before
lltt' foundi^g of the Obseraer in 7797. 'So moral essays on his front apt)t'irr/Bst all is carnalbusiness in his rear.'Engel comments:'And in es:;t'rlce nothing has changed in more than two centuries: carnal business
,ttttl secret sins remain the business of the popular Sunduy press, and
llrottgh the veil of morality has become almost wholly moth-aten over
lltt'yeafs it has never entirely been tossed away' (Enget 7996:26).
litrrther convincing evidence to support the caselhat the recent fur( )r (' against an irresponsible
press is more largely based on fashion
t,tlltt'r than fact is to be found buried in the first official history of the
N,tlitrnal Union of ]ournalists (NU1;, Gentlemen, the Pressl (Mansfield
l')4:]). The author, F.I. Mansfield, had been president of the I\IUI at the
rrrtl trf the First World War. He was a journalist onTheTimes from 791,4
lr I 1934 and taught for ten years on the pioneer university course in
f()trrrralism run at London University between the wars. His account of
lltt'tlt'vcloping debates within the union from 1908 onwards about the
rr('('(l lor higher ethical standards in the face of commercial pressures for
nr()t'(' t,']lsationalism and for intrusion into privacy and gttef, leading
,'\'('ttltrrrlly to the adoption of the NU]'s first'Code of Professional Con,ltrt'l' irt lL)36, has an entirely contemporary feel to it. The followi^g exlr,rt ls illustratt'thc pclint.
('vL)n

Wrlltllt lltt' litsl lt'w y('ilt's tltt' t'ttcthoc1s of seltsational journalism have become
rn\/(.:il(.( I wil lt .r sirristt'l' si1,,rril it.iul('('.

with us ever since the first crude sheets,

, \v('l','ltttl,ll:;ltcrl WIry lltt'lt lt,ts il .u'()llst'tl
trl :,ttr lt l,l,rlottlttl t,llrllr llrtlrl'lr,rlr61,,ll llris lirrtl
rl l'. llt. t r':,ull .l .nt .t,,r r.lrr llnl', ,.. ,rlr. ul l.r:,lr. ,ulr l
r r",', tr tllr .r l rr'tlrr
,', 11',,' rtl .,( rr l.rl ,.llyr ,,. llt,,tt1'lr pl
.r'tr'.,rlrurr,lrlrrr,l
llr,'lr lrr,rll,t,r, ll,,'.. rr rllr llrr.l,r,l.,r.lt
-

| ,

..,,tf

,.,

SEX, LIES ND DEMOCRACY

assertion that they are really 'giving the public what they want'. The question has become so acute in recent times that newspaper organizations have
been compelled to give it serious consideration, on grounds of safety as well
as morality. (Mansfield 7943:524)

Mansfield's history of the first half of this century is full of concern

about such developments as the employment by newspapers of convicted murderers and criminals as sources of information; reporters and
photographers beirg required to use methods which 'were distressing
to the people to whom they were applied, and often repugnant to the
sense of decency of those who used them'; and appeals to 'proprietors,
editors and managers to endeavour to come to a common understanding as to the limits of licence which should be allowed to, or imposed upon, their staffs'. He tells of one murder case (the 'notorious
Exmoor mystery') where the conduct of some journalists was 'reprehensible in th highest degree'; of 'methods which might bring immediate
benefit to the papers which took advantage of them' but which 'tended
to weaken public confidence in the reliability, judgement, good sense
and good taste of the Press'; of letters to The Times from 'prominent
public persons who had suffered [by'such methods]'; of Lady Ellermn,
newly the widow of the shipping tycoon Sir John Ellerman, complaini.g to the l{ewspaper Society about the behaviour of photographers on
her return from the continent and at her husband's actual funeral, behaviour condemned publicly by the Newspaper Society as 'an unusual and
unfortunate example of a tendency created by severe competition between popular newspapers'; of the Newspaper Society pointing out that
Lady Ellerman's complaints were not made against provincial newspapers, but against Fleet Street; of the Chief Constable of Blackburn givi*g his view that the then current wave of suicides was being 'fed by
gruesome stories in the papers'; and of the 'possible danger of curtailment of the liberty of the reporter to print all that was said at inquests,
unless due heed were given to the distinction between liberty and
licence'.

AII this sensationalism by secti.ons of the national press in the late

in the context of a wider marketing policy of 'frantic and costly efforts to get readers by canvassing and gifts'" Writing in
7943, the NIU|'s official historian was able to derive some comfort from
a statement (in May that year) by the chairman of the Daily Mirror, ]ohn
Cowley. Common sense, Cowley said, had returned to the industry and
'the old follies of gift schemes, canvassing, and free insurance have disappeared into newspaper history, and I hope that history will not repeat itself'. The outbreak of common sense which the DailU Mirror
chairman welcomed in fact owed more to newsprint rationi^g than tcr
rational nranagement and the histclry of popular papers spending nrillions itr order tcl bry reade'rs has repeated itself cr-rntinrrally ('v(.r sincc
Iltt't'ltc] tt'th('S('('otrcl Worlrl War. Irrtl('('tl, ir-r r('t't'nl lirrrt':;, rt,illr Nr'ws
llrlr't-tl.ttitt,ll's tlt't'lilrirli()t) ol il:j ('()\/('r' ;,r'ir'(' '\,\,,u'' ,rirrr,',Lrl ,lr,rrrr.rlr,,rll1,
ln( t'(',lsini' lltr't'il'r'ul,tliott ol 'l'ltt"l'itttt",, llrr' 'lr,rrrll, .rrrrl , ri',111 r'llorl:,'
It,tt (':.l,tll,', 1,,r'r'l ltol1r llr,'l,,,l,rll.tt l,lltc l,l,,,t*l'.lrr','l i,t,'
1930s was presented

TICKLE THE PI.IBLIC; CONSU4ERISM RUI,ES

The account provided by Mansfield of events during ^1237 could

(with just the dates chang*) hlve been grist to the mill of Calcutt, or
thc House Commons Natlonal Heritage Select Committee in 1990"
t)uring TIZT the storn continued in full blast . . . [The NU] Presidentl said
that Flet Street was chiefly guilty of putting human souls on the rack, for the
provinces mai^ly observ* Inu iar',rrr"rs of good taste . . . [Liverpool journalistsl deprecated in" conduct of repres-entatives of the national PaPer.s in Lon-

rion 'in the intrusion on private [rief and muck-r_akmg _at the conclusion of
Clourt cases' " . . A mernbr of the Union told [in the NUJ'S own newspaPer/
the lournalistlhow, when his brother wag prostrated wit\ qtiu{ at a fatal acciclent to his wife, 'a ghoulish minority of the Press visited his house with requests for pictures"and intervie*s . . . Telephone calls, hamrygring at t!*
,i,ror, peals f tf,* bell at the house of death --and then the bloodthirstyhorde
p,rrrrd their inquiries to the graveside at Hull. (Mansfield 1,943:524-8)

A[r,-,rt from the slightly old-fashioned tone- of the-prose, the story t\at
M,rnsfield is telli"f to the late 1930s could have been translated in its
r.rrtirgty fifty yurrr"into the late 1980s. We are left with thestrong feeling
tlr.rt, if war fra not supervened, a junior minister in the F{ome Office in

might easily hav thought it time to warn Fleet Street that it was
the Last Chance Saloon; that the Lord Chancellor of the duy
rrrililrt hve contemplated a draft Bill for the proteclr:lof q"l:9$1 q}.,,,, y; but that in the run-up to a genral election in 1939 or 1940 Neville
( 'lr,rprberlain, not entirely^shariri the view of his predecessor, Stanley
lt,rltlwin, that all newspaper propiietors wanted w-as 'power without re,,1)().sibiiity -the pr"rgtirr ofthe harlot throug\o,rt tI" ages', would
l,'.,v,,p"rrrded nis Caiinet that statutory contiol of the Press, while
Ir.rrr1.,ting, would be full of difficulties and that, instead, the- press
,,1,,,r'rl,l be told that it was being put on probation and given one further
, ,l ,l ,or'tu rtity to regulate itself ProPerly.
l lrss, the argument seems-to e sirong thatlh* journalistic values of
r,rl,ry's p,,puh press - and the reaction-o politicians and the'chatternrl,, ('l,rsscsi tt, thm - are part of an historicil continuum. Sex, lies, and
tlrr.nrv(rsion of the privay of individuals have certainly been an imnewspapers since
,r,r l,rrrt prrrt of the^stapl diet of popular British
in
certain respects
F{owever,
existed.
have
newspapers
i,,,g,rrl,rr-it.itirl",
l,,rrrr.tlrirrg n('w also ""*r to have been happenilg.The remainder of
tlr:, ,lr.rlit1..,- will look at respects in which-new factors have been at
\\,( )r 1.. itt lotlity's P()Ptllar itlurnalism.
llr,, li;sl e[,ui,r,,, .'l,,ri,g.' in recent years is the extent to which all
,(.\\,:,1).rl)t.r...-, Irtrl 1-r;rrtit'ul.iity tht popularr tabloids, have dropped the
as convenl,rrl,li, :,r.t-vt('(,'.lsIr1,1,[ rll llrt'ir [)tr[rlishing;ttrcl rrc llow run
t():lt't

,lr

ilkinfin

'lllli,J:

)1,"'];lll"llII,:;]l;:

il:,1",i:;
i'li::1"';';;'l;1.:'i;,11,',,,,,'l"lli;"i,1,
:;('r vt( (. ,,lrll1',,rltrlnl, lrl,t,',', 1 tlrr lltt'ttl l)V sl.lttllt'tlt't'h.lt'lr, r, l l,1 111,11
Ir.tlt()tl,tl rrt'\\";l,,tlrt'l:, lrtt,'llt'tl ,rl \'\'lt.ll('\'('l' l't',1'lt'l'
lrl I
irrrlrl llrc l,r',1 ,1,',.trlr'()t ',(), l,')',.tl,lr', I llrcrt'l'tttll'll\/
.lrr1,

l;,::::l

! rll .trll
llllr'lti

.t., lrr.l,i,,

llr,',

(rlttrtllltr,rltrrrr

r,l ,tltrl

( rlllttttrtll

tr!l llr'\\",,rlrtl

TICKLE THE P\IBLIC: CONS UMERISM RULES

SEX, LIES ND DEMOCRACY

The point should not be exaggerated. Even the most high-minded

broadsheets have always rnade concessions to the need to 'tickle their
public'. For example, the Sunday Express first started to carry a regular
crossword puzzle for its readers in 7924. Among the heavyweight daily
papers, the Dnily Telegraph followed suit in 1924, the Msnchester Guardian rn 1,929 and The Times in 1930. However, the situation where the content of all newspapers is decided more on marketing grounds than on
the basis of some abstract idea of 'what is news' is a condition of the last
two decades. It has been reinforced by more and rnore stringent control
of editorial costs, reflecti^g the fact that the managements (and in particular the financial directors) in the newspaper industry now have
much more nearly the authority and status of their equivalents in normal businesses.
The change is most striking in the popular tabloids, but it is also clear
across the whole of the nartional newspaper industry" Since market research and editorial instir"rct both combine in coming to the conclusion

that tabloid newspaper readerships are only marginally interested in

hard news, have no intercst in foreign news, but will always read
human interest stories and arc obsessed by show business and the royal
family, the contents of the popular tabloids have been adjusted accordingly. The expensive parts of the eclitorial budget, like the coverage of
foreign news, have been ruthlessly pruned.
trt had always been the case that popular British Sunday newspapers
thrived on this fare. Engel notes thi phenomenon from the very tait of
regular Sunday journalism at the end of the eighteenth century:
the Sunday MorningHerald\ofttly dismissed its rivals as weekly papers rather than
dailies and said that it would provide the same service as a daily newspaper.

It failed. Thus the Arnerican fradition, that

a Sunday newspaper was abrgger,

fatter version of the same paper that came through the door six days a week,
never had a chance. In Britain Sundays were to be different. (Engel 1996: 26)

The transfer of popular Sunduy newspaper values, epitomized for more

than a century by the l{ews of the World, to the popular claily market
dates from 7969 when Rupert Murdoch bought the moribund Sun frorn
IPC. As his biographer notes,
Murdoch needed no rnarket research to teIl him what The Sun should be: a
daily version of the News of the World. He considered the Mirror the prime
example of the 'gentrification of the press'. lHugh] Cudlipp had tried to take

it upmarket and it now offered serious, investigative sections on contemporary political issues which Murdoch saw as pretentious. He thought readers
wanted more fun in their tabloid, and that they hated being preached at. The
Mirror was the soft underbelly of the tabloid market. (Shawcross 1992:152)

Although thc stylizccl Pagc Threc nttclc c1ic1 trot bt't'r)nr(',lr) t':;t.llrlisltctl
I't'rttLrr(' <i'l-ltt'Stttt l-or it 'trrtltcr six yt'itrs, sr'x [-rt't';un('llrc l,.r:;r:; ol lltt'lot'
rnul,t llritl lt'iut:;lot'tttt',1 il inlrt,t l)ulllisltirtti lrl)('nonr('rr()n lir l()',',fi llrr'
lr,rlrcr'':-,.'it't'ul,tliolr lt,t,l ri:;r'rr lrr)nr ltt:;l r)\'('t I rrrillr,,n 1,,,ilrrr,,.l I rrullr,,rr, ,rl
tt'lu, lr lroutl llrr'n:,ttlj',';tltl':.',,r1,',,)',l.rprl1 ('r():,',,', I llr.rl ,rl llr, l,tllntl', Altttr,t

Ilv that time the Mirror had lost its editorial nerve and sense of direc-

sister
uS had the Daily Star, the Express's Manchester-based tabloid
paper, and the Oaiti Stcet;lt had given up the struggle and merged itself
iritn ttr" D aity Maill During the rst of the 1 970s, the Mirr or without con-

ti.,,

ulction or flar followed i tt u wake of The Sun in developing the new

Iormula for modern tabloid iournalism, a process only accelerated when
By then tt.le sun / Mirror
I t,C sold the Mirror to Robeit Maxwell in 1984.

duopoty dominating poprlar- daily tabloid jouinalism in the United

f indohwas fully established.
u.aon made a second Tqiol contribution in the switch
fi"p"rt
)editorial'
to 'marketing' as the drving force in national. journallrom
i*-, *t"" he took on and efeated the Ftt _Stre_et p_rint unions and
rrroved the four News International titles (the Sunday Times, The Times'
llrc Nea;s of the World andThe Sun) to new technology production at
wapping i" tg86. Paradoxically, the stranglehold that the London brandtes
,,t t'hl pint unions had been allowed 6y weak and incompetent man.,g"^utr to establish over the operations of national newspaPers meant
r,i,t normal commercial considrations scarcely applied to these busi,,,lrrur. Since the print unions had managed toimpbse hugely inflated
where
1'r.ocluction costs n the industry and had established a position
newsnational
il,..y could effectively block innovation and expansion,
the
after
decades
four
in
th-e
run
and
1,.1., *"." substantially owned
newspaPer
Most
profit
maximization.
direct
thn
other
1",i. f,rr motives
publishers', who
1,':,,1rritort in this period *ere itt effect 'va-nity
j1,,.*re,d their satisfaction in other ways than making profit' For some it
rv,rs social cachet and political influece. For some it was the hope that
rr,rIional newspaper ownership would produce commercial advantages
rrr (}thcr u."ur. R p"rt Murdoch's vision was to see that, if British news,.r pcrs could be ,irtt ott these lines at a modest loss, run properly they
|
, ,,irltl gcnerate huge profits.
llrt, initial reaction to the wapping revolution was that it would
,rlkrw ir hundred new flowers to bm. Indeed, in anticipation of Wapalready 1Pp93T"d, produced.outside
l,rnt,,, n('w national daily titles had
i1,,.',,.rtr,,i,rts placed Uy tn" unions on existin titles andusing the new
, r,rrrlrrrlt't'izc.l'technolgy. The lndependent ws launchgd-bJ three forrrr,'r li'lr'qrit;,/r journalistin 1986 una faay Shah foundedToday-int]r.e
,,,,,',.. y,,,,,'. tt'l'r b"li"f that this revolution would revive the market for
'',,',,,,,,,,' tlirily journalism, free from 'tabloid values' was symbolizedby
lltr. lrtrh,ltr,rrrlcrr''s clccision not to be drawn int-o the general obsession
r.,rtlr :;t,,r.ics irlrorrt thc royal family. For example, when the Duchess of
\rrr[. 1,,rr'.' lrirtlt t. 6t'r l'rst clild on 8 August 1988, the story was 6n
,'r'r'r 1' lrrrnt I)itl',('('x('('l)t 'l'lr,'lrrtlrltctrt/r'rr's, wirich the following da)' onry
, .r, , ,,', L, ,tlt.,r'i.'sir11',1.1 1,,rr',rp,r',r1'll ttt'ws-ilr lrricf ittlm at thc foot of a colrrrllrl oll il:; r;ttotltl 1r;r1',r'((;1,,v.'1' It)t)'1: l''14)'
Ilrr.,,rrnrnrilrncrrl jry't/,,' lttrl,'1tr'ttrltttl lo ittt:;lt'rt'tlt'ws vitlttt's tlitl rlOI
'.rrr\ t\t' llt,' lttl.ttt. t.tl t ti:;t':' rvltit lr r''rlritlly t'rr1',rrlltrl llrt' 1';r1r'r" ()lt it
rrrrllr l,l.rrr,.llrt.rt..rlr;.,rli,,rr,1rri, l.l\',l,rivrr,',1 llr,rl llrt'lill,rrrr i,rl,lll(l lll,ltl
.ll'r'll,ll ltt t''lt'ttl l( 1','llllr'(l l'1 tr|ti"'1''ll)t l lll'lll'l''t'tttrtll" 't:"t tr':'ttll 0l lltr'
l,r,.,t! r1t,, pl 1r1;111 llltltllr lr(,\\'('l 1,1 \\1.11)lrllll'r ottlrl l'r'll:'r'(l lt' 1',tr"rl t'llt''
I

TICKLE THE PUBLIC; CONSUMERISM RLILES

SEX, LIES ND DEMOCRACY

by existing and established titles to market themselves aggressively and

to expand in previously blocked directions. The resutrt has been an explosion, not of 'serious' journalism, which if anything has been further
reduced in terms of space and resources, but in terms of sections of
papers designed to appeal to the leisure interests of readers and to advertisers. A symbolic example of this is the way in which broadsheet
newspapers, like TheTimes, now devote pages of ostensibly sports news
space to columns of 'fantasy football' lists and results.
Most significant, perhaps, of all the changes in the last two decades
has been a legacy of Mrs Thatcher's long period of government. The return
to neo-classical economics and the rejection of concepts of social cohesion
and public responsibility embodied by that Thatcherism helped to reinforce the view that newspapers are just a business like any other. This
was not the view that informed, for example, the three post-war Royal
Commissions on the Press. To paraphrase the words employed by
Virginia Bottomley in 1995, those Royal Commissions based their investigations and reports on the real belief that a 'free press is one of the cornerstones of a democratic society'. They also worked on the assumption
that a democratic society required a plural and heal*hy press, free from
the dangers of oligopoly. The 1962 Royal Commission, chaired by Lord
Shawcross, was particularly critical about the failure of the Press Council to analyse the factors leading to an unhealthy concentration in newspaper ownership and to give publicity to the public interest
considerations involved (Royal Commission 7962: paras 323-4). The
7962 Royal Commission's main recommendation was that the government should establish a new Press Amalgamations Court, with the
power to prevent future newspaper mergers above a certain circulation
threshold (300 000 copies) unless it were satisfied that the merger would
positively serve the public interest in the accurate presentation of news
and the free expression of opinion. Unless those seeking a merger could
persuade the new court that freedom and variety of opinion were not
likely to be reduced, the presumption should be that it would be against
the public interest and should not be allowed to proceed.
The Wilson Labour Government elected in 7964 did not accept the
idea of a wholly new court, but it enacted the Shawcross recommendations

in a watered-down form. Now incorporated in the Fair Trading Act

1973 (Sections 57 to 67) the new provisions laid down that any acquisition of a newspaper with a circulation of over 30 000 by u group which
already had titles whose total circulation was over 500 000 required the
consent of the relevant Secretary of State, who must not give such eonsent until the proposals have been examined by the Monopolies Commission to see whether they are in the public interest. This remains the
law to this duy.
The sale in 1966 by the Astor family of The Times to the Thomson Organization (which at the time owned the Sundn.ry Timts, ()v('r l]0 otht'r'n(.wr;-

papcrs, ()vor (r0 nragazittcs ittrcl two tr'lc'visiorr r-t)nllrirrrit':,) \v,rs rr'lt'r'r't.tl

Itt lltt' Mtllt()[lolit's ('tltrrtrtissiott. ll l,,ilv(' ils ,tlrlrt',,\',rl ,tllrl olrl,rilriltl',

t't'r'l,un lot'nt,tl ,lliliur'.ln('('s, In lr,tt'lir'ul,tt' ,tlroul llr,' l lr, )rn',{ )n l,rttullr'.;
Ittt,ulr t,tl,,)nlnultnrnl lo llr('( orrlrnu,rltotr ol llt, Ittrt,

involving Ruper! M*doch's

Mongpolies Commission
the
to
referred
never
were
empire
l,ulrlishing
made use of a loopconcerned
State
of
Secretary
,rt ,rll. ln three ases the
lrult.in the Fair Trading Act which allows for the possibitity of a merger
r,,('(.iving his blessing ithout a Monopolies Commission enquiry, rf the
r,r:;t. is 'irne of urgency' and where he is satisfied that'the newspaPer
, un('t.iled is not economic as a going concern and as a separate newsSul-rsequent national newspaper mergers

'
' r,l I;l)t'l''
lris

provision was invoked without controversy in 7969 when

Nlrn,lor-li bought The Sun There was general agreement, inclu{i*g
rrnorrg the trae unions involved, that, if anyone was foolish enough to
tlrrrrl.- that they could make a go of The Sun, they were welcome to have
rt I lowever, ii was invoked afiain with major controversy in 1981 when
!'rlr:,'l'lratcher's Government allowed Murdoch to buy the Sunday Times
,urrl 'l'lrr Times without a monopoly reference. The unhaPpy Secretary of
',t,rt(,, lohn Biffen, was requiied in effect to declare to the House of
r,nun()rls that white was black. He asserted, in defiance of known
f ,rr t:,, lhat both titles were not economic as going concerns and that the
rrr,rnr.r'ws too urgent for it to be sent to the Monopolies Commission.
I lr,. r rr"ll('ncy derived solely from the fact that the Thomsgn Organuzatr,rr lr,rtl r.ftosen to announce that the titles would be closed if they were
rr,I ,,t,ltl together to Murdoch by a given date.
Irvo lirrl cases indicated the Thatcher government's readiness to acr r.f rt lur;rrrcial
forcemajeure instead of insisting on the letter and spirit_of
r1,,. l,nv tlcsigned to protect plurality in the media. The first was the
r,rl,r.()!1r1'Lry News Internatinal of the loss-making Today titles from
I rrnrtro witrout a monopolies reference in 1987, after Murdoch and the
I ,,11r lro t'hairman,'Ttny'Rowland, had given the Secretary of State for
Ir,r,lr..urtl lndustry, Lord Young, a2L-hour ultimatum t9 upprove the
,lr,rl l'lrt.sccorrd was the take-ver in 7990 by Murdoch's Sky TV of
tlr,. lh rtrslr Satcllite Broadcasting (BSB) to form BSkyB without the neces,,u \, ( ()ns(.nt of the broadcasting regulators, a take-over subsequently
,ur, lrr rrrt'tl lry thc government as a foit accompli.
( ,rrrirrll ()n lop of all the rest of the rhetoric of Thatcherism, it is not
t,, nurr'lr lo say lhat national newspapers have themselves been caught

:::.',ll:.::;:,lli.I,l|,$;.,nnffi[T':ltr#'J:,ffir?#}Hil*;"3}
Ir,r

rr

I rr,,\v:; (r ntl ',i.nrerlt can be packaged in a commercially successful

it. itrl if tablridization is the better way to increasing
n lrt'Ilr,rI its wt'll. ('t)l-lsumerism rules!

.r\,, .,() l,t.

,' ir

tlt",

lllilt'l<, ftlhn
I llr,. ,,llrr.r nl(.rnl,t'r:, ol llrr'('onlnlillt't'\A/('t'('Slrt'ilir
( ,u lrr r ri,,lrl N1 l'. | ),rvi,l l',,r,11' (-)( , .tiiltl()tl f t'rrl.,ill:;, l't'ttlt':;:;tll' f tllrlr l,.ls[
,rltrl I li',1,,'ll( ('l
' Ilr,, nlrIl!n \ \\.,t., nltl1,1lr., l l,t llr,. t .lntl),t!i,,n l,r1 l'1,':,', l"t ,',', 1,,111 'l'lrr'
,,llr,'r

nt(,trrl,,'t',
f ,r,,,1,1,,lr'..lrrtrr'

rrl llt,' 1',t()ttl) \\r'l('

(,()orlrrr,rtr
(,r'r,llr,'\

(,,',rllt,
t, I )l.tllt.
li,,"lrttt
',.tt,tlt
Il.,i'i',.rrl
l..l r, ll,ttrl
lr'lrrr \l,tttl'',

SEX,LIES ND DEMOCRACY

Russell Profitt, Muriel Turner, Phillip Whitehead and Katherine

Whitehorn.
References

Calcutt, David (1990) Report tf the Committee on Priaacy and Related

Matters, chairman, David Calcutt QC, Cmnd 7'J"02, HMSO, London.
Calcutt, David (1993) Reaiew t Press Self-Regulation, Cmnd 2735,
HMSO, London.
Engel, Matthew (7996) Tickle the Public: One Hundred Years tf the
Popular Press, Victor Goll ancz, London.
Glover, Stephen (1993) Paper Dreams, ]onathan Cape, London.
Mansfield, F.f. Q,943) Gentlemen, the Press! , VV.H. Allen, London.
National Heritage (1995) Priaacy and Media Intrusion: the Goaernment's
Response, Cmnd 291,8, HMSO, London.
Press Council (1983) Press Conduct in the Sutcliffe Case, Press Council
Booklet No. 7, London.
Robertson, Geoffrey (1983) People Against the Press,Quartet, London.
Royal Commission on the Press (1962) Report, Cmnd 1811, HMSO,
London.
Shawcross/ William (1992) Rupert Murdoch, Chatto & Windus, London.
Stephenson/ Hugh (1,994) Media Freedom and Media Regulation,
Association of British Editors, London.

(,I{APTER 2

The' tabloiding' of Brit ain :'

newspapers in the 1990s

Quality'

Michael Bromlry

I tr

troduction
Ncwspapers have long enough estranged themselves in a manner totally
Irorn the elegancies of literature, and dealt only in malice, or at least in the
lrrattle of the duy.On this head, however, newspapers are not much more to
lrlirme than their patrons, the public - Morning Post, 1788.(quoted Williams
l()(rl: 195)

world of the press - and especially newspaper jourthe

1990s
have
been characterized by u growing obsession with
rvlr,rl has been seen as a decline in standards in the perhaps ironicaltry
rr,rrnt'tl 'quality' titles. This debate has been conducted, usually without
rrlr'r'('nce to analytical frameworks, chiefly in the trade press and sper r,rlisl mcdia sections of the broadsheet newspapers themselves (Green',l,rrlt' lL)96b). Perhaps the most wiciely accepted explanation is Engetr's
{ l'rt)(,,r) thesis that the publication of the Daily Mail in 1896 began a pror {'i,ri, which has already lasted for about a hundred yeatrs, in which a
'iu{ ( ('ssion of newsprp"rr have enjoyed periods of ominance of the
nr,r,r.i' ru'irr-lership by prrsuing editorial policies of increasing populisn"t
'urrI trivialization" Engel specifically identified those papers as the Mai,
llrr l\rilV l.,x1trcss, the Daily Mirro'r, the News of the World, and The Sun:
llr,' I \tilV Sltr's foray into'bonk' journatrism in 1987, he argued, began a
r ,urlrous .rrrcl partial retreat as the papers apparently finatrtry touched
r,,, 1,. lroll()r-n', L'ttrsing readers and, more importantly, advertisers to re*
,,,r1 (l')()(rir. ?t)ll')" Ily thc tr980s, alt these papers were tabioid in fmrrmat
,rrrrl l, V,u'virrg 11t'gt"c('s, irr sl"ylc- -["his seened to deflect attention away
Irunr,uly:;rrnrliu-[r'r]rl('r)('it's in [trrt'lrruli'rr'lshcct press. Events su.ch as t]te
\\llulr li\^,,rn ,rll,rir-', in w,lrit'lt ,l !lrtttrl)('r- o-sct-liot' jlurt"latrists at.Tlu:'fintt::;
r\ r()1. 1, llrr'l,,rl,t't'':, ('(lilol'itr l()7,r) t'.ri:;irr1,, t'on('('nts rttlttttI it ltlwcrirrg tll"
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l)(it-('r'i\rr'tl lo llr',ln ,tllcl])l)l lrl
titr'\.{'llt,'lrllr',1,)\\'nltt,ttl...r'l ulttlr'l llrr'()\\/ttct:;lu;, ol l,qrt-, I 'lltotltts()tl,
lrr llrt'introspective

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THE 'TABLOIDING' OF BR/TIN; 'QIJALITY'NEWS PAPERS /N THE 7990s

SEX, LIES ND DEMOCRACY

and, incidentally, television news and current affairs as well were

built on a set of specific perceptions. Newspaper proprietors were

accused of treating their titles as business properties without 'a social
purpose' (Greenslade 1996c), and the 'spin from big media barons' was
thus felt to be indistinguishable from that emanating from government
or other normally adversarial sources of social and economic power
(Sweeney 1995). Editors were expected to act as entrepreneurs on behalf
of the corporation (Tunstall 1996: 716-35), or as mere brand managers

in an editorial function subsumed, with circulation and advertising

sales, into an overall marketing effort (Griffith 1995). ]ournalism risked

becomi^g a 'market-led' commodity (McManus 7994), with company
executives, working from the results of market research, deciding
what was news. A newspaper, in the view of one provincial editor, was
a fast-moving consumer good - just like a Mars Bar - and ought to be
sold like one (Fowler 7994).
The consequence, in the view of many journalists, was a catalogue of
horrors: 'the lowest standards of journalism' (Hetherington 7989: 294);
'a play-it-safe recipe of abysmal blandness' (Hitchens 7995); a diet of
'soft porn, gossip and cheap fantasy' (Pilger 7997); an addiction to trivia
(Christmas 7996);'greed and to hell with the readers' (Harold Evans,
quoted in Slattery 7996). While the news traditionally had to compete
(ften on unequal terms) with 'maga zrte stories, money-spinni*g
games and promotions and quality sports writing' in the tabloid papers
(Greenslade 7996e), the permeation of such attitudes into the 'serious'
press appeared new (Farndon 7996). Fifty Members of Parliament
signed an early day motion in ]une 7996 deplori^g 'the steep decline in
serious reporting and analysis of politics and current affarcs . . . [notingl
that this decline has gathered pace in recent times, with increasing
emphasis on personalities rather than politics, and on trivia rather than
substance' (Peak and Fisher 7996: 44). The comments which carried rnost gravitas within journalism were possibly those of Anthony
Sampsor, the author and a member of the Scott Trust which owns The
Guqrdian, who asserted that 'the frontier between qualities and popular
papers has virtually disappeared' (7996: 44). Sampson noted the
demotion of foreign news, parliamentary reporti*g and investigative
journalism in the broadsheet press, and the substitution of personal columns devoted to inconsequential trivia. In 1995 the editor of The
Guardian invented the word 'broadloid' to describe a broadsheet newspaper with a tabloid editorial approach (Peak and Fisher 7995:30-1).
trt will be argued in this chapter that there has indeed been a convergence of news values among the tabloid and broadsheet press, counteracting a tendency which prevailed for most of the twentieth century
(Sparks 7992: 38-9). In that respect, the trend identified by Engel clid not
reach a climax with the excesses of the Daily Star: in fact, at prt'r.iscly thr.
moment when the polarization of the p.*.rr sc()r'lrcrl rrror;l ,rllt','',,"tcd,
ta[-rloid trnr] l-lroar]sht't't lr('ws itg('rrclas w('r(' rtt'lu,tll1, ( ()nrrrrl] lo1,r'll)r't"
(S;rrtt'l<s l()()l: (l(r). lrr tttirt'l<t'l lt'r'r)ts, '(lui'rlity' ,ulrl l,,,l,ul,u rrr'\\',,lr,rl)r'r':-,

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l)resented as a {lsjunction, it was more properly part of the continuing

tlcvelopment of the press in the twentieth century.
The newspaper 'revolution' of the 1890s, atiributed to Northcliffe,
was founded on advertising and addressing readers primarily as consumers
(Williams 7967:203-4). As the twentietlicentury progressed, this press
Iouched deeper and deeper into private life, elvating its 'enteitaintrtent' function over its more 'public' educative and inormative funclions. Information increasingly became a commodity to be managed
rittlrer than a requisite of democratic debate (Webster 7995: 277-78). ny
rlsclf this is not evidence of a'dumbi^g down' of either newspapers or
llrt' publlc. T!" primlry basis for such n argument is a highli dubious
r,ltPposition that 'tabloid' newspapers indoctrinate and brainwash their
,rrrrliences (McGuigan 1,992: 774-5), and that readers are somehow
':iltrpid' (O'Hagan 7996). In fact,'popular' journalism may facilitate re';isti'tnce to, even the transformation of , political, economic and social
';ttlrordination by empoweri^g its audienes, not as actors in the public
',lrltcre but as consumers (McGuigan 7992:183-5). The exercise bf the
Ir,rrrchise was mediated, in ways that W.T. Stead (1886) perhaps failed
l, trrtderstand completely, through, as he said, spending-a peny on a
rrrwspaPer. In so far as it was quintessentially a 'serious' occupation,
;trtll'lllism was forced, s a consequence, to retreat to the fastness of the
rrrrrr(rrity'quality'press (Sparks 7997:64). Some time, probably in the
(rl"i0s, the
|
politics of consumption extended itself to flty incorporate
I lrr. r't'aders of this press, too.

l'lr( sprefrd of tabloid news rnlues

lt,' l,rlrloidization of the'serious'press, as it is identified here, probably
', 'l',, t tl in the provincial newspaper sector, and reflected peiceptions
It,'l,l lry proprietors and managers that the nature of the pUtic it was
,t.rlrl.tt'ssitrg was changirg.This, it was proposed, luy behind the steep
,1,', lirtt't'xpc'rienced by the provincial press from the 797As so that by
llr. l()()()s it could be regarded as a'dying business'. A great deal cf
.llrrt I wrrs ('xpended in'second guessing the readers'(Eleni 7995:6). At
llr,' :,,rrrlt' Iitttc, conglomeration and rnonopolization resulted in exploit*rlrr trr, 't'.ttioltitlization, redundancies and [the] cutting [of] costs', particularly
,rnr{,rrl' l()untirlists (le Duc 7997; Greenslade 7996d). A provincial news,,'t ('lt,t il'tttit l'l warttc-d that 'news-ignorant' management was giving
| ',, I
u',r' lo l)oot' (luirlity' cclitorial content consisting of 'soft news, wtrit
',1 ,.r, r', ,t tt,l y('stt'r'tlity's lt'-t-ovcrs' (Slattery
1992). Surveying his local
r'\'('nnrll l,,lpt'r', llrt'llrightorr l',ttutitt,l, Ar:4rrs, which had lost 50 per cent
,,1 rl', r rl t tll,tliolt irt lwt'nly y('iu'si, Iioy ( ircclrslirclc (199(tc7) argued:
i lr,'t (' t:, .tity l,rll' ol iltt t't',rsinl') r'(',rtl('r'slril, . . . i)r-trl l-rrittrtl lgyirlty arrcl tfit
'\ ltrl)',\' rr lllr il:; r',ivr' ,t\,V,r\/ l,,rl,t'r'
Iltrrtl lry irll r'(.,1s(lpitlrlp jt)gt't-tillistit.
.l,rrrt l.u,l:,, I lr,' . l/,,,,/t:, :,1 ittl..:,'
Ilrl', \\',1'. '.('('lt ,t', ,ttl ottl( ()lp(' rrl llrr. .rllr.trr1il., l,\, Irt,,t tttt'i,rl l,tr.:,:;
n\\ llr'l', lo l,",lf()!l(l 1,, , lr,nl),,1t!j,, t(.,t(1,.1.,1f f p,.,. ,ulrl lo l,ulrf t r.tlllull,tl ( ()lt
I

THE'TABLOIDI IG' OF BRITIN; 'QUALITY'NEWSPAPERS IN THE

SEX,LIES ND DEMOCRACY

tent accordingly (Elenio 7995: 9-1,2): shoppi.g ryas now defined as

to news' was abandoned (Thomson
news, as the traitional approach
(n
date); Elenio 7995: 17). While . a general
Regional Newspapers
'chngi^g media nvironment' could be identified, traditional local

pressales - the use of letters' page_s for reader feedback; 'focus on the
iocal community', including in-depth coverage of evenls; clmp1i_gning
on local issues, and so on - were still most likely to attract readers (Henley
Centre n.d.: 41,-3). Nevertheless, provincial newsPaPers began to adjust
their news schedules to reflecf new marketable qualities (Morgan
7gg2b), and space devoted to 'lifestyle' features became inviolable, irrespective of the importance of news stories (MorgSn 7992a). All the
r*", there was little consensus about precisely what content would
attract and keep readers. The outgoing deputy chlef executive of one
of the largest provincial newsPaPer grouPs observed:
We purport to know better than ever what they [the- readers] want, but our
erruriir,g ne*spapers, at least, do not seem to know how to give it.to them.
They rant mre bite; we are still too bland. They crave more detail; we incline to offer them less. (Herbert1995)

it was felt somewhat vaguely, ought at least to be 'bright' and

'cheery' (Pritchard et al. 7993: 11).
In the national press, too, it was widely believed that readershiPs Iu4
changed, becomirig more prone to 'inconsistency and unpledictabiltty'
(McCrystal 1995). 'natural' broadsheet constituency .-. . [of] seriousminded men' was no longer interested exclusively in politics and economics (Greenslade 1997b1 Moreover, 'a generalized hypocrisy . . . of a
public which refuses to grow up' placed _a pre1itq on 'titillating tales',
particularly of sexual ativities (Greenslade 7997a). Broadsheet newspap"rs detriberately - and successfully - pursrr*q youlgql t":qers interrt"a in such stori-es, winning them way from the tabloids (MacArthur
1997c). The new readers came from:

Papers,

the three-minute culture, the 'dumbing down' of the young generation who
don't read, aren't interested in politics or foreig^ affairs and don't like heavyweight articles on 'Whither NATO' . . . this post-modern, post-serious, postliterate generation. (MacArthur 1997 a)

The received wisdom was that television had initiated the vicious circle
in the 1950s, supplanting traditional newspaper reporti"g with suPgrficial, suspect 'sndbiteT journalism, driven ultimately by-the need for
pictures and to entertain (Youn g 1990;_Fisk 1992). Others felt that televiion was no more immune from the 'dumbi^g down' process, reflected

in the failure of the project for TV to pursue 'a mission to explain' Proposed by ]ohn Birt and Peter lay in the 7970s. A declint'in ther numbers
f 'discfiminati.g viewets' , and the financial intt'rt'sts o' ittrlt'pt'nclent
television compies wc,rcl anton{ thr. contrihtrtinl,, lrlt'lt)t's (Wtlffinclt'rr
19g6). lirlr (,xilrirl'rlt', in r(,sp()lrst'to tltt,n('('(l lo ttt,tittl,titt ils t',tlitt1is, illrti
Io rt.tlut,t, its t'ltiti'11..s Io tlrt. t'l'V t'()ln[)illlit's il st';'1'1'1 | ilr lllt' l,lt'tt t)l lrtll('ll,rirlll lrRF,, rllltl tlcltttllt'tl
f iitl t,r)nlllt.tiliott, itt,lt,lrt.lttlt,nt'l'r,lr,visiott Nrtvrr frf

L990s

foreign and political stories in favour of a more 'tabloid' news agenda

(Victor 7994. F{ellen 1 995). One of the UK's most respected TV journalists complained that putting'quality profit before product quallty' had
resulted in 'reduction and trivialization' and 'a wortrd of flash infotainment' (Snow 7997). Tabloid news values were imported into television
most transparently by the cable operator Live TV, whose news from
1996 featured the 'news bunny', introduced by the former editor of The
Sun, Kelvin MacKenzie (Brown7996a; Coles 1996a).
Magazines, too, and especially those appealing principally to
women, began to pursue an editorial mix of sex, celebrity and slea ze Lt':.
a far more ggressive way. Titles such as Hello!, OKl and Here! were described as tabloids in all but name (Marks 7996). The most downmarket
of thes e, Here! , Launched in ]un e 1,996, was in many respects almost indistinguishable from a tabloid Sunduy newspaper (Brown1,996c). Interestingly, the magazine published by the Sunday People, which spent
many months publicizing the activities of the American actress Pamela
Anderson in the manner of CK! , the self-styled 'home of the stars',

adopted the trend begun by Hello! in 1,988, and took the title Yes!
(Brown 7996b; Coles 7996b). It might have seemed difficult to distinguish who was imitati^g whom, except that most observers gave credit
for first tappi^g into the preoccupation of a newly emerging youth culture with lebrity,particularly that associated with television, and sex
to The Sun (Pilger 7997). The playwright Dennis Potter (7993: 23) went
so far as to proclaim that

an avid wet-mouthed downmarket slide . . . b.gan its giddiest descent on the

clay marauding Rupert Murdoch first left his paw-marks on our shores in
acquiringThe Sun and dragged so many others towards the sewers.

)thers believed that opening up editorial agendas and addressing

prcviclusly taboo subjects made the press more relevant and more

rlCCcS$iible.

News about 'sex, murder and pop stars' had not driven everything
t,lse off the broadsheet pages: the 'quality' press carried as much home
rr nd fctreign news as it had thirty or forty years earlier, and much of it

w.ls of btter quatity. The individual itms tended to be shorter, and

lrlrotographs bigger, although the papers were able to carry more of
lroth lrccause they had grown in size: this constituted a deliberate aPto thc'soundbite generation', intended to stimulate its interest in
lrt,ill
;nt.rious''ncws rather than pandering to its ignorance. The editor of The
'l'intt,s tolci illl international conference that 'quality newsPaPers must

lrrwilr(, illltlwing ciullncss to masquerade as seriousness and must adtlrt.ss nrorl('nr rt'rtc.lcrs itr modern ways' (MacArthur 7997a,7997b). The
lrllr{(, ol 'pr)}lulirrizittion', rtthcr than poPulism, was advanced more in
11,l1,yisitlrr tltrtrt Iltt. l)t't.ss: l'r('ws, it wils i]rgucd, c'tlttlc-l bt'Pr]sented in
ttrrtt'lr llrt. silrn(, wrlf ,ils nl()r'(. l)()[)ulitr 'l'V l]r()grilttttttcs likt' tht' c()11hunlr.t' slrow Wttlt'ltrlrtl, ()r' llrt' t'ltiltlrt'n's lllilliilzit'tt' lllttt' l'th ',' (Mt'tltvt't't
l(l,r(,, ltltl'/; I ),rl,rr ltltl'll.
l( )r

rr

THE'TABLOIDING' OF BRITAIN :' QIJALITY' NE

SEX, LIES ND DEMOCRACY

nalists have sought to deflect criticisms of their methods as sensationalist.

Stead (1886: 670-2) defended sensationalism as a natural phenomenon:
'the presentation of facts with such vividness and graphic force as to

make a distinct even although temporary impact upon the mind'. FIe
distinguished this from Journalism that can fairly be called exaggerated
or untrue:
Mere froth-whipping or piling up the agony, solely for the purposes of harrowing the feelings of the reader, and nothing more, ny be defended . . .
but I have nothing to say for that kind of work. That is not the sensationalism
which I am prepared to defend. The sensationalism which is indispensable is
sensationalism which is justifiable. Sensationalism in journalism is justifiable
up to the point that it is necessary to arrest the eye of the public and compel
them to admit the necessity of action.
Sensationalism is solely a me rns to an end. It is never an end in itself.

Marking the centenary of the Daily Mail in 1996, the chairman of its parent company invoked the spirit of Northcliffe, the paper's founder, as
the initiator of campaigning and expos journalism (and also of promotions, competitions and exhibitions), who had laid down the dictum:
'Explain! Simplifyl Clarify!' (English 1996: 7, 10). In the later twentieth
century sensationalism became associated almost exclusively with the
'popular' tabloid, rather than the 'quality' press. For three decades perhaps its most celebrated exponent was the Daily Mirror, which vigorously tackled in print hitherto unaddressed subjects, such as the
incidence of venereal disease among troops during the Second World
War. The Mirrol s postwar editor observed:
The Mirror is a sensational paper. We make no apology for that. We believe
in the sensational presentation of news and views, especially important news
and views, as a necessary and valuable public service in these days of mass
readership and democratic responsibility.
Sensationalism does not mean distorting the truth. It means vivid and dramatic
presentation of events so as to give them a forceful impact on the mind of the
reader. It means big headlines, vigorous writing, simplification into everyday
language, and the wide use of illustration by cartoon and photograph.

Today the needs for sensational journalism are even more apparent. Every
great problem facing us . . . will only be understood by the ordinary man
busy with his daily tasks if he is hit hard and hit often with the facts.
Sensational treatment

is the answer, whatever the sober and 'superior'

readers of some other journals may prefer. (quoted Cudlipp 1953: 250-1

Such
had
(

pt'()v()kt'd C()tllltlirilrts ol l;rllilrr,, :;l,uttl,tt,l:;,,1.; l lrt'y

Irrt- lltt' lrt','trirlu:; ItrO V('(ur, ()r nr()r{' I lr,' A ltttrttJs
'n('\\/1. lr'll nl,rt-1..,', ll\,,,rtitl nr ll,, 1,,,'-lri.r' 1,,'rr,1 l llrr'
tvlt,,l,'',t1',ntltr,rrrllt' 'rlotvlri',t,r,lr', I .tt, lr trtr'. (( utt,ut

WS P APERS

IN

THE, 1990s

and Seaton 7997: 67, 773-77). Not only 'popular' newsPaPers, but also
television and radio - and, as the 'White Swan affarr' illustratecl, even as
'serious' a paper as The Times - were subjected to criticism, includi^F
that articultea by two Royal Commissions, for thereby l"yering -b:lh
standards and th expectaions of audiences (Curran and Seaton 7997:
322-3; Carey 7992: 6-:10; Negrine 7994: 46-7; Bromley 1995:87-B; Madrl ox, 7996; Tunstall 7996: 394*6) .
Such critics argued that standards in the 'popular' press reached a
pcw nadir as The-Sun competed with, and then overtook, the Mirror as
rlre best-selling national dily newspaper in the 7970s and 1980s (Tunstall 7996: 404f. The paper became' byword for the erosion of journaListic standards' Mccigan 7992: 777). In fact, initially, folLowi^S its
,rccluisition by Murdoch,lhe paper set out to to99!y mimic the Mirror as
it *m thought to have beenln the 1940s and 1950s. To that extent,The
Srtn was inll senses a traditional tabloid newspaper -'less shrill, less
lrirrsh' than it was to become after 1981 under the editorship of MacKenzie
(l ,t'apman 7992: 67-3). Within about five years,_ however, the Paper
l,,,gah to exert a pervasive influence over much of the rest of the presslrr' g16,both the pape.'s raucous chauvinism and unapologetic political
ur(,()rrectness wer finally set, and the move to Wapping gave it temp_otaty
lrut critical commercial, and perhaps psychological, advantages lleqppr(y'r 1992: 64-5;767*2). Everually, tlie tables were turned completely,
,rrrtl the Mirror took to imitating The Sun (Leapman 1996). The consider,rlrlt, impact of The Sun on thsprovincial press in the later 1980s was
Ir,rt,(,d '6y Engel (1993). He found these papers consumed by 'Panic,
rit,,n'('z Horrorl Strock, Anger' 'the drip, drip, drip of years o distorIr,n'. -fhe provincial and lcal press seemed to have succumbed to Sunr1,1,1. ..lich and hyperbole (Bromley 7995:95-6)" A seco_nd3ry-factor was
tlr,. linking of Th'e'Sun to the Sunday Times through Murdoch's owner.,lr r1 r l rorn"tqst. The Sunday Times shared in
- peaps even gained more
t r , ,in the advantages of the move to Wapping;but, more significantly,
rt ,rl,,rrrrloned the p[uralist, radical journalism for which it established a
r(.1)ut,rlion under ine editorship of Flarry Evans in the 796As and 7970s,
rr,t,rlrly ir'tcr Andrew Neil wa appointed editor in 1983 (Seyrnour-Ure
t,)( I I 1,14-5; Leapman 7992: 76, 10t*Zl. The paper came to be widely
l,rrrrlxx)rrt'd insid the industry as a tabloid in allbut name and srze.
Itlr,. lirlrloid press's pursuit of the story of the royal family more than
,ur\, .,tlr('r'-- 'thc biggeit stclry of the past ten years'- in which the Sun-

',1",'1,l,llll':,1'ill;:Ii:'*ll*i^11.,?;1"*xlH3ft?HTrTx,iiitr.;?Tffit,ffi
i,,,\ (.r 1,,,,,,,1, lht'rirst'lv('s l-rccaffle newsworthy. At first, the 'quality'

llrc sulrsliurtivt' issllL's ()' tahloid news; therr clecried thern.

l,,rl,r,r':; ,ul(l lt'lt,vision iutt-l rittlio - sttllst:clLlclltly began lePorting

1,r,.,.:, riln()r't'tl
11r,..,,.

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SEX, LIES ND DEMOCRACY

it can be dated as happening somewhere between 1963, when The Guardian

belatedly sent a reporter to explain to its readers something about the baffling social phenomenon known as The Beatles, and 1996, when Charles Moore, editor of the Daily Telegraph, berated his staff for failing to put
the Oasis concert at Knebworth on page one. One can be slightly more specific than that. It definitely pre-dated 1995 when the four broadsheet dailies
devoted a total of 1752 column inches to Hugh Grant's dalliance with a Los
Angeles prostitute.
Michael Leapman, then The Times man in New York, dates the change in the
quality press precisely to the takeover [of the paper by Murdoch in 1981]. In
7977, when Elvis Presley died, Leapman's suggestion that he fly to Memphis
was greeted with the reaction: 'Sorry. Not a Times story.' Two months after
Murdoch moved in, when Bob Marley died, not only was Leapman ordered
to Jamaica to the funeral, he found anoth er Times writer there. (Engel7996b)

THE',ranrru[

IG',

oF BRIT/N:

',Ql,rALtrTY',

NEWS PAPERS /N THE 1990s

tabloids 'pushed the boundaries of acceptable taste further and further

downward in the layers between the gutter and the sewer'. The situation had changed with unprecedented rapidity, however. He identified
three principa[ causes for this. First, the price 'wa{ initiated by the
Murdch press in 7993 had brought the same kind of competition for
circulation to the broadsheet press as had characterized the tabloid sector in the 7970s and 1980s. Referring to The Times, Engel wrote: 'What
was traditionally Britain's premium paper has turned itself into something close to a freesheet, selling on Mondays at 10p, less than the Pape1
cost in 1976 and only four tirnes as much as in 1797.'Second, the arrival
of The Independent in 1986 disturbed the equilibrium which had existed
ilmong the broadsheets since perhaps the nineteenth century, ald Prornoted purchasing promiscuity among broadsheet readers. Third, in in-

tcrviews the editois of both the Daily Telegraph and The Independent

ncknowledged the inftruence of the Daily Mail, particularly in addressing

women reiders. True, a 'generation . . . conditioned to staring at tetre-

A watershed in the debate

Engel's article, published on Thurs day, 3 October 7996 as the cover
story of The Guardian's second (tabloid) section, represented some kind
of watershed in the debate over 'the tabloidization of the broadsheets'
(Engel 1996b).It made reference and responded to Sampson's article,
mentioned above, and in turn it stimulated the editor of the influential
trade weekly Press Cnzette to reply with a long article of his own paper
(Farndon 1996). An international seminar, called to consider the future
of the 'quahty press, also considered the matter (Christmas 7997: 777).
The issue, it seemd, had finally broken surface.
The Engel contribution consisted of about 3000 words of copy on
how 'the broadsheet newspapers have changed beyond recognition in
the past ten years'. Given that the paper recogntzed that the story had
been around for a decade, it was perhaps remarkable that it had
taken it so long to address it" On the other hand, it was suggested that
Sampson's position as a member of the Scott Trust had contributed to
'internal pressures' to do so (Farndon 7996).
Adopti*g the approach he took in his well-received book published
earlier in 7996 to mark the centenary of the Daily Mail (1996a:20-47),
Engel began by ridiculing the 'quality' press's potential anachronism.

Cn the Saturday before Christmas 7984 the followi.g introductory paagraplr appeared in the lead article on the features pages of The Guardian:
'Everybody knows that by X4CI0 the Christ child in \ffestern painting had
shed the Byzantine garb to appear more or less naked. In the 1930s it was
the custom of The Times to prnt pages fronn tirne to time in Ancie.nt Gneek,
safe in the knowledgu that rnany readers woukl be ahlt'lo t.r'itt'1.. tht't'otlc. llr
thr:1950s;, whcn Elizabe'ttrr Taylor arrivecl at llcallrr()w rrllct',ur illrrt's:; i)r)(l
tolrl rt'1t1r1'[('r's: 'l't'lt 't'r'ling likc ir rtrilliolt tlollru':;', llrc ltrtrlrl 'l'r'lt'.,,,,ttr1tl{'; l)oll
,lt't't)u:j (rrrtl ;rctlirtrlir'r'ulr':; irt:;islt'tl llt,rl il .rrltl ,rll('r'\\/,n(l', (l li, '(l( l( l)

vision and computer screens but not to the discipline of reading in

tlcpth' meant auiences had changed but, above all, the editorial tactics
Ioi selling tabloid newspapers had been imported into the previously
'('osy Corner' occupied by the broadsheet Press.
Engel concluded that this represented a challenge primarily to jourrrirlism:
Iligger newspapers mean that, whether or not there is as muclr great journalism, there is ceitainly far more inconsequential journalism. The standards of
presentation have improved; the standards of literacy have not. Up to ten
ycars ago The Guardian used to get some words all wrong because the protl uction system could not cope. One fears that in the future it will get them
wrong because the journalists will not care enough to ensure they are right.
lJnder pressure, the papers have also become blander . . . too often the broadslrt'ets let the tabloids set the pace, and slavishly folIow. One can imagine a
sittration in which the quality papers look an sound more or less identit ir I . . . The truth is that fhe quality papers are giving the readers what they
w(urt in a way that never use to happen. The logical end of that must be the
tlisirp'rp-rcarane of the frontier, as Sampson says. But it has not happened
y('l . . . if we can address our ownbusiness honestly, assessing ourselves and

()ur rivuls fairly, as well as trumpeting our triumphs and rubbishing the oPr rsiI ion, all is not yet lost.
I
I lr,. ,rllrt'it st,vt.rcly rntrted furore of the Sampson-Engel-Farndon ex,lr,rnl',(,s ('()r'n[)irrt'tl to ir pr(]viously almost total silence on the issue. For
r.\,urrp11', ,r s()uvt'rrir lrooklt'[ rnarking the twentieth anniversary of the
llrr.rr l/, /',-r'ss ()tt.,t'llt', tlt's1-ritt' hilihlighting 'tttrmoil and change' in the
nr(.(la.r, nl,r(lt.rr() nrt'nlirlrr rll tllt'lt'ntl('lt('y l-tlr tabltlicl ittrci'q,rality'news
(Wintour 19t15). Ten years later, in the same paper's
t.tlu,':, lrl
thc issue was passed over in one
IlrrrIrrllr
; llrc tr',tlr,,,rlttrn 1',('llttittr'11, :;ltlrn, ilr
,l,t r.l1',,'r , llr(' ('(lllot ol l'lt,' t )ttrtttlttttt,

THE'TABLOIDING' OF BRITA/N; 'QULITY'NEWSPAPERS /N TI-IE 7990s

SEX, LIES ND DEMOCRACY

This is not C.P. Snow-land, where there's high culture and low culture, and
you're interested in one or the other. Most of our readers have the capacity to
think more broadly than that. They want to know about the single currency,
and they would be cheated tf The Guardian didn't give that. But they also
want to know about Liam Gallagher and Patsy Kensit.

They can be broad enough to want to know Martin Woollacott's line on

Burundi and Rwanda. But it doesn't mean they don't want to know about
Fergie and Di. It's very dangerous if you get into the mind-set that there are
broadsheet subjects and tabloid subjects. (Quoted Engel7996b)

Conclusion
A notable aspect of a debate so far conducted largely within the closed
community of the press has been its almost exclusive focus on the implications of tabloidization for journalism. Evidence from the US suggests there are correlations between the levels of morale among
journalists, their evaluations of the performance of the media in promoting the public interest, the incidence of market-led editorial values,
and the quality and size of editorial staffs: smaller, less experienced and
younger newsrooms, resulting from cost-cutting measures linked to
short-term managerial desires to meet supposed market demands, are
seen as leadirg to a decline in public interest journalism, which reduces
job satisfaction (Weaver and Wilhoit 1992:10-11; Kurtz 7995). Editorial
staffs in Britain have clearly been getting younger and smaller, less
experienced and less well paid (National LJnion of ]ournalists 7994: 3;
Delano and Henningham 7996: 4, 76; Kennedy 7996), and have been
subjected to cost-cutting, firost notably at the Mirror Group newspapers,
The Independent, Independent on Sunday and the Mirror, and in the provincial press (Pritchard et al. 7993: 79; Greenslade 7996a; Cohen 7997)"
Nevertheless, overall morale appears not to have fallen as much as in
the USA. A far higher proportion of British news journalists still believe
the media are serving the public interest, although nearly half also think
that standards have fallen (Delano and Henningham 7996:18). The feeli.g of 'spiritual self-doubt' which is said to infect American journalists
(Kurtz 1995) appears to be absent from British journalism. That may
derive from the division of British journalism into distinct, and increasingly discrete, tabloid and broadsheet cultures with quite different
expectations (Delano and Henningham 7996: 77-78). Only some unreconstructed broadsheet journalists, it might be said, condemn contemporary journalism as wholly routinized, 'a treadmill' stripped of its
public interest dimenslg"'d9ing *y1l and traduci.g thc.good... witlr
scant regard for truth' (Toynbee 7996). They compar(. un'irvt)rrriltrly thc
journalism of the Sunday Times and its Insight tt.iurr irr llrt ltfil)s, .urtl ol
Mirrorsc()pc irr thc 1960s, with tht' 'ittlvt.r'trri,rl' 1r,,li( r(':, .l llrt. l(X)()s

tllttlt't' wlrit.lr 'l'ltt 'l'itttr':; stllrl its t'rtlirt' 1rr-irrl n nl lo \ tr, r,',oll, ,urr l llrr.
l\tiltl N4ittttt'lln-llt'tl rlsr'll lrlrlc it),t tlr',tl w,illr l',';'',1 ( ,rl.r
llrr:, (()tl('('t'tl t,r,'lllr llrc t'r'l,tltvr',utlon()nt\' ol lotrlrr,rlr',1'. .r', lrr,tr ltlron(.t:,

with the issue of content. The confusion of broadsheet subjects and

tabloid subjects' has led to fears that broadsheet journalism and tabloid
journalism'will become indistinguishable the 'dumbing down' effect.
Without doubt, the broadsheet press in the 1990s has shared mary of the
fuses

news values of the tabloids, and has paid almost as much attention to the
presentation of this material (Sparks 7997:7V7). Its explanatory strategies
iemained distinctive, however: the broadsheet press, unlike the tabloids,
stilt eschewed the personal as the defining prism through which to view

tlre world; its discourse remained fundamentally different (Sparks 7992:

39-41). Surely this is what the editor of The Guardian was referrilg_ to
when, in defending the 'tabloi drzation' of news agendas, he argued that
irr the broadsheet press 'there has to be . . . a unity of tone, and that's
Irow you define broadsheet values'(quoted in Engel 1996b). The news
nray appear to be the same in subject matter and may actually look

the same, but

r

rr

it

does not always read the same or bear the same

canings.

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SEX, LIES ND DEMOCRACY

THE,TABL}IDING,oFBRITIN:,QUALIW,NEWSPPERSINTHEl990s

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Nrrlirtrrrtl
Nr'rt'
(
l"'rt"'i:
l()()(r) 1t1'""'i"1''1''t
I rrrr:;l,rll, |
( l, t ti'tt,l,,t l l 'n':;:;, ( )r lot t l
l,tltloirl:;" lttrh'
Vr, lrrr, l, (l(), 1.1) 'Ni,r,:; rtl lr'1t l,rl..r'r,,r lttttt lon',tttl:; lltr
ltr'ttrlr'ttl ttlt '"lltlrlrtll '" Nl'rY

SEX,LIES ND DEMOCRACY

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CUAPTER 3

Demographics and anlues: What the

British public reads nnd what t

thinks about its nea)sqaqers

Robert

M.

Worcester

Introduction
licadership of the national tabloid press hu? fallen dramatically over the
people in the UK read no national
lrrrst quartr of a century.Manyrngre
r[-rily^r-,**rpaper regulrly, and the dernographic structure of reader;tiid has .t'ruriged. nir chapter looks at t-hee changes. in. the British
with twenty-fivq
natiort newspaper reading !+J!? .g*pared
ft| --tfi.'s
.t*l
f^--^l:-7^^s
10O
rvrLrr\r 5 ruLl-il.L1"ur.6 yvd.,-t 17w77 nrlr.r
ffom
oata
oi1,1i
drawir$,
d"rawlng.on
uo,
uo,
years
vears
I'ifl;Y951^:ll*x*ry-?: :Y,l;""13
comparmg readerrip then to 1993 a11regate data of over 30 000 rethe attites of the British pu!1i9 to its
examines
,u1,,,,i.ient. It also
for restrictions on
n(.wspapers, their role in society and public

lupPort
tlrt.p."r, showing that while ltre pubhc"?till b,1f,s the tabloids in the
rrrilliens and apprves of breaches of individuals' privacy to uncover
t r.irrrinal condut or personal hypocrisy, it does not aPprove of Press
r'usion into the royal family
MOIU was founded in 7969. From the outset I was conscious of the
clients' activr olt. o the press in the diffusion of information about ry
of the earlOne
images.
clcrpgrate
their
on
its
effect
rtit's irncl especially
rr.st n,,.rr.,y MORI conducted was the first in a series of 'corporate
r!1.r1r,,.' sties, carried out on a cooperative basis: that is, with the core
,l,rlii sharrcd by a number of participating clients. Such u.tlqq{
pr,rxinriz('s thc alue of the survey, ensuiing that a large samPl9 (c 2000
tr.:il,orrtlt,nts) is available to a number of ompanies which share the
r,:il ,l lrirsic tlt.nrr)graphic, behavioural (for example, readership) .urrd
:,,pr(, ,rl ilrrtlirrirl (irr .i*,,nrplr', rrttitudes to large companies) questions
,l rrrlt,r'(,sl lo llrt,nr illl, whili'irllowing each clicnt to'hitch-hike'on their
(,\vn slrt.t ilit (llt(.sliorrs ol irrlt'r't'sl ,irrly to Ihctnsclves trnd trot sharec]
'l'lris irsI t't)t"P(tratt' itlrgtl sttrcly
r'lllr llrr, ,llrt.r' t llt.rrl:; (,rl (.\ll',r r'o:;l).

rr I

l()30 rt's1-ltllrtl\\,,r:, (,()rrtlrrt'lt'rl ,rpl()ni,,r rr,rli()n,rl lrrolrirlrililv:i.ttlrlllt'ttl

r.rrl:, llr()lr1,lr.rrl llr,. lll.- 1r ( )t l,,lrct Nr,\'t'ttllr,'l lt)(,t), ,tlttl irr,'ltttlt'tl il
'\"Vlttr It ol llt,',,,' lt,tll()ll,ll tl,rilv
1,.1,,t, t,.),,rtl,rr r{.,1(lr.r.,lrr;, (lu(':,lt()ll ttl rl
r,'),,il1,rt l1'. I nl{'.lll llrtr. ,tll ,l
lt\'
.r.\\,,,1,.r1,r.r:, ,1,, 1.,1t tr'.ttl l,.1,,ul,rt l1'