Peter Jay is regarded by many people including himself—as one of the cleverest men in Britain, if not the world or perhaps the entire history of the human race. So what part of his historically wonderful brain malfunctioned when he accepted the job of chief of staff to Robert Maxwell, who also had a pretty high opinion of his own intellect and who subjected Jay to years of harassment and humiliation?
For example: in 1989 Jay had to get Maxwell to sign a cheque, a contribution towards the support the Mirror boss had promised to the Commonwealth Games. Maxwell loved this kind of situation. "I will decide when that cheque is paid," he told his cerebral chief-of-staff, “Now fuck off out of here."
The longer Jay stayed on Maxwell's payroll the more harassed and ragged he became, the more he drank and smoked. Hardly a week went by without him having to sack some secretary, receptionist or telephonist—until it was his turn to be fired. In spite of all this he could later say about his time with Maxwell: “Nothing happened that was outside what I expected or regarded as legitimate." (At the time Maxwell was alive: after his death Jay described him as “this crazy guy".)
Sarf London boy
Flamboyant characters are what the newspaper industry is notorious for. While Maxwell was terrorising the staff at the Mirror (if he asked what time it was the wise response was "What time would you like it to be, Bob?") Kelvin Mackenzie was imposing a similar regime at the Sun, where office life was a continual turmoil of abuse, threats and humiliation. Mackenzie took a delight in playing up to his self-image as a Sarf-London-boy-made-good or -bad, depending on whether you were on the receiving end of his ranting temper. He seemed unable to speak a sentence which did not have the word "fuck" in it at least once. He seemed unable to get through a day which did not involve the ritual reduction of some hapless staff member to a trembling, stammering wreck. With all this Mackenzie turned out a newspaper whose circulation climbed up and up, far above its nearest rival. So behind the shrieking and the swearing and the abuse there was a diabolically shrewd journalist—which not everyone would regard as a compliment Mackenzie was very different from the press lords who once dominated the British newspaper industry, passing the ownership from one generation to another to protect what they thought was the highest standards of journalism. This meant (didn't it?) that newspapers always told the truth, always respected privacy, never resorted to salacious exploitation of their readers’ sadder repressions.
Screws of the world
For over 70 years, until it was taken over by Rupert Murdoch, the News of the World was owned by the Carr family. During that time the newspaper became famous, not for its reporting of international events but for its rollicking exposure of vicars (the older the better) who had affairs with their secretaries or parishioners (the younger the better). When the paper was losing so much money that it had to be sold or put to sleep Robert Maxwell tried to take it over, resisted by the editor who claimed that his tawdry conglomeration of sensationalism and juvenile smut was "as British as roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. . . this is a British newspaper run by British people. Let’s keep it that way". But then money spoke louder than jingoism and the Carrs sold out to Murdoch, who was as Australian as a kangaroo meat barbie on Bondi Beach.
The Berry family are another lot to have been ousted in recent years—in their case from ownership of the Daily Telegraph. This paper always had a shrewd eye for its market, apart from its small ads for jobs which were combed through regularly by ambitious managers, it appealed to the tea-shop regulars in places like Cheltenham and Tunbridge Wells. This gave a certain allure to its letter columns, which were rather like a primeval mental swamp. Such a distaste for ideas meant that generally the Telegraph’s news coverage was better than average—which included regular in-depth reporting of any scandal or sexual misdemeanour, especially if they involved members of the ruling class whose behaviour had let the side down.
A bit of a con
One family to hang on has been the Harmsworths. associated with the Daily Mail whose politics, they say, have not changed for over 80 years (they must have forgotten that in the 1930s the Mail supported Mosley’s British Union of Fascists). The Daily Mail is not famous for an addiction to the truth. A few years ago they eagerly joined in the Bingo war with rivals like the Sun and the Mirror, claiming to make some lucky people Mail Millionaires. In fact the statistical chance of a millionaire emerging from playing the "game" in the Mail was once in about 400 years. This impressed even Lord Rothermere, who admitted the whole thing was "a bit of a con”.
And that really sums it up. Newspapers are not there to inform us but to be sold, to make profits for the likes of Murdoch and the Rothermeres. The important issue is what is implied by the market they operate in. Do the readers of the Sun, the Mail, the Telegraph and the rest really want nothing better than the world as presented to them in the newspapers? Reading the press should be enough to change the mind of anyone who doubts the urgent need to change society.
Ivan
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