tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/paul-dacre-40078/articlesPaul Dacre – The Conversation2020-10-01T11:50:25Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1471332020-10-01T11:50:25Z2020-10-01T11:50:25ZBBC chair: leak of No 10’s choice attempts to destroy independence of appointments<p>“Leaks” from No 10 to the Sunday Times published on September 27 about the <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/arch-critics-of-bbc-dacre-and-moore-tipped-for-top-jobs-in-tv-lzn0lvxbs">anointing of Charles Moore and Paul Dacre</a> as the next chairs of the BBC and Ofcom may have been intended to distract the British public from the government’s performance on COVID-19. Getting people into a lather about the BBC is a good tactic. I have, however, no doubt that this is a serious proposition: these candidates are not merely being “floated”, they are the Downing Street choices.</p>
<p>Irrespective of the suitability of the putative candidates, the leaks have blown a hole in the carefully crafted process that has been designed to safeguard all public appointments from nepotism, improper commercial advantage and naked political pressure. Such processes protect all our important institutions, but because of its relationship to public information, the BBC has always been an especially delicate appointment. As an attempt to bully the BBC and, through the attack on Ofcom, all broadcasters, it is perturbing.</p>
<p>More widely, the leak implies a new politicisation of public life, where it is taken for granted that the currently vacant public roles will need to be filled by people who are not merely Conservative but only from that narrow fraction that is sympathetic to the particular strand of conservatism now in power, or members of the court around the prime minister, Boris Johnson. This narrows the pool of talent to a microscopic puddle.</p>
<h2>Impartiality at stake</h2>
<p>The BBC is a public broadcaster, not a state broadcaster. It certainly has a relationship with the state, but for nearly 100 years it has developed rules, habits, and values of creativity and impartiality that have protected it from interference. It is not perfect, but it is peerless. It is an institution that is relied upon by <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-53517025">438 million users globally</a> and is the foundation of one of our most successful industries, the creative media. It belongs to everyone in Britain, and this universality means that it is obliged to serve all audiences. </p>
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<img alt="Headshot of middle-aged man in a suit." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360747/original/file-20200930-22-z7xwru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360747/original/file-20200930-22-z7xwru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360747/original/file-20200930-22-z7xwru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360747/original/file-20200930-22-z7xwru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360747/original/file-20200930-22-z7xwru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360747/original/file-20200930-22-z7xwru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360747/original/file-20200930-22-z7xwru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Charles Moore, a former editor of the Daily Telegraph and harsh critic of the BBC.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SE7</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/bbc-most-trusted-news-source-2020">Trust</a> in the integrity of its output depends on it being seen as independent from government or politicians. Its authority and reputation require the idea that it has editorial independence – if you like, the right to make mistakes. Consequently, its content is regulated, not by politicians, but by Ofcom. By the way, it is the regulatory overseeing of Ofcom in the public interest that has made Sky a great news channel (owned by the same company that owns Fox News, but vastly different in approach).</p>
<h2>Chairs matter</h2>
<p>While researching for my volume of the official history of the BBC, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/01/pinkoes-and-traitors-bbc-and-nation-1974-1987-jean-seaton-review">Pinkoes and Traitors: the BBC and the Nation 1970-1987</a>, I delved a lot into the importance of the role of BBC chair. They hold the BBC to account and are responsible for the broadcaster delivering its services. They help ward off wrong and partisan political pressure, but also make sure the BBC responds to legitimate criticism. They are legally obliged to maintain the BBC’s impartiality. The chair cautions, advises, restrains, and adds insight. They must manage the creation of a board with the right skills to help continually reshape the BBC internally to meet contemporary challenges. A well-run board and a strong chair working with the BBC in the national interest is the cornerstone of an effective BBC. </p>
<p>In the past, the BBC has flourished when the chair and the director general have formed a powerful, cooperative but challenging team. Sir Hugh Greene and Arthur fforde, John Birt and Christopher Bland. Mark Thompson and Sir Michael Lyons and then Chris Patton. While they may have disagreed about editorial decisions or fought about commerce or remit or had to make tough decisions they have to be both working for the same values: to keep the BBC impartial, fearless, decent, independent and alive in the nation and the world’s imagination. They must share a belief in the BBC’s mission to “<a href="https://www.cps.org.uk/files/reports/original/111027112808-20090324PublicServicesToInformEducateAndEntertain.pdf">educate, inform and entertain</a>”. </p>
<p>Anybody alarmed by the flood of misinformation during COVID-19 ought to want a confident BBC. Anybody watching the BBC coverage of the VJ day celebrations this year – thrown together in the middle of a pandemic – saw just that creativity for a national moment at its most warm and grand.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-19-to-counter-misinformation-journalists-need-to-embrace-a-public-service-mission-133829">COVID-19: to counter misinformation, journalists need to embrace a public service mission</a>
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<p>However, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/research/chairmen-of-the-bbc">chairs</a> can also be the nemesis for director generals. The great <a href="https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/research/directors-general/hugh-carleton-greene">Hugh Carleton-Greene</a> was seen off by Charles Hill, the chair that Harold Wilson brought over from ITV. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2006/dec/27/pressandpublishing.broadcasting1">Marmaduke Hussey</a> saw off both <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20964772">Alasdair Milne</a>, who had lost his capacity to deal with a hostile Thatcher government, but also the efficient, reforming <a href="https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/research/directors-general/michael-checkland">Michael Checkland</a>. As the BBC has become more exposed to political pressure, so the job has become more exposed. Although not all these “trojan horses” have been bad for the corporation, this is because they believed in the very idea of the BBC.</p>
<p>Tony Hall <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/20/tony-hall-resignation-bbc-boss-existential-crisis">resigned earlier this year</a> to ensure that David Clementi, the current chair, would have oversight of the appointment (by an independent panel) of a new director general before he was replaced as chair. In such niceties, propriety lives.</p>
<h2>Public interest: the right way?</h2>
<p>Norman Fowler, a cabinet minister in both Thatcher and Major governments, chaired the committee that produced the <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2007-11-21/debates/07112194000001/BBCChairmanship(CommunicationsCommitteeReport)">House of Lords report</a> on the chairmanship of the BBC in 2007. It’s proposals for “greater separation of ministers from the appointments process to ensure public confidence” given the unique nature of the BBC were accepted. The secretary of state is required to appoint a selection panel including the chairman and the independent assessor. There should be a majority of non-political members and it has to be chaired by a non-political member. </p>
<p>It presciently added that if “ministers add or subtract any names from the shortlist this should immediately be made public through a written ministerial statement to Parliament. The names and details of the candidate should not be made public but the fact of ministerial involvement should be.” The name of only one candidate should then be passed to ministers “specifically to avoid the appointment of a candidate who might share their political priorities. The appointment should be vetted by Parliament.” </p>
<p>The <a href="https://publicappointments.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/appointment/ofcom-chair/">appointment of a chair to Ofcom</a> is similarly supposed to be open and transparent.</p>
<p>But, despite the opportunities the process offers for both the BBC and the government to discuss likely candidates, significant horse-trading can only take place before the formal process opens. You do not want to end up in public complaining about a candidate who then the government might push on through. </p>
<p>So the Sunday Times leaks, the crowning and the drinks, compromise everything – as they were meant to. They turn it into a political battleground and potentially open up any other candidates to contest and opposition. It is another classic manoeuvre: it is a “make any opponent an enemy of the people and then destroy them” tactic.</p>
<h2>Process is vital</h2>
<p>The process is finally overseen by the Public Appointments Committee. <a href="https://publicappointmentscommissioner.independent.gov.uk/about-us/">Peter Riddell</a>, the public appointments commissioner, has to approve that the final outcome of the process is fair and above board. No one doubts Riddell’s decency, or indeed capacity: he is a public servant of great integrity who was the founding director of the Institute of Government. But the procedures over which he presides have been leapfrogged by the leak. He is robust – and he may need to be. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Moore, a man of reputation and scholarship, has been seriously embarrassed by the leak that apparently crowned him BBC chair. He was, until November 2019, a member of that same Public Appointments Committee. His job was to be a guardian of the very process that has now been undermined. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/people/paul-bew">Lord Paul Bew</a> – the chair of that committee must be seriously concerned about the reputation of the Public Appointments Committee. Lord Bew is a bruiser from Northern Irish politics (but also a wily and proper man). So the system may well fight back. But it is staggering that this is necessary. </p>
<p>The BBC is well placed to solve some of the epic problems that face broadcasting under its able and focused new director general <a href="https://theconversation.com/tim-davie-appointed-to-run-the-bbc-he-faces-some-tough-challenges-140198">Tim Davie</a>. One American observer said to me that the BBC was “the only media organisation in the West that has the heft, expertise and power to take the defence of western values out onto a world stage”. We are, after all, in the middle of a cyberwar.</p>
<p>As I noted in a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/56c1e4c3-8ed4-4f6a-a7c3-a22e65dd5f70?sharetype=blocked">letter to the Financial Times dated September 30</a>, co-authored with Timothy Garton Ash, Will Hutton and Damian Tambini, it matters to us all – and our safety – that such appointments are not made by leak, but by estimating fitting and proper talent in a decent process. Watch this space.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/tim-davie-appointed-to-run-the-bbc-he-faces-some-tough-challenges-140198">Tim Davie appointed to run the BBC: he faces some tough challenges</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jean Seaton is the Official Historian of the BBC. Her volume of the official history of the BBC, Pinkoes and Traitors: the BBC and the Nation 1970-1987, was published by Profile Books in February 2015.</span></em></p>Leaks in the press about the prime minister’s preferred candidates for two of the most senior roles in British broadcasting are a deliberate and dangerous tactic.Jean Seaton, Professor of Media History, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1072022018-11-19T12:17:46Z2018-11-19T12:17:46ZDaily Mail: new editor and new ‘enemies of the people’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246195/original/file-20181119-76150-vzh4n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hadrian via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Saboteurs endangering our nation,” bellowed <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-6305601/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Saboteurs-endangering-nation.html">the Daily Mail</a> in a typical headline last month, suggesting that the leopard certainly hadn’t changed its spots. Observers of the press, including myself, <a href="https://theconversation.com/geordie-greig-what-to-expect-from-the-daily-mails-next-editor-98090">who had predicted</a> that Paul Dacre’s retirement as editor would usher in a less abrasive and confrontational style under a new boss, seemed destined for disappointment.</p>
<p>But all was not quite what it seemed. The “saboteurs” in the headline were not judges, academics, soft Brexiteers or other members of <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/daily-mail-saboteurs_uk_5beed5aae4b0c19de3ff1721">Dacre’s detested “liberal elite”</a>. This time, the “posturing rebels” and “backstabbing plotters” were Tory MPs on the right of the party who were endangering the prime minister’s calculations for an orderly, negotiated withdrawal from the EU.</p>
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<span class="caption">Old guard: Paul Dacre’s view of anyone he disagreed with.</span>
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<p>Squarely in the cross-hairs of this carefully constructed editorial were the likes of Boris Johnson and Iain Duncan Smith, previously the poster boys of Dacre’s raucously hard Brexit editorial line.</p>
<p>Any suggestion that the Mail’s new editor, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/sep/06/a-friend-to-middle-britain-geordie-greig-begins-reign-as-daily-mail-editor">Geordie Greig</a>, might be turning his paper away from Brexit or, heaven help us, towards the centre, is well wide of the mark. That particular editorial also warned of letting “an unreconstructed Marxist into No. 10, with all the ruinous consequences that would wreak on the nation” – and others in a similar vein have followed. </p>
<p>But over the past few days, during a momentous week of Conservative infighting, accusations of betrayal and swirling rumours of imminent votes of no-confidence, the Mail has demonstrated again that Greig is taking the paper well away from the furious tub-thumping extremism embraced by Dacre.</p>
<p>The day after Theresa May took her cabinet through the 585-page withdrawal agreement, the Mail trumpeted its support for the PM with a defiant picture of her alongside the headline “I stand to fight” – which just a few weeks ago would almost certainly have been a cri de coeur from Johnson or David Davies. And, on the day after a spate of resignations, as her whole administration teetered on the brink of a Brexit collapse, the Mail aimed its fury at the hardliners with the headline “Have They Lost The Plot?”, comparing May’s “calmness and composure” with “the shrill baying of the peacocking saboteurs”.</p>
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<span class="caption">Old headline, new meaning.</span>
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<p>While this resounding shift in position has engrossed the media-watching classes, two obvious questions arise. How has this shift in the paper’s editorial position gone down with its readers? And what difference might it make to circulation and readership?</p>
<p>Some light on readership reactions is cast by the (unmoderated) comments below the online version of every Daily Mail article. Judging by reactions to the November 16 editorial which eviscerated those “<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/daily-mail-brexit-saboteurs-paul-dacre-geordie-greig-remainers-hard-brexiteers-remoaners-chaos-detox-a8637751.html">peacocking saboteurs</a>”, many of its traditional readers clearly believe that the Mail has fallen victim to a revolutionary plot.</p>
<p>Thus, one Midlands reader wondered whether someone was “paying the Mail to write this treacherous garbage” (treachery was a common theme), while another questioned whether it had been taken over by Guardian lefties. But plenty of others were happy to follow the editorial line of support for a gutsy PM who has “clearly got a bit of backbone about her” and was showing “true leadership and courage” in the midst of party disunity.</p>
<h2>Change of heart?</h2>
<p>Since the Mail has so often been quoted as the true barometer of middle England – part of the Conservative Leave heartland – does its change of tone reflect a growing impatience in the shires with the Brexit hardliners? </p>
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<p>Former Sun editor David Yelland <a href="https://twitter.com/davidyelland/status/1063321361899233280">tweeted</a> that “Brexit lunatics like Rees-Mogg and Boris have lost middle England”, pointing not only to the transformation in Daily Mail headlines but to those in the Daily Express, too. He even suggested that both papers “might yet back a People’s Vote”.</p>
<p>That is unlikely, but begs the wider question of whether editorial changes in the two midmarket and traditionally ultra-Tory newspapers are being driven from the bottom by its readers or from the top by changes of ownership and editor. The Express (and its red-top sister, the Daily Star) were <a href="https://theconversation.com/daily-express-what-a-difference-a-new-owner-has-made-especially-if-you-are-a-migrant-95881">bought by the Mirror Group</a> (owners of the left-leaning Mirror papers) from the vocal UKIP supporter Richard Desmond. Its new editor, Gary Jones, who transferred across from the Sunday Mirror, has also toned down the paper’s raucous denunciation of immigrants, asylum seekers, and anyone remotely pro EU. Indeed, he even told a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/apr/24/daily-express-editor-gary-jones-calls-its-front-pages-downright-offensive">Home Affairs select committee</a> back in April that he found some of the newspaper’s previous front pages “downright offensive”.</p>
<h2>Clickbait continues</h2>
<p>As to the second question – whether these changes will impact circulation and readership – we will have to wait a few months to pass judgement. All circulations are in decline, and readership is increasingly driven by online surfing. In that respect, MailOnline has not been rebooted, and continues to carry its “sidebar of shame” with its undiluted focus on cellulite, bikini shots and C-list celebrities cavorting on sun-drenched beaches – the kind of clickbait which keeps the Mail near the top of the world’s online readership figures.</p>
<p>Whether or not circulation figures change, it is now clear that the vindictive and viscerally anti-EU Daily Mail of the Dacre era has been superseded by a rather more thoughtful version under Geordie Greig. It may no longer represent Mr and Mrs Outraged from Middle Wallop who hanker after village greens, cream teas and warm beer – but it may be a more reliable weather vane of a less homogenous Middle England which is prepared to contemplate the idea of Brexit compromise.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107202/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Barnett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The tone remains the same, but the anger is directed against a different group of ‘elites’.Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/983962018-06-21T11:44:22Z2018-06-21T11:44:22ZWhy journalism students (and many who teach it) will be glad to see the back of the Daily Mail’s editor<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224071/original/file-20180620-137717-1dle6wt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">h</span> </figcaption></figure><p>I’ve been teaching journalism students for six years now, at three very different universities. What they learn is a far cry from my days at Darlington Technical College, class of 1994, slogging through shorthand classes. There was no internet or social media – in fact I think we were the last cohort to learn our reporting skills on typewriters. </p>
<p>My students have taught me a lot about what it means to be an undergraduate on a media or journalism course in 2018. They may be prize-winning, or pushy, scary or scared, but they are all basically really nice kids. Who would believe journalism, this most hated of trades, would draw its ranks from such polite, witty and engaging young people? </p>
<p>Yet during one recent final-year lecture I asked how many of the 80 students were planning a career in journalism. Not even a dozen raised their hands. The rest were either heading for public relations or didn’t know what they would do with their hard-earned qualification. That varies from university to university, but in a sector filled with unpaid internships, old-boy networks, and widespread bullying, who can blame them? </p>
<p>In his book <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/04/hack-attack-nick-davies-review-gripping-account-hacking-affair">Hack Attack</a>, former Guardian journalist Nick Davies argued that the main difference between his own newspaper and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/news-of-the-world-the-factor-in-its-demise-that-deserves-more-attention-51969">News of the World</a> was “the bully quotient”. Indeed, this is an industry in which old hands wear their tales of ill treatment like badges of honour. </p>
<p>I have been told many of these stories – the chief reporter throwing scrunched up pages of apparently “shit” copy at the back of a trainee’s head. Or the junior reporter being summoned daily across the newsroom to be told by another senior executive: “You’re too too slow and you’re crap, now fuck off.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44391449">Outgoing Dail Mail editor</a> Paul Dacre is/was said to be very much of this particular old school of foul mouthed management, with “cunt” a favoured term in editorial meetings. It is unsurprising then that to many, the contents of the Daily Mail are synonymous with a particularly vitriolic news agenda – because such bullying flows downhill. </p>
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<p>By contrast, the journalism courses in which I’ve been involved place great emphasis on the straight and narrow path of ethics, precision, news judgement and the democratically necessary Fourth Estate. Plus, we really care about our students. </p>
<p>We also teach them about the political economy of the media, propaganda and house styles. The harder truth for them to learn is that opportunities in traditional journalism are decreasing. More and more journalists describe themselves as freelance – and the lines between journalism, content management and media-relations are increasingly blurred. Meanwhile, the PR industry has become a dominant force in our society.</p>
<p>And although it might be too early to write journalism’s obituary, it is true that for the newly qualified, workloads are increasing and career prospects are questionable in the face of shrinking newsrooms, multi-skilling and citizen journalism. </p>
<p>Added to that, journalists are widely despised. Chatting recently with a senior university academic, I told her only a handful of my students wanted to be journalists. “Good!” she replied. “Well done.” </p>
<p>She may have been joking. But who would enter this trade – it’s not a profession – in which the most successful writers <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jul/28/katie-hopkins-migrants-ipso-sun-cockroaches">describe humans as cockroaches</a>, former <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/george-osborne-announced-as-new-evening-standard-editor-a3492361.html">chancellors of the exchequer become editors</a> on an owner’s whim, where facts often seem to play second fiddle to a good story, and where everyone is talking about fake news? </p>
<h2>Detoxifying the brand</h2>
<p>Dacre’s departure from the editor’s chair after 26 years is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jun/07/new-daily-mail-editor-to-be-geordie-greig">reported to be part of a plan</a> to “detoxify” the Daily Mail brand. As a major employer of journalists, that would be a welcome move for the classes of 2018 and beyond. And maybe at the same time we can detoxify journalism’s image too. </p>
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<p>Lecturing on war reporting, I read to my students from the <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Front-Line-Collected-Journalism-Colvin/dp/0007487967">collected works</a> of Marie Colvin, the rakish Sunday Times correspondent <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/10/world/marie-colvin-cat-colvin-amanpour-intl/index.html">who was killed</a> by shell fire while reporting on the war in Syria. </p>
<p>Widely revered and admired, Colvin filed copy from nearly every burning hell hole on the planet during her career. Why? Because she believed that the “need for front-line, objective reporting has never been clearer”. </p>
<p>After sharing some of Colvin’s work, I quipped: “So, who wants to become a journalist?” One of my students raised her hand, and there was fire in her eyes – and I thought: “Good for you.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/geordie-greig-what-to-expect-from-the-daily-mails-next-editor-98090">Geordie Greig: what to expect from the Daily Mail's next editor</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98396/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Fern does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Journalism is still a popular choice for students, but the harsh realities of the media industry can can crush idealism.Richard Fern, PhD Candidate, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/980902018-06-11T10:31:47Z2018-06-11T10:31:47ZGeordie Greig: what to expect from the Daily Mail’s next editor<p>In Nick Davies’s classic book on the UK’s newspaper culture <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/feb/03/society">Flat Earth News</a>, the final chapter is dedicated to the Daily Mail’s newsroom practices. While recognising the editor Paul Dacre’s instinctive ability to respond to his readers, Davies spells out the implications for a newspaper dedicated to advancing white, middle-class, middle age and middle Britain values.</p>
<p>He illustrates his point with the story of one reporter who was told to drive 300 miles to cover the murder of a woman and her two children. Halfway into the journey, this reporter receives an urgent phone call from the newsdesk, instructing him to come back immediately. Why? Because the family is black.</p>
<p>Many other stories have surfaced over the years that demonstrate Dacre’s relentless pursuit of a monochrome vision of Britain which was described – by one former reporter in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/20/mail-men-unauthorized-story-daily-mail-paper-divided-conquered-britain-adrian-addison-review">Adrian Addison’s history of the Mail</a> – as “a formula: we lived in a very clean and clear, black and white ‘1950s’ idyllic world”.</p>
<p>It was a world in which Britain was to be “saved” from Brussels, where Brexit was a national triumph, and where those who opposed it were personally vilified as either “Enemies of the People” (judges) or “Traitors” (Remain-voting Conservative MPs). </p>
<p>It was therefore perhaps not surprising that his <a href="https://theconversation.com/daily-mail-editor-paul-dacre-to-step-down-but-dont-expect-much-to-change-97950">departure from the editor’s chair</a> that he had held for 26 years – and the characteristic brand of journalistic vitriol that he represented – was loudly celebrated by anti-Brexiteers such as Alastair Campbell and James O’Brien.</p>
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<p>Dacre’s departure, a few months before his 70th birthday, was less surprising than the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jun/07/new-daily-mail-editor-to-be-geordie-greig">announcement of his successor</a> just 24 hours later. While many were expecting one of Fleet Street’s most coveted prizes to go either to deputy editor Gerard Greaves or Mail Online editor Martin Clarke – both of whom would have represented a continuation of the Dacre legacy – the baton was passed to current Mail on Sunday editor Geordie Greig. He is widely seen as a polar opposite of Dacre: convivial, approachable, cosmopolitan – and an ardent Remainer. </p>
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<p>Greig’s appointment, after six years editing the Mail on Sunday, raises two fascinating questions: what kind of statement is being made by the Mail’s owner, the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24396430">fourth Viscount Rothermere</a>? And what are the implications for a paper which for decades has not only defined “Middle England” but set both policy and news agendas?</p>
<h2>Clean break</h2>
<p>Rothermere’s choice is both about brand values and economics. Greig represents a clean break from a toxic journalistic culture in which angry tub-thumping and personal vindictiveness have frequently been elevated above accuracy and fairness. In his history of the paper, Addison quotes several examples of deliberate character assassinations (all the more frequent over the last two years in light of Dacre’s obsession with “Remoaners”), which regular columnists have been obliged to carry out. Nor are such instructions handed out with any subtlety: Dacre’s newsroom style is legendary – and one former Mail reporter told Addison how: “an atmosphere of insecurity, bitchiness and fear permeates the entire building. It’s a hideous, joyless place to work.”</p>
<p>Such a toxic workplace and journalistic environment was almost certainly becoming unsustainable – and no doubt distinctly uncomfortable for the owner. Though Rothermere has been famously hands-off compared to, say, other newspaper proprietors such as Rupert Murdoch or the Barclay Brothers, there are only so many times that an owner can shrug off all responsibility when challenged about the sheer spiteful malevolence of a publication he owns.</p>
<p>On the economic side, the Mail has suffered along with all other titles from an inexorable slide in sales, losing a million from its <a href="http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/national-newspaper-abcs-daily-telegraph-decision-to-stop-selling-bulks-sees-circulation-fall-by-nearly-a-fifth-year-on-year/">daily circulation figures</a> in the past ten years (from 2.3m to 1.3m). With more emphasis on keeping advertisers happy, we should also credit the <a href="https://stopfundinghate.org.uk/">Stop Funding Hate campaign</a> for raising awareness among advertisers of the homophobic, racist and misogynistic content being associated with the group’s brands. That will also have been noticed by Rothermere’s bean counters at the <a href="https://www.dmgt.com/">Daily Mail and General Trust</a>.</p>
<h2>No revolution</h2>
<p>Will there be a sudden transformation in editorial values? Anyone expecting a spectacular 180-degree turn on Brexit will be disappointed, not least because the core Mail readership still hates Brussels and is viscerally committed to “taking back control”. But we can certainly hope for fewer tendentious and hate-fuelled headlines, a greater tolerance of opposing views, and maybe even a return to basic journalistic values of accuracy and curiosity.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222547/original/file-20180611-191947-1gb1br4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222547/original/file-20180611-191947-1gb1br4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222547/original/file-20180611-191947-1gb1br4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222547/original/file-20180611-191947-1gb1br4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222547/original/file-20180611-191947-1gb1br4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222547/original/file-20180611-191947-1gb1br4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222547/original/file-20180611-191947-1gb1br4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222547/original/file-20180611-191947-1gb1br4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Mail on Sunday took the opposite stance to it’s daily stablemate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mail on Sunday</span></span>
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<p>Greig’s MoS has managed successfully to combine unstinting support for the Conservative Party with a softer approach to many social issues such as gay marriage and assisted dying – as well as measured opposition to Brexit. Perhaps more importantly, Greig appears to have ruled the editorial roost with charm and good humour rather than fear and loathing. The Mail’s journalists – barring the few who were jockeying to out-brutalise Dacre – will be mightily relieved.</p>
<p>But Greig’s appointment might be more significant than simply taking over from an influential but deeply unloved national newspaper editor. Perhaps this changing of the guard heralds one of those periodic shifts in Britain’s political culture. “Middle England” is not the homogeneous, wrinkled and hideously white demographic that is usually portrayed. Just as Ireland’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/irelands-abortion-referendum-heres-what-you-need-to-know-96875">vote to reform abortion laws</a> demonstrated unexpectedly strong support from pensioners and rural communities, so the nature of middle England conservatism may be evolving: less angry, less mired in the past, less intolerant of different communities, less insular, less Dacre’s little Englander. There will still be some, of course – but perhaps they will be less indulged by the Mail’s easy bigotry of the last 20 years.</p>
<p>There will certainly be no revolution at the Mail. But with any luck Geordie Greig will have the courage and personality to turn a newspaper that has become a byword for distortion and malice into one that embraces the true values of decent, robust and challenging journalism. If so, Britain will be a better place.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98090/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Barnett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New editor Geordie Greig will soften the line on Brexit and may take a more compassionate stance on some social issues.Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/979502018-06-07T16:55:12Z2018-06-07T16:55:12ZDaily Mail editor Paul Dacre to step down (but don’t expect much to change)<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222190/original/file-20180607-137306-1lh2nat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The middle man.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.paimages.co.uk/search-results/fluid/?q=paul%20dacre&amber_border=1&category=A,S,E&fields_0=all&fields_1=all&green_border=1&imagesonly=1&orientation=both&red_border=1&words_0=all&words_1=all">Ben Birchall/PA Wire/PA Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Among the glowing tributes to Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre – who has announced he will <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44391449">step down in November</a> after 26 years at the helm – I have yet to spot one that mentions this description of his methods from a recent <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Mail_Men.html?id=DyB2DQAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">unauthorised history</a> of the newspaper:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>On the editorial floor, Dacre was very much proving to be “insensitive” to some of his staff as he prowled his domain. The word “cunt” remained his favourite expletive, to be fired at anyone who displeased him.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I have never met the man but, for me, this captures the very essence of the newspaper he nurtured and edited over the past 26 years. The words suggest an aggressive, overconfident, macho thug who instils fear both inside and outside the newsroom.</p>
<p>In his tribute to Dacre, the Mail’s (non-domiciled) proprietor, Lord Rothermere, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jun/06/paul-dacre-to-step-down-as-daily-mail-editor-in-november">describes him</a> as “the greatest Fleet Street editor of his generation”. Well, to quote Evelyn Waugh’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/books/review/the-great-fleet-street-novel-evelyn-waughs-scoop.html">fawning editor from Scoop</a>: “Up to a point Lord Copper”.</p>
<p>Of course, it all depends on what is meant by “greatest”?</p>
<p>As a propagandist Dacre has had few peers. One of his greatest “achievements” was to set Brexit in motion. He did this despite his boss Lord Rothermere being widely thought of as a “Remainer”, although there was never any suggestion that Dacre’s position was imperilled by his suicidal mission to help take Britain out of the EU. </p>
<p>But Brexit was only the culmination of, what for me, was Dacre’s greatest skill – his ability to convince editors, journalists and – most importantly of all – politicians, that by some weird chemistry the Daily Mail (and by implication its editor) had exclusive access to the pulse of “Middle England”. </p>
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<p>Broadcast editors, consciously or otherwise, would slavishly follow the Mail’s news agenda. And politicians were even more spineless, fearing the wrath of Dacre and his cohorts if they were seen to breach the Mail’s interpretation of what Middle England (note, not “Middle Britain”) was apparently thinking. </p>
<p>For Dacre’s wrath could be biblical. We should not forget his disgraceful full-frontal attacks on the independence of the judiciary, or the right of backbench MPs to carry out their constitutional duties. But his attack on the former Labour leader Ed Miliband, via an appalling <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/01/ralph-miliband-what-daily-mail-said">character assassination</a> of the politican’s father was a low point.</p>
<p>Fellow journalists might accuse me of failing to recognise Dacre’s abilities as a tabloid editor. But praising his undoubted achievements in the arenas of newspaper circulation and profitability, is like praising Donald Trump for his ability to to work a crowd or create a Twitter storm, ignoring the message and the motivation. </p>
<p>But what about Dacre’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/jan/04/stephen-lawrence-parents-daily-mail">widely praised response</a> to the murder of Stephen Lawrence? One has to wonder if the Mail would have pursued the Stephen Lawrence killers with such tenacity had the murdered teenager’s father not worked <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/media/paul-dacre-admits-daily-mail-ran-murderers-stephen-lawrence-splash-because-neville-lawrence-did-his-his-plastering/">as a decorator on Dacre’s house</a>.</p>
<p>There’s no doubt the Mail did some great work on the Lawrence case. But that cannot excuse the bile and propaganda that Dacre has been discharging into the national conversation for over two and a half decades.</p>
<h2>The Daily Mail question</h2>
<p>A few years ago, I was in Malawi working on an election project. On a visit to the local office of the UK’s Department for International Development to seek funding for media monitoring of the election, an official asked me: “What’s the answer to the Daily Mail question?” </p>
<p>I didn’t need an explanation. She was asking how the department should respond if the Daily Mail was made aware of this item of expenditure (£25,000 – the cheapest national media monitoring operation I know of) and responded with predictable outrage over what the paper would no doubt describe as a “waste” of taxpayers’ money.</p>
<p>And on the subject of tax, one is bound to ask questions about a newspaper editor who finds himself happily in bed with the tax-cutting Taxpayers Alliance, while himself <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/30/daily-mail-editor-paul-dacre-received-88000-eu-subsidies-2014">receiving</a> substantial tax rebates from the hated EU Common Agricultural Fund for the 20,000 acres of forest he owns in Scotland? </p>
<p>So now, before he turns 70, Dacre is resigning. But before the EU bunting starts fluttering from the portals of the Daily Mail’s Kensington headquarters, there may well be a Brexit-style fly in the ointment. </p>
<p>For as soon as Dacre steps down from being editor of the Daily Mail, he will be stepping up to become chairman and editor-in-chief of Associated Newspapers. </p>
<p>This may well mean it is not only the Daily Mail that bears the poisonous Dacre imprimatur, but also the Mail on Sunday and the Mail Online – two parts of the business which have until now managed to establish themselves as more or less Dacre-free zones. But that might change – and not for the better. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/then-they-came-for-the-experts-how-the-daily-mail-is-threatening-how-you-think-86553">Then they came for the experts: how the Daily Mail is threatening how you think</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97950/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ivor Gaber does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Mail man has enjoyed 26 years of power in journalism and politics.Ivor Gaber, Professor of Journalism, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/915812018-02-09T13:57:02Z2018-02-09T13:57:02ZWhy Theresa May’s plan to save local journalism could end up benefiting media moguls<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205698/original/file-20180209-51697-473zlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2091954">Derek Harper</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are two ways of looking at the new <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/feb/06/decline-of-local-journalism-threatens-democracy-says-may?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Media+briefing+2016&utm_term=263345&subid=1249353&CMP=ema_546">Press Review</a> announced by Theresa May, the UK prime minister: a genuine attempt to inject some badly needed funds into the failing business model of journalism, or another backhander to the mainstream corporate press to keep them sweet. Depressingly, history suggests the latter.</p>
<p>The prime minister was effusive about the importance of journalism as a “huge force for good” – and anyone who has seen Spielberg’s The Post could scarcely disagree. That <a href="https://theconversation.com/steven-spielbergs-the-post-is-a-timely-reminder-of-the-constitutional-importance-of-a-free-press-90475">film encapsulated</a> everything noble about great reporting and the vital importance of a free and independent press to a healthy democracy.</p>
<p>May chose to highlight the crisis in local journalism – where the journalism may be less dramatic than that portrayed by Tom Hanks et al, but is just as vital: the leaders of local institutions such as hospitals, police forces, local courts or local councils can be equally susceptible to corruption or incompetence and also require the kind of scrutiny which keeps them accountable to local people. At a more mundane level, communities need reliable information about transport, planning, policing, education and local businesses simply to participate as informed citizens in their local area.</p>
<p>May is right that the problem of sustaining local media is particularly acute. Classified advertising – the mainstay of local journalism – has <a href="http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/how-the-rise-of-online-ads-has-prompted-a-70-per-cent-cut-in-journalist-numbers-at-big-uk-regional-dailies/">all but disappeared</a> from print newspapers, while the big tech companies – particularly Facebook and Google – are <a href="https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/google-facebook-dominate-half-digital-media-market/1444793">hoovering up</a> local as well as national advertising revenues. The major regional publishing groups – Trinity Mirror, Johnston Press, Newsquest and Tindle, which between them own nearly 75% of regional titles – are obliged to choose between protecting their profit margins, consolidating their papers, or closing them completely. </p>
<p>As a comprehensive <a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/policy-institute/CMCP/local-news.pdf">study</a> by Kings College London demonstrated in 2016, consolidation usually produces powerful monopolies in which “local” reporting is hollowed out and outsourced to distant regional hubs.</p>
<h2>Local watchdogs</h2>
<p>What to do? Many countries are examining policy interventions to address the problem: from direct public subsidies, to levies on aggregators and other tech giants for redistribution to new or established journalistic enterprises. In 2012, the House of Lords Communications Committee <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201012/ldselect/ldcomuni/256/25602.htm">recommended</a> reform of charity law to allow greater discretion for recognising some journalism as a charitable activity, in the same way as education. This is a common route for non-profit journalism enterprises in the US to raise money – something that has so far been largely ignored in the UK.</p>
<p>Then there is the BBC’s new <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/corporate2/insidethebbc/howwework/partnerships/localnews">Local Democracy Reporter</a> scheme, under which the BBC has agreed to fund 150 local reporters as part of a new partnership with publishers, costing licence payers around £8m A year. While in principle an apparently productive use of public money to alleviate the democratic deficit, this scheme is a good illustration of why we should look very carefully at May’s motives.</p>
<p>In practice, the vast majority of those reporter contracts have been swallowed up by those very publishers that have been consolidating operations and closing papers while protecting their profit base – as <a href="http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/most-of-150-new-bbc-funded-local-democracy-reporters-go-to-trinity-mirror-newsquest-and-johnston-press/">noted by industry bible the Press Gazette</a>, 130 of the 144 assigned reporters went to Trinity Mirror, Newsquest or Johnston Press.</p>
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<span class="caption">Keeping people in touch with their communities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mount Pleasant Granary</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>The editor of one small publisher, the Salford Star, <a href="https://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2017/news/hyperlocals-say-bbc-democracy-reporter-scheme-a-total-sham/">reacted</a> by calling the scheme “a total sham” which benefited only those news groups that “have been sacking journalists for years in the relentless pursuit of more profit”.</p>
<p>This illustrates the risk of taking May’s review at face value. There are literally hundreds of small, hyperlocal publishers operating around the UK with the potential to make a fundamental contribution to redressing the local democratic deficit. My own research, with Cardiff and Birmingham City universities, has <a href="https://hyperlocalsurvey.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/hyperlocal-community-news-in-the-uk-2014.pdf">demonstrated</a> that many of these small operations have successfully initiated local campaigns or investigations entirely in keeping with the kind of watchdog journalism which is in retreat. </p>
<p>These are precisely the kinds of small, entrepreneurial, dynamic enterprises – often making creative use of social and online media as well as traditional hard copy distribution – that would benefit hugely from a small injection of cash.</p>
<h2>‘Big beasts’ dominate</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, the big beasts of the <a href="http://www.newsmediauk.org/">News Media Association</a> – the alliance of major publishers which includes Murdoch’s News UK, the Mail and Mirror groups as well as the biggest regional groups – have consistently lobbied against any measures that might divert resources away from their own bank accounts. As a succession of senior ministers and former prime ministers testified to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/leveson-inquiry-7469">Leveson Inquiry</a>, Britain’s corporate press still wields frightening power over UK governments that is out of all proportion to their steadily dwindling circulations.</p>
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<p>There must therefore be a very large question mark over where May’s review will be allowed to go, and what it might recommend. Will it be a serious examination of creative policy solutions to a fundamental problem which threatens an informed and vibrant democracy? Or will it be little more than a sop to those powerful press barons who – at least in the eyes of her own party – have helped to sustain the Conservative party in power?</p>
<p>Given the ferocious propaganda battle that those same press barons have fought in the post-Leveson era against any measures that might make them more accountable – and given that every one of her five prime ministerial predecessors at some point surrendered to their concerted and self-interested lobbying – we should not be surprised if the main beneficiaries of this review will yet again be the likes of Rupert Murdoch and the other big beast of Fleet Street.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91581/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Barnett has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).</span></em></p>Previous government aid packages for local papers have instead helped Fleet Street’s ‘big beasts’.Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/800342017-06-23T16:16:24Z2017-06-23T16:16:24ZDaily Mail vs The Guardian: why did editor Paul Dacre lose his rag?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175405/original/file-20170623-17502-sxq983.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C771%2C495&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tweet by Liz Gerrard juxtaposing Martin Rowson's Guardian cartoon with the Daily Mail editorial..
</span> </figcaption></figure><p>“Words have consequences. They lead to actions.” So <a href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/time-tory-right-709511774">wrote</a> Peter Oborne, the maverick right-leaning Daily Mail columnist about the shocking events in <a href="https://theconversation.com/finsbury-park-attack-shows-the-harm-islamophobia-continues-to-inflict-on-muslim-communities-79682?sr=2">north London</a> recently when a white van deliberately ran into a crowd of Muslims outside a mosque, killing one and injuring several others.</p>
<p>Oborne did not write this for his weekly column (it was in the online journal Middle East Eye) nor did he mention the Mail by name. He did, however, conclude a powerful piece by saying that “the moment has come for some of my colleagues (and, in some cases, friends) in the conservative press to ask some deep, searching questions about their own use of language about Muslims and Islam”.</p>
<p>A day later, the Guardian featured a cartoon by Martin Rowson which mocked up a picture of the van and superimposed on its side: “Read the Sun & the Daily Mail” using the easily recognisable logos of both newspapers.</p>
<p>It was a brilliantly simple and satirical means of delivering exactly the same message as Oborne: that the right-wing press – and particularly the two daily papers with the highest circulations in Britain – must take responsibility for the barrage of anti-Muslim propaganda which both papers have been peddling through their news and editorial columns for years.</p>
<p>This was too much for the Mail’s editor-in-chief Paul Dacre and the paper responded with a furious tirade directed at the Guardian. Taking a whole page of Thursday’s Daily Mail, in an editorial dominated by a headline which screamed “Fake news, the fascist Left and the REAL purveyors of hatred”, the editorial aimed both barrels at the newspaper – and its left-liberal readership – which Dacre has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/12/left-daily-mail-paul-dacre">made no secret of despising</a>.</p>
<h2>Two competing voices</h2>
<p>The sheer visceral ferocity of this editorial broadside took even some seasoned observers by surprise. But it can be understood in the context of two opposing visions of post-Brexit Britain. The Guardian – which has tried with <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/stevenperlberg/how-the-guardian-lost-america?utm_term=.oxlqOn8VQe#.hhxVM462GZ">varying degrees of success</a> to export its news brand to Australia and the US – represents Britain’s liberal conscience, embracing causes such as greater redistribution of wealth and Britain’s place in Europe, while campaigning against human rights abuses and climate change.</p>
<p>The Mail is the complete antithesis, ferociously anti-Europe with a long history of supporting right-wing causes including – famously – the <a href="http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/19th-january-1934/6/lord-rothermeres-hurrah-for-the-blackshirts-articl">Hitler-supporting blackshirts</a> during the 1930s. It claims to speak for “Middle England”, an amorphous construct which is better described as a traditional, older and predominantly white readership.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175410/original/file-20170623-17477-ebyq02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175410/original/file-20170623-17477-ebyq02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175410/original/file-20170623-17477-ebyq02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175410/original/file-20170623-17477-ebyq02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175410/original/file-20170623-17477-ebyq02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175410/original/file-20170623-17477-ebyq02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175410/original/file-20170623-17477-ebyq02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175410/original/file-20170623-17477-ebyq02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">In retrospect, not a particularly good idea fron the Mail’s owner.</span>
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<p>It was this readership which Dacre’s savage attack purported to defend, arguing that the Guardian’s cartoon was sick, disgusting and “so deranged and offensive to the 4m decent, humane and responsible people who read us that we owe it to every one [of them] to lay to rest this malicious smear”.</p>
<h2>Confusing claim</h2>
<p>Apart from its ferocity, Dacre’s editorial was remarkable for two things. First, it attempted to argue that the Mail newspaper was completely separate from Mail Online which “has its own publisher, its own readership, different content and a very different world view”. He was keen to distance the paper, in particular, from the right-wing columnist Katie Hopkins and her deliberately provocative commentary following the Manchester and London terrorist attacks (including one tweet, since deleted, calling for a “final solution”).</p>
<p>This sleight of hand was very quickly demolished by, among others, LBC presenter James O’Brien, who asked how this apparent separation can be reconciled with Dacre’s apparent receipt of a performance-related £263,388 bonus for continuing to invest in digital consumer media, particularly Mail Online. </p>
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<p>And as many others pointed out, the Mail Online site states explicitly: “Published by Associated Newspapers Ltd Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and Metro Media Group.”</p>
<p>Second, Dacre also insisted that there was “not a shred of evidence” for the Guardian’s implicit claim that the Mail was encouraging Islamophobia. He declared confidently that “we harbour not the faintest animosity towards others on account of their colour or creed”. Others, however, were very quick to provide the evidence from Dacre’s own paper.</p>
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<p>Influential blogger Liz Gerard <a href="https://twitter.com/gameoldgirl/status/877819902739881984">tweeted</a> out a choice selection from the Mail’s Mac cartoons, including one infamous example which showed an outline of sinister-looking people, quite clearly caricature Muslims, crossing into Europe accompanied by scurrying rats. Others posted <a href="https://twitter.com/KeepUsInTheEU/status/877917247049793540">links</a> to headlines – particularly numerous in the run-up to last year’s referendum – with inflammatory headlines such as “Fury over plot to let 1.5m Turks into Britain” and “PM: UK Muslims helping jihadis”.</p>
<p>What explains this sudden outburst of rage which had several observers – not only on the left – scratching their heads? A simple explanation may be the general election result. Not only had Dacre <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/mar/30/paul-dacre-theresa-may-private-dinner-daily-mail-editor-no-10">hitched the paper’s wagon</a> firmly to Theresa May, but he had orchestrated a series of <a href="http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/daily-mail-and-sun-launch-front-page-attacks-on-corbyn-as-fleet-street-lines-up-behind-theresa-may/">attacks on Jeremy Corbyn</a>, warning of everything from national bankruptcy to freedom for terrorists should Labour be elected.</p>
<p>It was a rude awakening when the Conservatives snatched defeat from the jaws of certain victory, and quite possible a defeat that Dacre felt personally. I have argued <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/professor-steven-barnett/dont-underestimate-the-po_b_17121064.html">elsewhere</a> that we should beware simplistic assumptions about the declining power of Britain’s tabloid press. </p>
<p>But this editorial suggests that Dacre at least feels that allegations of barely concealed racism in his newspaper are more potent – and that its “middle-England” values are more vulnerable – than they were just three weeks ago. For him personally it seems an uncomfortable – and possibly permanent – shift in the political centre of gravity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80034/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Barnett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Journalism is the first casualty as two UK newspapers with competing world views go to war.Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.