The rag trade
Michael Vestey
Since the rise of broadcasting, people have been asking whether newspapers have any future. It seems a rather futile question. The evidence is there for us to see: newspapers are thriving. People like to read more about what they might have already heard on the radio or seen on television, and there are, in any case, limitations of time on what can be covered on the air waves. Print journalism, it seems to me, will always be with us.
So I was fascinated by a potted history of Fleet Street. Out of Print, a three-part series on Radio Four presented by Philippa Kennedy (Wednesdays). Newspapers have now dispersed, of course; even Reuters will be going. It was once, though, an extraordinarily romantic place for a young impressionable journalist like me: the hammering of typewriters, the throbbing printing presses, the lorries, the bustle, the blazing lights of newsrooms, cafés and pubs into the small hours. I had not seen anything like it before. Technology brought newspapers to Fleet Street and technology led to their departure, helped by printers in self-destruct mode.
It was William Caxton's assistant Wynkyn de Worde who established printing there in the 16th century, and Kennedy inspected his bones, which lie in a vault below St Bride's church. There was a demand for books by the clergy of the area and soon printers, publishers and booksellers began to colonise the streets near St Paul's Cathedral. Kennedy discovered that the first British newspaper appeared in 1622 with no distinctive title and covering only foreign news; domestic news frightened monarchs and, later, parliaments, and was seen as threatening the social order. Newspapers had to be licensed, a form of censorship which some politicians even today wouldn't mind seeing in place. It meant that you couldn't print news without permission, and it had to be shown to the authorities in advance and stamped. The creation of the BBC, of course, was similarly feared by the authorities, hence its licence-fee system.
Fortunately, the licensing system lapsed when Parliament couldn't devise a way of renewing it. The first daily newspaper was the Daily Courant, which began in 1702. In time, the Post Office mail coaches, the railways and electric telegraph transformed publishing, enabling newspapers to be read and printed in the provinces as well as London. In 1865 news of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln took 12 days to arrive here; nearly 20 years later news of the death of President Garfield, who'd
been shot, took two hours to reach London. One thing I don't think I knew was that early paper was made of rags, mixed into a mulch and pressed, hence people asking which rag they were reading. I had also forgotten that newspapers weren't allowed to report parliamentary proceedings, as MPs felt it was no business of their constituents to judge their conduct; mob rule might result.
John Wilkes, MP, and the owner of a newspaper, was regularly prosecuted for seditious libel of a political nature and banned from the Commons. By 1780, reporters were allowed to take down debates using shorthand. The press we know today is largely attributable to Alfred Harmsworth, later Lord Northcliffe, who founded the Daily Mail in 1896, appealing to everyone, particularly the aspirational classes. It was a huge success and for a time had the largest circulation in the world. He had seen the more lively American press and realised that journalism had changed. He also believed in hiring good writers such as Kipling. We know that today we don't have an unblemished press but in my experience it's the most vigorous in the world and long may it flourish.
Some months ago I speculated with a friend on what the producers of The Archers on Radio Four would come up with as a new vicar for Ambridge. We decided he would be a northerner, have a black or Asian partner and would be an anti-hunting progressive. We did indeed get something of the sort in Alan, though his West Indian wife had died. His daughter is a chippy brat and his mother-in-law a wise and saintly woman. Now Alan is trying to establish a hostel for drug addicts in Ambridge. One listener complained to Feedback on Radio Four a few weeks ago that the series should be renamed The Townies, an everyday story of junkies, West Indians, trendy vicars and assorted loonies. We know it's been politically correct for some years but its producers, mostly urbanites I suspect, sometimes forget the point of The Archers, that it's a rural and farming soap.
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