So very orthodox ! (1911)

From the March 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

So we are to have a Labour daily newspaper in London—in fact, and to be more exact, at the time of writing these words we have got it.

Fate, and kindly Fortune, spare the face of the present writer ! —who is quite innocent of wilful falsification in this connection. But inasmuch as “In the midst of life we are in debt,” mine will increase by the accretion of a two horse load of gratitude if the newcomer survives to prove me true, until these lines come before the eyes of my expectant multitude of intelligent and gentle readers. But even should Fate decide otherwise, at the time of writing we have got it.

Many things born into this world announce their arrival with sound, but few so understandably as the “Daily Herald,” which cries on the day of its birth : “We have arrived.”

Epoch-marking announcement ! An astonished world raises its cap in reverence.

“If,” the new-born pressling goes on, “we differ at all from the orthodox daily press, it will be in the fact that we shall give the correct position of affairs from day to day.” (The italics are not mine.)

There is something very refreshing about the modesty of that “If.” In these days of blatant self-assertion it does one good to meet with a little bashful diffidence. It has been charged against the SOCIALIST STANDARD (and, candour compels me to confess, not without grounds) that it somewhat aggressively flaunts the fact of its difference, in every respect possible to collingual printed matter, from the “orthodox daily press.” But the “Daily Herald” aspires to no such distinction of character—which the unkind call eccentricity. Not, of course, that it is an “Herald” angel, fearing to tread where we fools rush in.

The only point of difference, if any, between the “Daily Herald” and the “orthodox daily press,” we are forewarned, is in the matter of the presentment of “the correct position.” We know well enough what the “orthodox daily press” is, and, since we are left in doubt as to whether the newcomer is to differ therefrom, we will go together, gentle reader, in search of the “correct position,” in order to discover if the “Daily Herald” differs from the “orthodox daily press” even to the extent hinted at.

To begin at the beginning, we read, immediately under the first caption, the following :

What is this—the sound and rumour?

   What is this that all men hear,

Like the sound in hollow valleys

   When the storm is drawing near ;

Like the rolling on of ocean

    In the eventide of fear ?—

‘Tis the people marching on.

And at the end of the address “To ‘One and All'” thus poetically introduced, the “Herald” scribe soars to this Olympic altitude :

On we march, then—we, the workers,

   And the rumour that ye hear

Is the blended soul of battle

   And deliverance drawing near.

For the hope of every creature

   Is the banner that we bear:

50—48.

Shade of William Morris ! To think that his verses should have been rescued from oblivion and enshrined in such a climax as that ! “The banner that we bear: 50—48.” How sublime ! Who of us would not have made that deathless effort and have died ? With that heroic banner: 50—48, the people are marching on indeed, and it is well within the truth to describe it as “the hope of every creature”—though of course there are creatures and creatures. And how happily is the “sound and rumour” of it likened to “the wind in hollow valleys” and the “rolling on of ocean.” ! The simile is perfect. The empty windiness (or is it windy emptiness ?) is a real presence, and one can almost hear the “slop—slop —slop ” of the waves upon a slimy beach. “Deliverance drawing near : 50—48.” Ye gods, yes !

Between the pathos of the beginning and the bathos—-pardon, the swelling paean of the close, optimism runs riot. “If it is to be war,” it is declared, “well—

"We don’t want to fight

   But, by jingo, if we do,

We’ve got the men, we’ve got the spunk,

   And we’ll get the money, too ! ”

And later we read: “‘Ask and ye shall receive.’ Ye have asked—to be rejected. Very well, then, in the name of Christ, ‘KNOCK and it shall be opened unto you.'”

Here I would remind the reader again how like it is unto “the wind in hollow valleys” and “the rolling on of ocean.” Slop—slop—slop.

But this is clear : If the exhortation quoted above “differs at all from the orthodox” advice of the orthodox Press and Pulpit provided for us by a considerate and disinterested masterclass, it must be in the “capitalised” importance of the first word and the italicised emphasis of the fourth—for the rest is very orthodox.

So “KNOCK, in the name of Christ, and it shall be opened unto you” is the “correct position,” on the showing of the “Daily Herald” ; and the only difference between that paper and the “orthodox daily press,” after all, is a matter of a few “caps” and italics. We shall see.

Before we leave the introductory address we may note that it is said : “There is a Labour Party in the House, and it holds supreme power.” That, perhaps, is why, in this year of grace, those for whom the “Daily Herald” speaks have “got the spunk” to carry that glorious banner, the “hope of every creature,” the “deliverance drawing near : 50—48.”

In the 7th issue occurs this illuminating passage : “. . . belittle the effect of Trade Unionism upon character as you may, . . . the one great outstanding fact remains—it provides you [the masters] with men of stirling worth, disciplined with regard to certain rules of conduct, and ever ready, through their officials, to deal honestly and fairly with employers who are prepared to meet them on equal terms.”

That has the true, respectable ring about it. It is as orthodox as the blooming Prayer Book. And on the same page we read: “The interests of both employer and employee are so entwined that to rend asunder those interests means disaster for the dissenting party.” We can recognise here the old, old “Capital and Labour are brothers” axiom of the “orthodox daily press,” so it seems that even the latter can sometimes present the “correct position”—unless (perish the thought!) the “Daily Herald” is so far orthodox as to give a position which is not correct.

They make orthodox humour in the “Daily Herald,” as here followeth :

Imported “Weary Willie” (a machine minder) to layer on after the first week : —

“I eats well, I drinks well, I sleeps well, but when I sees a job of work coming along, I’m all of a tremble.”

A very neat little take-off of the lazy blackleg (who has committed the amazing error of taking on a job) on the part of those who love work so much that, as they say in another burst of boisterous merriment, they want to work 50 hours a week and the masters won’t let them. Again :

Man entering printing office to answer an advertisement ; he is dressed somewhat slouchy, with a choker round his neck. Inside he is met by a man in the warehouse, when the following query and answer ensue:

Warehouseman : “Empties ?”

Applicant’ “Empties be—— ! I’m not a ——carman ! ! I’m a machine minder ! ! ! ”

Note the subtle humour of this. The machine minder isn’t a union man, hence he is dressed “a bit slouchy.” Had he been a union man he would probably have supported the “dignity of sich” in a stove-pipe hat and spats, and have been mistaken for one of the masters. But the disreputable, not to say “slouchy,” blackleg—oh dear ! the excruciating humour of the wag ! —-was mistaken for a carman—perhaps a trade union carman ! And notice the indignation of the “imported” machine minder. Even he, in the depths of his degradation, and the miserable and hopeless apathy of his benighted, non-union condition, was not so bereft of all sense of what is due to the ancient and honourable profession of the machine manager (I must mildly protest against the gross familiarity of our humorist’s term, machine minder) but that he could find “langwidge” to resent the insult. I hope, for the sake of the “Daily Herald’s” aspiration to become a permanent “general Labour daily,” that the carmen will also appreciate the point.

It may be true—and probably is—that if the “Daily Herald” “differs at all from the orthodox daily press,” it is in the matter of the position presented ; or it may be that it does not differ even that much, (as would appear from the statement that the strikers do not want to stand in the way of the masters making fortunes : they want to help them !) but, for my part, I prefer the good old orthodox. Because, after all, if I must have all the vices of orthodoxy, at least let me have its virtues too.

Besides, in the “orthodox daily press” there is not quite so much of the “wind in hollow valleys” and rolling ocean’s “slop—slop—slop.”

A. E. Jacomb

Running Commentary: Famine Relief (1986)

The Running Commentary column from the November 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Famine Relief

In a hangar at Khartoum airport in the Sudan, an aeroplane sits loaded with milk powder, butter oil, high protein biscuits and medical supplies. Elsewhere in the same city warehouses contain enough food to meet the basic needs of several thousand people for a number of months. Lorries able to transport the food to where it is needed also stand idle.

Meanwhile on the outskirts of Juba, several hundred miles south of Khartoum, at least 50,000 refugees are camped with a further 40,000 expected to arrive from the countryside in the ensuing days and weeks. There is food in Juba's shops but the refugees have no money with which to buy it. They are dependent on emergency food supplies handed out by the aid agencies which are now almost exhausted.

The plane in the airport at Khartoum cannot take off and air-lift the food supplies into places like Juba in the south because no company can be found that is willing to insure it. No company will insure it because the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) has said that it will shoot down any plane that tries to land in the towns of Wau, Malakal or Juba. This is no idle threat: the SPLA claims to have shot down 24 planes over southern Sudan in the past three years. The trucks cannot move the food because it is feared that they will be attacked or diverted by fighting between Ugandan government troops and Sudanese rebels.

So while politicians and the military play their war games, while insurance companies haggle over premiums, innocent refugees must die of starvation — unwitting victims of power struggles in which they play no part.

Political circus

As another summer season drew to a close and the holiday entertainers packed their bags and headed for home, some seaside towns prepared for the arrival of the circus. Not the usual big top and sawdust affair but a collection of clowns, jugglers and illusionists who make up the political circus, each group demonstrating that no one party has the monopoly of political ignorance.

Possibly, with the media providing saturation coverage, many workers were deluded into believing that these events should be taken seriously. But whatever importance a minority of the working class attached to these proceedings for the vast majority the speeches, interviews and standing ovations were of little significance. After all, once you have seen one circus you have seen them all.

How many times have we watched the juggler with the unemployment figures. Up they go higher and higher, out of control then suddenly they drop when a new set are plucked out of the magician's hat.

Year in, year out it is the same old material. Even when it is borrowed or stolen from one of the other parties, it is always presented as something new. Dress an elephant in a tutu, parade it around the ring and it will still be an elephant. Do the same with some forgotten economic theory and in the crazy world of the political circus it becomes a wondrous new idea capable of solving all manner of problems.

To some people a man with a red nose and baggy trousers who talks nonsense, squabbles with his partners and makes rude noises is a clown, but to others he is an elected representative entrusted with the responsibilities of running the country. A figure of fun he may appear to be but his contribution to the greatest illusion of all is no laughing matter.

For the famous "Make Capitalism Operate in the Workers' Interest" trick is one that has kept the clown and other buffoons employed for a long time Like all good illusions this one relies heavily on deception and the willing participation of the audience. It is not in performing the trick that the deception lies but in convincing the audience that it can be done. For their part the audience has possibly assisted in the deception. Duped into supporting the very system that causes the problems around them the answer must lie with themselves. Because of their acquiescence capitalism continues. In a world of potential abundance this sickening farce should have no place.

It is up to the working class to bring down the curtain on the present economic system and introduce socialism. Only then will the world be able to live in peaceful co-existence freed from the constraints of the profit- motive and the absurd posturings of a small band of professional idiots will be as out of place as a one-legged cyclist in a present day circus.

Independent It’s Not

The new "quality" newspaper the Independent is, we are told, politically, financially and editorially independent. So is this the breakthrough we socialists have been waiting for? A chance to put across our ideas to workers through the columns of a newspaper that claims to be politically non-partisan?

Well, this socialist hasn't actually tried submitting an article to the Independent putting the socialist viewpoint, but then I haven't much confidence in the "independence" of a newspaper whose editor. Andreas Whittam Smith, previously worked on the Financial Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Investors Chronicle and who is described by those who claim to know as a "wet Tory or Social Democrat". An editor who had relatively little trouble in raising the £18 million necessary to start the new paper because he enjoyed the confidence of City investors with whom he had developed extensive contacts when working for the FT etc.

It is hard to believe that a newspaper that has such close ties with the capitalist class can really be taken seriously as independent. If the Independent gives good factual news coverage on a wide range of issues so that people can make up their own minds about those issues, then that would be a small step forwards. But the question will still remain which facts are we being given; on what basis are they being selected; and by whom? The Independent may be politically unaffiliated and editorially independent, despite the editor's personal political views; it might even be financially independent in that a number of investors have bought shares in it rather than just one member of the capitalist class owning it outright; what is extremely unlikely is that it will offer us anything like an alternative perspective on the world around us.

The Passing Show (1960)

The Passing Show Column from the November 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

If our civilisation perishes, as others have perished, and leaves behind very little in the way of written record, any future historian might still get a reasonably clear picture of our society by reading an account of the “towpath murder,” as it has come to be called, at Twickenham. He would read how four youths attacked one young man, whom none of them had ever seen before, and against whom they had no personal grudge, in order to rob him of any valuables he might have on him. He would read how when the victim was lying on the ground moaning, one of the assailants (in his own words) “kicked him twice on the head to keep him quiet.” The assailant made this statement in evidence, without apparently any admission that such behaviour was much out of the ordinary. The future historian would then read how the victim had died, and how the trial ended with sentences of hanging and imprisonment.

Violence

Anyone from a future era who read this would be horrified, and rightly so. What kind of society was this (he would ask himself) that bred such men? Anyone who supports our system of society might well ask himself the same question. For this brutality didn’t happen among the Hottentots of Africa; nor did it happen in an enemy country in time of war (if it had done, we should not have lacked people to tell us how terrible the nation must be where such a thing could occur); it happened right here, in this society, in this country in the suburbs of the capital, London. Can we be surprised? In our society the great god is the acquisition of wealth, and a minor god is its ostentatious spending, which assures us of the admiration of our fellows. Violence, which is required by our ruling class when it engages in war, is portrayed and glorified by the press, the cinema, the television. Anyone who refuses to engage in violence when his rulers demand it is shunned by society, sneered at, perhaps imprisoned. Inevitably the more impressionable natures come to look on violence as admirable, especially if it leads to that great end of our morality, the gaining of money. And so we have violent crime. Then society seeks a solution in hanging the individuals responsible. Society thinks it is hanging its own failures, but that it cannot do. To find a solution, society must re-organise itself on a civilised basis.

Republic

Dr. Verwoerd has won his majority for the creation of a South African Republic. True, he did it by restricting the right to vote to those whose faces were the correct shade of greyish-pink, and barring those whose skins had colours in the range from light brown to black. Even then he had to ensure his success by counting in the votes of the greyish-pink minority who live in South-West Africa (which is not part of the Union of South Africa at all). Nevertheless, he won. The landowning class, which has always been opposed to the connection with the British crown, has triumphed; and the capitalist class of South Africa has lost. How long will the South African capitalists endure this? Wherever they look in the world today, they see the capitalists ruling supreme. Everywhere they see the workers voting for the one capitalist party (in totalitarian states) or for one of two or more capitalist parties (in democratic states). Because of the race fears carefully fostered by the South African landowners, many South African workers must have given their votes to the landowners instead of to the capitalists. How greedily the capitalists must cast their eyes on the nine million voteless inhabitants of the Union! Surely, the capitalists reason, if these were enfranchised, most of them would vote for us. It must only be a question of time now before the South African capitalists, their power growing steadily as trade and industry grow, make their bid for political as well as economic power.

Retail Technicians

The Bridlington Chamber of Commerce doesn't like the sound of the words “shop hands” and “shop assistants.” It thinks other names should be substituted—“retail tacticians,” “sales staff,” or “ counter public relations officers.” We don’t put so much emphasis on names: we are concerned with realities. As workers, we don’t care what we are called. We believe it is time that society was no longer divided into two classes, capitalists and workers (whatever the latter may be named); it is time that we became simply, and fully, human beings.

Thanks to Him

The People (14/8/60) printed an article about the fraudulent claims which have been made by some advertisers in the United States. It quotes many examples from a book called The Operators, by Frank Gibney. The prize one is perhaps an advertisement offering shares in “the world's richest undrilled oil field.’’ It waxed lyrical: “Thanks to Him from Whom all the joyful things of the earth flow forth—a Divine Guidance without which this exceedingly great joy could not now be ours. . ." This line was a great success, and the money rolled in. The advertisers were a million dollars to the good-before it came out that this particular bit of Divine Guidance had only indicated a barren patch of land in Utah; so the law intervened.

Phoney Claims

No doubt it occurred to The People that this and similar advertisements quoted in the article would hardly encourage its readers to put much faith in its own adverts. Which, in turn, wouldn’t encourage its advertisers—and newspapers make their profit out of their advertisement revenue. Hence repeated assurances that this kind of thing couldn’t happen here:

British newspapers believe in protecting their readers against exploitation. The Advertising Association maintains an advertisement investigation department to ensure that any advertisement which makes phoney claims, exaggerates, tries to frighten you. or is in any way unethical, never reaches print. National newspapers like The People investigate every new advertiser thoroughly to make sure that his company is reputable and that his product can do all he claims of it.

Well, there it is in black and white. So all those soap powders and detergents that claim to wash cleaner than all the others, and all the petrols that say they have more power than all the others, and all the cigarettes which insist they are made of better tobacco than all the others—well, they are all correct. No “phoney claims’’ or “exaggerations” would ever be permitted—The People says so. Each manufacturing line is like a race, in which each competitor beats all the others.

Luck on Purchase

In view of The People's statements an advertisement appearing in its stable-mate, the Daily Herald, is particularly interesting. It offers a "Lucky Welsh Lady Key Ring" for 2s. 6d. It apparently consists of a simple metal key ring, plus a mascot attached to it. The advert states boldly "Luck on Purchase." Are we expected to believe that the Daily Herald has "investigated this advertiser thoroughly” to make sure that the “product can do all he claims of it ”? Or are The People's sweeping statements merely to make sure advertisers aren’t discouraged from paying for space in its columns?

Alwyn Edgar

Caught out. (1915)

From the August 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The coalheavers of Liverpool are on strike, miners in Scotland are tendering their notices, the engineers in Grimsby are asking for a rise of three shillings. The movement is traversing the whole country and affecting every trade. That is inevitable, for the whip which is lashing them on is falling on the shoulders of all workers. It is the whip of high prices, and what is being demanded or fought for is not greater material prosperity by the workers, but a restoration of the standard of life which was labour’s before the war.” (“Daily News and Leader,” 3.3.15.)

“There is an unprecedented redistribution of wealth in operation. The working classes are receiving money in a measure without parallel. The more that money is saved the more will be the resources of the State, and we hope that Mr. McKenna will, as we have suggested in the past, take steps to make thrift on the part of the working classes easier.” (”Daily News and Leader,” 13.6.I5)

Unless the “Daily News” can prove that there has been an unprecedented reduction in the price of necessaries, or that there has been an unparalleled rise in wages during the period that elapsed between the above two dates, those responsible for the leading articles of that paper have inadvertently contradicted themselves.—Liars need good memories.

F. Foan

What their papers say (1982)

From the August 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is a popular belief that certain newspapers report things "the way they really are" — without bias. In fact, there are no such things as neutral news items, recognisable entities independent of journalists. Rather, there are those incidents and issues which are perceived by editors as "newsworthy".

Journalists are trained to spot particular aspects of social affairs as suitable material to report on with a bias or “angle". Although we find a slightly different point of view in the liberal, "quality" press from that expressed in the rest, all newspapers have a common standpoint on the profit system — they support it. It follows that what they tell us about the world cannot help but be politically slanted. Last year thirty million people died through lack of food while mountains of beef were produced; thousands were slaughtered in wars while the combatants wished for peace; and millions remained homeless while palatial accommodation stood empty. The press was unanimous in ignoring these contradictions and reserving its astonishment and critical analysis for royal weddings and trying to detect a "new" SDP policy.

Before it is represented in the press, reality is put through the great distorting process. The four main journalistic devices are to personalise, trivialise, historically fossilise and moralise.

They personalise

Society is presently organised on the basis of minority ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth. Production is geared to profit for the few, not for social need. Problems like industrial disputes, unemployment and wars are consequences of our social system but the press encourages us to look at them in terms of individual responsibilities. Hence, Margaret Thatcher is portrayed as the demon who has somehow personally engineered the unemployment of over three million people, or else a triumphal heroine who will put "Britain" back on its feet. Strikes are blamed on the personal irresponsibility of reckless trade union leaders. Even self-proclaimed non-revolutionaries like the former Longbridgc shop steward Derek Robinson and the GLC leader Ken Livingstone come in for prolonged campaigns of abuse in which they are reduced to being known as "Red Robbo” and “Red Ken". A variation on this technique of masquerading social issues as personal is to actually personify territories and to speak of "Britain fearing the proposed EEC policy" or “France will be taking steps to ensure that . . .". The persons created by this linguistic trick embody the interests of various sections of the ruling class, so that "Britain’s overseas investments” are in reality the investments of a small minority of wealth owners associated with Britain.

They trivialise

The papers are always littered with inconsequential revelations. We are prompted to turn our heads away from the condition of the world, our poverty and insecurity and busy our minds with matters such as “Why the Duke of Kent is to visit Darlington”, the new rhinoceros at a famous zoo and a thousand other inanities. Socialists are sometimes accused of being killjoys for not wishing to participate in discussions on such matters. But stop to consider why. As they are sliding the neutron bombs into their launching positions are we really expected to open a copy of the Daily Express, read about the man who fell into a vat of custard and still be slapping our thighs as the radioactive dust descends upon us?

They historically fossilise 

Society is in a constant state of change. The institutions, social relationships and problems of today have not always been with us and are only transitory. Journalists give us a misleading vision of society because they have a “photographic” perception of affairs rather than an historical one. They try to present an accurate picture of “the way things are” but they tend to freeze what they look at without seeing each situation as part of a much wider set of social relations which are not only changing all the time, but which we are capable of shaping for our own requirements. Thus, nation states, armies, managers, police and the wages system are all regarded as part of the fabric of society which is beyond any critical comment.

They moralise

On many issues that they examine, journalists pass moral judgement. They try to persuade us that something is good or bad, but the point is that the morality which they peddle is one which favours our social superiors and flies in the face of our own interests. Their moral precepts contort to keep us in place. So strikers who seek a paltry addition to their wage to try and make ends meet are greedy, while business tycoons who acquire additional companies have praiseworthy initiative and enterprise. If a man murders people in North Yorkshire for no reason he is an anti-social wretched villain. If the same man, trained by the SAS, commits the same acts for H.M. Government with a uniform on he will be hailed as a hero. When wealth producers reclaim goods from the wealth owners without paying for them this is theft and is morally reprehensible, but when the capitalists steal from us the fruits of our labour this is making a profit and is seen as morally virtuous.

The press like any other industry is owned by a few privileged people. Three major companies (News International, Reed International and Associated Newspaper Group) own three-quarters of all British newspapers and each company has similar interests in book and magazine publishing concerns, television companies and independent radio stations. In 1948 Lord Beaverbrook said to the Press Commission: “I publish my paper (Daily Express) purely for the purpose of making propaganda and for no other motive”.

Earlier this year. Rupert Murdoch sacked The Times editor Harold Evans because he resisted pressure to take a more right-wing editorial line supporting Thatcher and Tory economic policies. According to Anthony Holden, the features editor, “Mr. Murdoch wants a poodle as an editor” (Guardian, 13 March 1982). The press barons still like to enjoy control over exactly which arguments, about how capitalism should be run, are put in their papers, but there is not a conspiracy of newspaper magnates and most of the time connivance in capitalist propaganda is less explicit.

Nevertheless, the propaganda is always there. Take June 28 this year when there was a brief strike by the National Union of Railwaymen. All the papers were against the workers and with varying degrees of openness took the side of the bosses. Reports were brimming with comments and views from David Howell, the Transport Secretary, Peter Parker, the BR chairman and cabinet ministers, but no report came anywhere near presenting an adequate account of why the workers were dissatisfied with what they had been offered. The Daily Mail displayed a headline “Britain WILL Get to Work” and listed the ways in which workers should attempt to get in to produce profits. On 7 May 1926 the same paper had a similar message for suffering workers: “If you must go about walk as far as you can . . . don't buy more coal than usual. Keep a stout heart and smile at your troubles”. The Sun headline on 28 June was “STRIKE RABBLE" while the Daily Mirror (the paper which claims to stick up for the workers!) spoke shyly about the urgent need to end the strike and for “increased productivity”. The tirelessly liberal Guardian was also urging the railwaymen to “give reality a chance” — in other words “get back to work and stop complaining”. The Times and the Daily Telegraph had identical lines, only couched in more stilted language, whereas the Star took a similar line but with a bare minimum of written language.

Apart from imparting news, the papers also vie with each other to cultivate and cater for a popular culture for their markets. They reinforce ideas about desirable lifestyles, from the adverts in the Financial Times for special credit cards “for people who travel and entertain around the world. People whose lifestyle and income requires and justifies an additional range of financial services" (28 June 1982), to the crude horoscopes and cheap, brash “lighthearted" pages in the gutter press. Pleasure is promoted here as a spectator sport, something you need to get with cash, something where you are “being entertained". The lowest common denominator of interest among an estimated readership is exploited to the hilt to maximise sales. This converts the paper into another type of mass entertainment to be mechanically produced for profit on one side and passively consumed for gratification on the other. As Richard Hoggart observes in his book The Uses of Literacy:

These productions belong to a vicarious spectators' world; they offer nothing which can really grip the brain or heart. They assist a gradual drying-up of the more positive, the fuller, the more cooperative kinds of enjoyment. in which one gains by giving much (p. 340).

The only paper which represents the interest of the working class, because it stands for socialism and nothing else, is the Socialist Standard. The press and the other means of communication can only be used for their proper function — the unrestricted dissemination of ideas and other information — when they, along with everything else, are commonly owned. Raymond Williams approaches this point when he observes:

The irony is that the only practical use of communication is the sharing of real experience. To set anything above this is quite unpractical. To set selling above it may seem normal, but it is really only a perversion to which some people have got used: a way of looking at the world which must be right and normal because you have cut yourself down to its size (Communications, p. 26).

Remember knowledge is power, and every new reader of the Socialist Standard makes the movement for socialism stronger.

Gary Jay

To the Death. (1907)

From the November 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are going, dear friends, to have a very hot time. We shall soon, we understand, be fighting for our very lives. So far we have had an easy time of it. Up to now we have been left severely alone. The “Constitutional” forces have held their hand. We have been allowed plenty of rope. We have enjoyed unfettered liberty; unrestrained license. And we have used our opportunities. We have insinuated our delusive doctrine into the working-class mind. We have inoculated the working class with the poison of our principles. We have preached an unreasonable discontent with things as they are. We have sown dissension between master and man. We have upset the harmony between Capital and Labour. We have dammed up the river of progress. We have throttled industry. We have choked the breath of life out of enterprise. And, if we may loan the chaste expression of the ”Constitutional” poet, Kipling, we have played hell generally.

But now we are to be taken in hand very severely. Our pernicious propaganda is to be scotched. Our license is to be endorsed. Reason, my friends, is to be re-seated on its throne, and gems of knowledge will be scattered broad-cast as chaff before the wind. The confidence of the “working classes” is to be restored. They will no longer go abroad with the canker of Socialism gnawing at their vitals. Fear for the safety of their little hoards will no longer haunt them. The millions in the Post Office Savings Bank will be rescued from danger of the avaricious maw of the professional agitator. Trade will return from the exile to which we have banished it. There will be plenty of work. Bellies that to-day are filled with the East wind will then be soft and sleek and with fat capon lined. And sweet Peace and happy Content will brood o’er the smiling land of “Wiggin” and “Snellin” and “Owdam” and Manchester, and may even, although this would be expecting too much, come as far South as London and Watford !

So, if we are to maintain our hold on the people; if we are not to be deprived of our comfortable jobs; it we are to continue in the enjoyment of our riotous debauchery; if we want to batten upon the credulity of the workers in the future as now and heretofore, it behoves us to re-organise the forces of brigandage, to look to the joints of our devilish harness, to sharpen our swords and test our bucklers ; to strengthen our outworks and our outposts, so as to be ready when the slogan of the “British Constitution Association ” and the shrieks of the Shanghai Press herald the imminent attack.

Verily the outlook is dark and full of fearsome portend. But, thank God! the Daily News is still to be relied upon. It is going to stand by us in the hour of trial. “And who shall say at close of day which side will have to mourn” while our weakness is voluntarily augmented by its strength ? It gives us heart, this chivalrous offer of the noble News. We have no words wherewith to frame our thanks—so, on the whole it will be well not to attempt it. But we take courage knowing what we have behind us in Fleet Street, and feel as if we might, much daring, even venture to open the attack. And indeed, that course would, haply, be the best. It would bring our waiting suspense to the issue of action. Yes—we will chance it. We will risk our all on this hazard. We will enter the lists. We will pick up the gauntlet—if it has been thrown. We will throw it ourselves if it hasn’t. We will. Now! Up ! herald. Hang our banner on the outer wall. And you there, you with the trumpets, blow! you beggars, blow !

So. ‘Tis done. And now, soft, while our champion speaks. Sh-s-ss—

To the Lord Balfour of Burleigh, President of the “British Constitution Association,” the Lord Northdiffe (of the Daily Mail), the Lord Burnham (of the Daily Telegraph), the potential Lord Pearson (of the Daily Express), and all others whom it may concern; give ear. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, the head and front of that which stands to you for offence; the only party in this land that fights consistently and unwaveringly for Socialism; the party that preaches relentless war upon the capitalism for which you stand ; the party that is organising the working class of this country to the end that shall spell the extermination of the capitalist; the party that is inciting the worker to revolt; that is urging him to seize the control of the political machine in his own interest so that he may the more surely capture and hold the factory and the railway and the workshop against the power of the employer ; this Socialist Party of Great Britain gives you defiance and bids you select your champion—the mightiest man amongst you—so that he may do battle in the lists of rhetoric on your behalf and in your defence. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, will meet you in hall or street or Press ; its champions will combat yours one at a time or—or all at once ! They will take you on seriatim—one down t’other come on—or en bloc. They will oppose a working man to the most skilful of your professors, in the largest hall or the smallest, in London or the provinces, on Sunday or any other time, in season or out of season, on any question that will bring to a direct issue the relationship of the working class to the capitalist class. Name your man or men, my lords, or if their valour is out weighed by their discretion, come on yourselves. You will receive the warmest of welcome, but—your case will be slaughtered to make a working-class holiday. The god of Capital help you in that day, my lords, for verily, you will want it.

AGRA.

_______________

Since writing the foregoing the Daily Express (October 10th, 1907), the exponent of what may fairly be called the “bad-egg and flour-bag” method of argument, has come out with a woefully frank, and, for the Daily Express, an amazingly honest expression of the importance of the British Constitution Association and the anti-Socialist propagandist generally. Says Pearson’s Pride—

ANTI-SOCIALIST TACTICS.

The anti-Socialist winter campaign is again in full swing, and the battle will shortly be joined all along the line. There is one tactical feature of the Socialist plan of campaign which is worthy of close attention. It is now the order of the day in the enemy’s ranks to issue challenges to anti-Socialist speakers to take part in joint public debates. The motive of this particular procedure is well defined, and, from our opponents’ point of view the result is likely to be profitable to the movement. 

To accept these challenges—except in special cases and for particular reasons—would be to play into the enemy’s hands. What anti-Socialists want is to put Socialism on its own defence. It behoves us, therefore, to point out quite candidly that, as matters now stand, the average Socialist speaker is better primed on Socialism than the average anti-Socialist. The London Municipal Society will probably make a point of organising a department whose duty it will be to provide text-books as well as speakers to meet the Socialists on their own ground. When that is accomplished we shall probably hear no more of Socialist challenges.”— Daily Express, 8/10/07.

Tlie italics are our own.

Observe, “the battle” is to be “joined all along the line,” but—the join must not be made too effectively. The enemy must be engaged—at a respectful distance. Socialism must be put upon its trial, but for heaven’s sake don’t let the trial take place upon a B.C.A. platform unless the prisoner is muzzled and gagged ! If you do it will surely be to the advantage of the Socialist Movement, because, don’t you see, the Socialist has the facts and the Constitutionalist hasn’t. The Socialist, of course, is all wrong. He hasn’t a leg to stand on. He hasn’t a shred of evidence to support his case. His objective is a chimera. His principles are an outrage on common sense. His methods are fanatical and dangerous to the well known peace and prosperity of this our land. He is a fool where he isn’t a fraud. Put upon its trial Socialism must fail upon every count, but whatever you do, don’t let its champions defend themselves upon your platforms. And don’t get upon the Socialist platform. That would be quite as bad—in fact worse. Join “the battle all along the line,” but—caution, eager hearts ! the Socialist is an artful person and you are artless. When you get that text book you will be all right, but until then put Socialism on its trial—and may the spirit of stern resolve and lofty purpose that animated our Drakes and Whitaker Wrights and Nelsons, Lord Cowleys and the rest of our Empire builders strengthen your arms and direct your aims so that your flour and eggs and other such arguments may speed true. As it is, as it will be until the arrival of that text book, the B.C.A. gentlemen are on the clear confession of the enlightened Express, without even the means of combatting the ‘”absurdities,” “illogical sophistries,” evidence-less postulates and reasonless conclusions, of that danger to the Constitooshion, the Socialist. Did ever army march out to join “the battle all along the line” with such rotten equipment ?

AGRA.

The media and the mob (2024)

From the September 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent riots, triggered but not caused by the Southport stabbings, have reopened the debate concerning who should have the right to disseminate information (news). The ‘establishment’ mainstream media have resumed their unceasing war against the ‘misinformation’ of social media.

At the heart of this debate lies the terror of our rulers and their media that they will lose control of the political narrative that they have monopolised for so long. They conveniently forget that their newspapers’ continual demonisation of immigrants has normalised racism for many and that in their desperation to evade EU banking rules through lying about the benefits of ‘Brexit’ it has been the mainstream media who have created the noxious racist atmosphere that fed the violence.

Loathsome internet ‘influencers’ like Tommy Robinson, Andrew Tate and Katie Hopkins would have no cultural platform were it not for the unceasing propaganda of the mainstream media. The media have created a Frankenstein monster and now that it has served its purpose they need to control and tame it. The elite of both left and right politics condemn the ‘mob’ violence without taking any responsibility for creating the toxic cultural atmosphere that made it inevitable.

‘Somebody — was it Burke? — called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time no doubt. But at the present moment it is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, the Lords Spiritual have nothing to say, and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by Journalism’ (Oscar Wilde).

This was true until very recently when those outside of the media establishment (fourth estate) discovered the internet and found their voice. The powerful have always known that the control of information and, more importantly, its interpretation, is vital to their interests. Sometimes we are told that we have a ‘free press’ but the claim that it is not ‘state owned’ in no way guarantees that it is ‘free’. Owning the mass media has always been a preoccupation with the parasite class and the classic Murdoch versus Maxwell struggle was an example of this pissing contest for status within their class.

Their basic narrative is that capitalism is the only possible, and indeed the highest, creation of civilised economic organisation. This fact turns most of their ‘news’ content into mere political propaganda. Presumably they are aware that they are lying but it is not always as starkly simple as that; take the proposition that high taxes are bad for the economy since they deter investment and thus employment – and from a capitalist perspective this is true. But, from a working-class perspective, low taxation for the rich means an enfeebled infrastructure (schools, hospitals, etc) which impacts exclusively on their class and so renders the cuts bad for their economic and social needs – also equally true. No amount of ‘fact checking’ can resolve the reality of this class struggle as within capitalism such internal contradictions are always present. Indeed, this is the primary ‘fact’ contained in any interpretation of information – the rest is pure rhetoric.

From the time of Ancient Rome the ‘people’ are considered to be a mindless mob when they indulge in any protest against conditions. The protagonists of the ‘Farage riots’ were universally condemned as mindless thugs without any reference to their representatives in Parliament (Reform Party) or the legitimisation of such actions by none other than the former president of the USA Donald Trump who lionised the rioters at the Washington Capitol building. The rioters of the infamous ‘Gordon riots’ were similarly condemned with no reference to the toxic anti-Catholic culture which, like the anti-Muslim environment of the UK today, was created by the establishment for their own political needs.

The alleged disappointment of Nigel Farage when he discovered that the murderer in Southport was not a Muslim is an example of the instincts of the monstrous demagogues that capitalism creates. The present political system effectively locks out the people from any democratic expression of their concerns for five years so it is no surprise that such imposed political impotence will erupt into violence occasionally. Only the time-honoured right to a ‘petition of Parliament’ still exists but this cannot change anything in the absence of real democracy.

Although the ‘outrages’ of racist violence are universally condemned by agencies of the state they do provide a useful distraction from the real causes of the symptoms of capitalism. Immigration, racism, culture wars, two-tier policing and myriad other social problems conveniently divert the working class from prosecuting the class struggle.

All of these problems affect the majority who live in the real world of capitalist exploitation but not those who benefit from it. They have no concern for, or knowledge of, those living in poverty; without access to proper health care; poor education; terrible industrial relations, low wage jobs etc, etc.

The former Home Secretary under Thatcher, Willie Whitelaw, said, as he gazed out on the extensive grounds of his mansion, that the race riots of the early eighties did not belong in the England that he recognised. Most of the racist thugs who joyfully attacked hotels containing immigrants have no knowledge or understanding of that other world of luxury and decadence. They only know the daily struggle to make a living that occasionally fails completely to provide for their own and their family’s needs. Someone must be to blame for the misery and the capitalist media always have ready-made scapegoats available to distract the politically naive from the culpability of the parasites whose cause they slavishly serve.

Wez.

Classic Reprint: Gus has a shock (1985)

A Classic Reprint from the Spring 1985 issue of the World Socialist

The lies, distortions and omissions which characterise the bosses' press are hallmarks of a system which can only survive by ensuring the political slumber of the majority class. Anyone who thinks that capitalism is a genuinely democratic social system has only to look at the minority ownership and control of the means of communication to understand just how unfree present-day society is. In a socialist society the technology of social communication will be at the disposal of all members of society, and there will be neither owners (private or state) nor advertisers to determine what may be published. Indeed, any opponents of socialism will have free access to the press and other media, for the socialist majority will have nothing to fear from the open expression of the ridiculous case for capitalism. (Indeed, party political broadcasts might be shown on television as comedy entertainment.) 

The following classic reprint was written by F. C. Watts, one of the finest writers of the early years of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, and was published in the Socialist Standard in January 1907.

GUS: You socialists ought to be grateful for the glorious institution of the free press instead of criticising the great newspapers as you do.

WILL: Grateful to whom? The so-called freedom of the press is, in reality, painfully limited; but such as it is, it was granted because absolutely necessary to commercial development. Material interests dictated it; not any love of the people. The capitalist class give us nothing but what it is to their interest to give, either to increase their profits or stave off their defeat, and we know from bitter experience that we have most to fear when our enemies profess a regard for us. 

GUS: But can you deny that the great daily newspapers are glorious and beneficient institutions, fearlessly standing out for truth and purity in public life? 

WILL: I emphatically and entirely deny every word of it!

GUS: Do you mean to say that the modern press is not free, or that it suppresses or perverts the truth?

WILL: I mean to say that the modern newspaper, by its very nature as a commercial venture, cannot exist except by perverting the truth; and that it is absolutely the slave of capitalist interests.

GUS: You surprise me. Explain yourself.

WILL: With pleasure. Now, newspapers are run by limited liability companies to obtain a profit, are they not?

GUS: That is so.

WILL: To get a profit they must sell; to sell they must please, to please they must suit themselves to the prejudices, ignorance or interests of their supporters.

     (Gus opens his eyes)

WILL: They cannot, then, afford to continue any line of policy when it does not pay, or when it is unpopular with the public or with that section of which they have constituted themselves the mouthpiece. To get the largest circulation and the greatest percentage of profit they must say what their readers or supporters want them to say, or else go under.

     (Gus looks startled)

WILL: Nor is that all; they have an even more important person to cater for — the advertiser. He is partly satisfied if the journal panders successfully to a large number of the public; but as a manufacturer he has important capitalist interests, and therefore would not support, by his advertisement, any journal that, through a love of truth, attacked his interests in any way.

    (Gus looks frightened)

WILL: Further, the various sections of the capitalist party have enormous campaign funds, and the newspapers, being run for profit, must slavishly support their capitalist party interest or forgo their reward. And the journalists who run the papers are the wage-slaves of the proprietors, compelled to utter, not what they think, but what their employers consider will sell best, and will please most the capitalist interest.

   (Gus tries to hide himself, Will holds him back)

WILL: Don’t run away, I’ve not done yet. The modern newspaper is thus, in the main, the reflection of the commonest, most superficial and most servile opinions of the public, and at the same time the advocate of the interests of its capitalist owners and advertisers. It is, therefore, against the financial policy of the modern newspaper to enlighten the working class; particularly in any direction that runs counter to capitalist interests. To satisfy its principal clients, the great advertisers and the political leaders, it must expound the views of the ruling class (or of a section thereof) and so doctor these views that the people may easily swallow them. It must, whenever the workers show a tendency to think clearly, carefully draw the wool over their eyes in order to keep them at the tail of the capitalist party and ignorant of the things that should concern them. For the rest, in order to earn its profits, the newspaper must batten on the ignorance and folly of its public.

GUS (who feels that the scales have fallen from his eyes): Well, but how can we alter it?

WILL: Only by abolishing the profit system. But we can help this on by doing all in our power to spread enlightenment among the workers and so show them the utter worthlessness of capitalist journalism; we can help by organising the workers for the overthrow of capitalist domination, and by pointing out that it is their duty to support a press of their own, not run by an individual or company (or profit, but owned and controlled by a genuine working-class organisation for the propagation of definite working-class principles. Thus alone can the education and emancipation of the working class be accomplished, and the freedom of the press from the curse of profit and capitalist domination become a fact.

F. C. Watts

Broken Britain (2024)

Book Review from the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

How They Broke Britain. By James O’Brien. Penguin. 2023. £10.99

This is an entertaining and well-written book from the host of Britain’s most popular radio talk-show. It has been floating around the top of the best-seller lists for the last few months and it is easy to see why. It taps effortlessly into the view that Britain has been hopelessly misgoverned for years and it focuses – with a chapter for each – on a number of the leading players, from media moguls Rupert Murdoch, Paul Dacre and Andrew Neil through, inevitably, to the likes of Johnson, Truss and Sunak. Dominic Cummings also gets his own chapter.

As with all books of this type, there is a tendency to overstate the role politicians in particular play with regard to the state of the economy, though where the book is most successful is the focus it places on the ideological ties and networks that have underpinned and sustained the dominant political assumptions of our time. These are the view that ‘trickle-down’ economics has some merit, that the EU was both a singular barrier to UK economic growth and also to genuine democratic sovereignty, that the poor are poor because they are essentially feckless and that immigration is the major issue of our times that should be (pre-)occupying political minds everywhere. As the General Election demonstrated, they are dominant views that Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour has done little to challenge.

O’Brien is strongest when he writes in detail of the revolving door that exists between the right-wing think-tanks generating this stuff, the right-wing media and the recently departed Tory government. Many people will not have heard too much about the plethora of secretive ‘policy institutes’ and similar that exist in and around Tufton Street in Westminster, but they will have seen their representatives pop up with unerring regularity on news and current affairs programmes for years, opining in the manner of independent ‘experts’ – the Centre for Policy Studies, the Institute for Economic Affairs, Civitas, the Adam Smith Institute, Policy Exchange and the bizarre Taxpayers’ Alliance. These are the people who fomented and nurtured the likes of Liz Truss and O’Brien isn’t in a forgiving mood towards them.

The think-tank/media/political nexus that has dominated UK discourse for years and which has more recently formed ever more bizarre offshoots like the increasingly unhinged GB News, is indeed laid bare. It is good stuff and worth buying for this alone.

Less intuitively, there is also a chapter on Jeremy Corbyn, largely on the grounds that he failed to provide effective opposition to this nexus. Much of what O’Brien says here has resonance too, though occasionally he is a little unfair perhaps:

‘There used to be two ways for non-Conservative politicians to negotiate the UK’s hideously right-wing media: either you appeased them in the hope of avoiding their nastiest attacks or you took the fight straight to them and relied on sympathetic or impartial outlets to get your message out there. Corbyn and his closest advisers invented a third: completely fail to engage; alienate and demonise almost all journalists; claim constant victimhood; and offer up pathetic excuses when confronted with evidence of your own poor judgement’ (p.268).

Arguably, this is more Corbyn of 2019 General Election vintage, as earlier one of the more successful aspects of his period leading Labour was the way his supporters built up alternative media in opposition to the mainstream (even though he lost in 2017 too, it was narrow and this is something that helped him win over 6 percent more of the vote than Starmer did in his recent landslide, amounting to almost 12.9 million votes compared to Starmer’s 9.7 million). Indeed, while socialists have little to learn from the Corbyn experience generally, this aspect is interesting and O’Brien arguably seems to rather overlook the influence of alternative media like The Canary – which became the UK’s third most popular politics news website – and related social media.

This is a minor caveat though, and there can be little doubt that much of what O’Brien has written is a tour de force, exposing and cataloguing a network of pro-capitalist, right-wing goons who have just received an unexpectedly large – to most of them at least – kick in the ballots.

Dave Perrin

Press Exposure: Make Your Excuses and Leave (1995)

The Press Exposure column from the June 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the Richter scale of blatant deception it does not come up to George Orwell’s Newspeak but it is a pretty impressive misnomer, for a newspaper which carries very little proper news and which pays scant attention to what goes on outside these shores to be called the News Of The World.

Not that that has ever worried the people who own it or edit it. Their yardstick for the success or failure of the paper is how much it is talked about in the pubs on a Sunday. And as it has a circulation approaching five million—which means a probable readership of nearly 15 million—it is a fair bet that whenever people are in alcoholic bondage on Sundays there will be some discussion of the News Of The World's latest account of the roller-coaster sex lives of the royals or TV soap stars or famous sportsmen or obscure clergymen.

Of course it might be that the people leaning up against the bars will find other things to interest them. Like the recent WHO report that every year 12.2 million children under five die "because they are poor". Like the training now being given to Job Centre staff to deal with an expected upsurge of violence from claimants made even more desperate by cuts in benefits. Like the revelation that since peace broke out in 1945 there have been three crises in which America and Russia were on the brink of all-out nuclear war. But that is the real world of capitalism, in which the News Of The World has only a limited interest.

Getting close

The paper was born in 1843 and has always been noted for peddling the more sensational style of journalism, giving the full treatment to the likes of Jack the Ripper and Dr Crippen. Aristocratic divorces were a convenient way of catering for its readers’ assumed need for respectable sexual titillation. All of this was driven by the paper’s belief in itself. Emsley Carr, who edited it for 50 years, once asserted that it was ". . . always right. Nothing we did could ever be wrong".

This confidence had something to do with the News Of The World’s knack of getting close to its readers. Free insurance was one way of doing this; another was a missing person’s service (often aimed at funding someone who stood to gain from a will). Most famously of all. it ran the John Hilton Advice Bureau (Hilton was a professor of industrial relations at Cambridge) which helped with readers' problems on pensions, insurance, rent and the like and took up many cases. The spin-off was not just in publicity and higher sales but the fact that the Bureau sometimes opened up an avenue of investigation which could lead to a tasty story. For the News Of The World being close to its readers paid off; in the 1950s its circulation exceeded eight million.

But the readers need to be not only titillated. They had also to be shocked, frightened, amused, outraged—if possible all at once. Too often this has been manipulated by the selective exposure of someone who has been through the courts for sexual offences. It matters little that in so many cases the offender has themself suffered sexual assaults; in the columns of the News Of The World they are less than human— "fiends" or "beasts" or "perverts". And when they leave prison the paper continues to pursue them, protesting hysterically at wherever they live or whatever job they find.

Making excuses

The paper’s preoccupation with crime, the pornography of which they pretend to legitimise, has led it into some contradictory stances. On the one hand they make a lot of denouncing criminals, at times offering rewards for information leading to the conviction of a murderer. On the other they can befriend the notorious "acid bath" killer Haigh and pay for his defence in court after he had given them exclusive rights to his memoirs. More recently this preoccupation has reached the pitch of an obsession to including “dole scroungers’’ who must seem, to the News Of The World readers in the pubs, to be infesting the country and threatening to bring down the Stock Exchange. Lloyds and the money market with the rest of capitalism's class structure.

This obsession might be taken more seriously if the paper had a stronger reputation for respecting the truth. For example in 1991 it ran a story about Clare Short, the Labour MP who was campaigning against the cult of Page Three girls. This story was about a classified advertisement in Tribune which suggested that readers might like to send for a selection of "granddad’s naughty pictures"—the nature of which can easily be imagined. The News Of The World presented this boring, insignificant item—it could hardly be called news—as if Clare Short was in some way responsible for the advertisement when in fact her only connection with it was that she was a Tribune reader.

The sort of "exposures" the paper excels in are normally of some type of prostitution—the wilder and more bizarre the services on offer the better. So carefully have these investigations been arranged and reported that they have added a new phrase to the usage of English. The story begins when a reporter poses as a punter and. as what might be called the crunch approaches, has to extricate himself, complete with hidden tape recorder, from a potentially embarrassing—even dangerous—situation. Breathless readers are told how it is done: "I made my excuses and left."

Since 1968 the News Of The World has been owned by Rupert Murdoch, who is not renowned for upholding high journalistic standards, especially when the lower the standards the higher the sales. Before Murdoch took over, between 1891 and 1970 the paper had six editors. After Murdoch arrived, from 1970 to 1993 there were 23. Perhaps this is part of the paper’s proud boast (it was, after all, an advertising slogan) that All Human Life Is There.

But—all human life? The poverty, famine. fear and disease which is what human life is under capitalism? The futile, posturing leaders who the News Of The World urges us to support according to the whims of its proprietor? The corruption and cynicism of a social system which exploits and degrades its useful people and assumes that they will suffer it all. provided they have a weekly helping of malicious rubbish to wash down with their booze on Sunday?

Time to leave. And no excuses. 

Ivan

Blogger's Note:

The News of the World finally shut up shop in 2011 after the fallout from the phone hacking scandal.

The Clarion on its defence. (1906)

From the December 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Clarion has been “hit in the place where it lives” by the protest against its unfairness which was printed in the last issue of the Socialist Standard. At any rate it devotes quite a space to a rather ill-humoured repudiation of the charge, in the course of which it says:

1) That my letter would have occupied a column and therefore was virtually in the waste paper basket before it arrived.

2) That my article contained “spiteful abuse” of the Clarion’s “poor old Editor” who knew nothing of the matter in dispute.

3) That I stated the Clarion was filled with “piffle.”

To which I beg leave to make rejoinder as follows:—

(1) My letter was intended to outline and justify the position of the S.P.G.B. which had been criticised in two previous numbers of the Clarion. I thought this was a rather important matter. If a Party is contributing to working-class confusion, maintaining working-class ignorance and therefore delaying working-class emancipation, it is, I submit, an important thing from a Socialist point of view, to combat the work of that Party. I thought so, anyhow, and the Clarion says it thinks so too—sometimes.

The S.P.G.B. came into existence to combat the confusing effect of the work of professing Socialist organisations and to preach Socialism. The Clarion, which says it agrees with the position the S.P.G.B. alone upholds, refuses to print a letter from the S.P.G.B. because it would occupy a column. Mark. The case of the S.P.G.B., whose position the Clarion says it agrees with, has never been stated through the Clarion. We haven’t had a line. All the other Parties which,—if our contention is upheld as we say we can uphold it—the Clarion is supposed to be against, have pages !

This, however, may not be taken as a sign of a wonderful magnanimity on the part of the Clarion toward those with whom it is in disagreement. It agrees with our position all right, but it also agrees with the position of those we are fighting ! Rum? Not at all ! Just Clarionese.

Now accepting this basis, Clarion’s, it may not unnaturally be expected, I think, that as we are agreed with as much as the other chaps who are opposed to us, we should get as good a show in the Clarion as they. They have had pages. We have had the exact equivalent of nothing. We didn’t ask for pages. I only asked, it appears, so great was my moderation, for a column, and I only asked for that because we had been dragged into the Clarion without our knowledge or consent. I confess I expected to get the space necessary in the circumstances, particularly as it is an infraction of one of the few canons of honour journalism can boast of to print an attack and exclude the reply.

But—dear me ! no, says the Clarionesi Dangle. No code of honour of any newspaper in the world and certainly not the Clarion’ would stand the strain of any reply of over 250 words unless—-ah ! unless your reply will sell Clarions. If you are “Tess of the Suffragettes” for example, well,—”come and welcome, sinner, come.” even though the Clarion’s editor thinks the women’s agitation childish and silly. Or if you are an ecclesiastical dignitary, (Bishops preferred)—come again, even though your arguments are ”piffle” in three column efforts capable of being “smashed like an egg” by the Clarion’s fighting editor. Come one, come all—-if you can sell Clarions. But don’t expect to get in against the sellers of Clarions. You may be the very embodiment of all the virtues ; you may have the message that will set the people free, but if you are obscure and insignificant or if you are useless as a seller of Clarions—outside ! Perish everything—bar Clarions.

Well. I don’t sell Clarion. The Party on whose behalf I write don’t sell Clarion. My letter wouldn’t have sold any. Beside, it hit against the men of the Parties that do sell Clarion. It might have had a bad effect upon sales. Therefore, and so far as I can see only therefore, I am a “stodge-spinner” and am waste-papered.

All right. I don’t mind but—oh ! what a fall is here, my countrymen. What a descent from Olympian profession to Stygian practice. Poor old Clarion. Poor old Dangle.

(2) Wherein did my article contain “spiteful abuse” of Blatchford or anybody else ? Answer Dangle or withdraw. And please—I couldn’t help it if Blatchford didn’t see or hear of my letter. He is still Editor, isn’t he ? And—Dangle ! It occurs to me, speaking of Blatchford, that if he had had the same cause for writing that I had, and particularly if he had had the same case that I have, he would have run his article in weekly 4 column instalments over a period of six months at least, and yes, and then published it in book form ! You know he would.

(3) I stated the Clarion was filled with “piffle”? I? I said nothing of the sort. What I did say was that Blatchford would have called columns of what appeared “piffle.” If Dangle doesn’t believe it he should ask Blatchford himself.

Just another word. My friend Dangle appears to be absorbing some of the methods of the Yellow Editors whom he delights to pillory. He publishes sufficient of my statement to convey a false impression. He inferentially imputes certain beliefs to me which I do not hold, in order that he may have excuse for pouring out the vials of his strongest mixture of caustic and iron upon my head. His references to the flatulency of his correspondents, while doubtless intended to be scathing, are in exceedingly poor taste and if Dangle had been less hasty would probably never have been passed.

In short, my dear Dangle, you have in this matter adopted the methods that are cheap and nasty. And I am astonished !

A. J. M.Gray

What the papers say — and what they don’t (1978)

From the March 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many readers will be aware of a regular B.B.C. radio feature called What The Papers Say. It is a digest of the most important articles in the day’s press. For those of us who can’t afford/can’t stomach to read every daily newspaper it provides a useful summary of what they are saying. It has often seemed that a rather more enlightening feature would be What the Papers Don’t Say or, even better, Why the Papers Said What They Did. The idea implied by calling a newspaper The Daily Mirror is that the press works on a reflective basis, i.e. the publication in written form of the facts as they really happened. This is far from the case. In fact, the press works on the principle of selecting what events are suitable for public consumption, deciding how the ‘story’ is to be told in accordance with ‘editorial policy’ (which is a journalistic term for political bias) and making sure that the ‘facts’ are not likely to contradict illusions created by the advertisements. The role of the press is more to do with implanting views than spreading news. Indeed, when a news event interferes with the image that the editor wants perpetuated, then it must either be not referred to or else distorted, in such a way so as to back up rather than contradict the political line of the newspaper.

Editorial Selectivity

Workers in Britain are brought up to believe that we live in a free country. We are told that Britain is democratic because there is a ‘free press’. It is an illusion to believe that the press in a capitalist society can be anything but the propaganda tool of the minority class whose social survival depends on the political ignorance of the masses. That is not to say that newspapers are part of some kind of capitalist conspiracy to brainwash the working class. An important distinction must be made between conscious political indoctrination and more subtle editorial selectivity. Indoctrination requires a captive audience, i.e. one which has only one source of news which is controlled totally by the State. The press in countries where capitalism takes a more liberal form of work on the basis of giving support to the status quo, but criticising the leaders of capitalism on matters not likely to lead to fundamental social change. A clear comparison between the two methods of capitalist propaganda can be seen by looking at the press in Russia and in this country.

Undemocratic

Russia, despite its claim to be socialist, is one of the most brutal and undemocratic capitalist regimes in existence. The press has been developed by the ruling Communist Party as an elaborate and complex apparatus designed to shape the thinking of the Soviet working class. Krushchev, in 1956, said to a gathering of writers and artists

The press is our chief ideological weapon. It is called upon to rout the enemies of the working class, the enemies of the toilers (sic). Just as an army cannot fight without weapons, so the Party cannot successfully carry on its ideological work without such a sharp and militant weapon as the press. (Printed in Kommunist, no. 12, August 1957)

To ensure that the Soviet media carry out their task of indoctrination there exists a Department of Propaganda and Agitation, a Ministry of Culture, a Ministry of the Radio-Technical industry as well as a Press Commission. There are over 7,000 Soviet newspapers reaching over 100 million readers. All newspapers are controlled centrally—editorials are written by Communist Party officials and circulated for publication. All newspaper editors are appointed by the State and are subject to strict contiol from Moscow: each Soviet periodical must have the mark of authorisation from Glavslit, the government censorship agency.

Despite such attempts by the Soviet dictatorship to control the media, they have learnt that running a system of indoctrination presents problems:

there are serious chinks in the Soviet propaganda armour. The agitators, for example, are caught between the direct pressures and hostilities of the population from below, and the constant pressure of the Party from above demanding that they exhort and goad on the population to still greater efforts and sacrifice. As a result thousands each year abandon their work as agitators. Editors must constantly be reprimanded for ideological ‘deviations’ in their newspapers . . . And the regime is in many respects a prisoner of its own system. For, insofar as it wishes to judge the state of popular thinking, it must rely either on the secret police or on the reports of the agitators and the newspaper editors. (Developments in Soviet Mass Communications in Social Change in Soviet Russia, A. Inkeles, 1968)

The evolution of the British press has been along different lines because of the historical circumstances in which it emerged. It was created by the rising British capitalist class in the Eighteenth Century as a weapon in their struggle against the feudal State. The battle to publish parliamentary debates, to criticise the government and even to criticise the King, in the case of John Wilkes, was won by the capitalist class. Freedom to criticise is a tradition of the press which grew out of the division within the ruling class. Until the last two decades of the Nineteenth Century the press in Britain was independently owned, often by family concerns relying primarily on classified advertisements and regular sales. It was not possible for any one section of the ruling class to control the press as no one section owned it. It was the so-called Northcliffe revolution of the 1880’s which transformed the role of the press, for it was then that the previously independently owned newspapers were taken over by corporate press houses which were dependent on expensive, block display advertising. From then on newspapers became the province of large, capital intensive corporations, such as Beaverbrook, which endeavoured to direct editorial policy towards winning support for their class interest. The press in Britain is, therefore, free in that peculiar sense that freedom exists under capitalism: they are free to lie, distort, slander, publish trivia and exclude serious issues. Nevertheless, there does exist the freedom to publish alternative ideas, which is vital to the growth of the Socialist Party.

But the press under capitalism is not free in the Socialist sense, for to be so anyone would have access to the control of newspapers instead of a small group of businessmen or bureaucrats more committed to self-preservation than to providing useful information. How, then, can the aim of a free press be realised? One argument is that those who produce newspapers — editors, journalists, office staff, printers — should democratically participate in running them. The attempted ‘workers control’ of the Scottish Daily Express showed the unpractically of such reform within a society which places advertising revenue above democratic principles. Another argument, often advocated by the “Left”, is for the nationalisation of the print industry. As can be seen from the Russian example, State control of the means of communication, while politically benefiting those parties which are politically in agreement with the government of the day, can lead to discrimination against those seeking changes which are unwelcome to the State.

In fact, there is no way within capitalist society that the press can be made fully democratic. Capitalists will always provide newspapers with money for two reasons: to buy space to advertise their commodities to the workers who read the newspapers and to ensure the perpetration of capitalist ideology in a popular form — just as their great grandfathers supported the pulpit; they rely on huge sales to members of the working class. It is in the interest of all members of that class, whether they read The Times or The Sun to reject the lies and illusions of the capitalist press and support a journal which stands for their emancipation from the unfree society.

Steve Coleman