The Observer, etc.
Sir: The public controversy over the global scramble of eager purchasers of the Observer will presumably ease with the successful bid of Mr Robert 0. Anderson. One of the more sinister aspects of this public debate has been the sedulously fostered notion put about by the media committee of the Parliamentary Labour Party and others of the catastrophic consequences of the Observer falling into hands differing from its present editorial policy of acting as PRO for Uhuru abroad and a house organ of the Race Relations Industry at home. It would appear from the circulation figures these crusades do not evoke wide public sympathy.
Those so concerned at preserving newspaper editorial traditions were less alarmed when the Observer changed its tune to an assortment of left-wing jingles and the Sunday Times was transformed radically after its purchase by the late Lord Thomson. When the Scottish Daily Express briefly evolved as the Scottish Daily News as a workers' co-op there were no protests from this lobby in Parliament nor round-robins in the press. It seems to be ordained that it is the natural order of the media to turn Left and retain this stance however unsuccessful in terms of readership and revenue. Any interference with this process creates a storm of abuse and threatened government interference.
Sir Denis Hamilton's ironic contribution to the debate, on the occasion of a reception to launch the publication of Miss Nora Beloff's Freedom under Foot, is even more inexplicable. The Chairman of the Times Newspaper Limited, maintaining that whereas there are various newspaper publishers who apparently fail to meet with his approval, pronounced: `It would be quite proper for the TUC to put in a bid for the Observer either as an outright purchaser as in a consortium.' The aim of Miss Beloff's book is to show how Mr Michael Foot, MP, allows 'a single politicised trade union to acquire the power to decide who may write in British newspapers.'
One might have thought Sir Denis would have been more concerned to expose the strangulation of the press by the NUJ, SOGAT, NATSOPA, the National Graphical Association and the other unions by 'industrial action' and censorship with which frustrated newspaper readers are becoming increasingly familiar.
The chief reporter of a London weekly newspaper recently exposed the increasing censorship exercised by the NUJ under its Code of Conduct with the reporting of events in which coloured persons are involved. It would seem that a newspaper defying the self-denying ordinance of the NUJ and the restrictive practices of SOGAT, the NGA and NATSOPA is to be prevented from publishing. If it enforces the political whims of these bodies the press is not likely to be financially viable. Doubtless with this impasse will be a demand for the nationalisation of the press so that we will be forced to read Left of Centre news and views—or further Left.
Harold Soref 69-85 Old Street, London EC1
Previous page
