The last edition of the News of the World is now out, saying “Thank You & Goodbye”. The first-ever issue of the newspaper (above) is on my wall at home and I’m struck by the consistency. Its mission statement says it aims “to give to the poorer classes of society a paper that would suit their means, and to the middle — as well as the rich — a journal from which due to its immense circulation would demand their attention.” And so it was to prove. The News of the World is, even now, the best-selling Sunday newspaper on the planet. Only those who don’t read it regard it as a scandal sheet. Its power lay in its ability to mix scandal with hard-hitting social and political analysis, and it was heeded because it represented (and spoke directly to) the biggest single readership not just in Britain but the world. Until the end, it was read in Buckingham Palace because it was being read all over Britain — precisely the idea set out in the founding statement. The below is one of my favourite pictures: the Lady and her son, Mark, reading the paper.
When I was an aspiring journalist, I was in a class where we were addressed by the
(then) editor of the Glasgow Herald. “Please tell me I’ll never have to write tabloid” one of the students said. “No you won’t, son, because you’ll probably never be good
enough,” came the reply. I was struck by that, an later found out how true it is. It took me ages, trying to do what those brilliant red-top journalists can do instantly: distill complex facts
and issues down to their essence; write wasting not a single word nor a second of the reader’s time. No broadsheet waffling. It is respect for the readers, and their appetite for serious and
substantial scoops, which made the News of the World so successful.
When I took on this column, I was painfully aware of the calibre of those who occupied the column space before me. My predecessor was the Foreign Secretary, William Hague. Then some of journalism’s greats: Alan Clark and Woodrow Wyatt. Go back further and the young Winston Churchill was on the books. George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, would take my column when I was away for Christmas and Easter (and his brilliantly powerful writing would regularly put me to shame). Now and again, they may have come across someone daft enough to ask: why are you writing for a tabloid? The answer to this question is simple. The News of the World has never been just a newspaper. It is been a British institution, part of the nation’s fabric, campaigning relentlessly for its readers.
As MPs will tell you, a story on page 46 of the News of the World has more impact than a front page of a lesser paper. No other paper has its impact. Its campaigns led to laws being changed: Sarah’s Law and the Military Covenant being just two examples And why? Because the News of the World represented — and fought for — its readers putting them ahead of any party political considerations, just as it promised in its founding statement. It gave voice and muscle to those often ignored by politicians, because they might live in a safe seat or a sink estate. From the victims of knife crime to the welfare of the families of the armed forces — if it mattered to readers, it mattered to the News of the World. When visiting the News of the World offices, you walk past a montage of its front pages. Scoops which have punctuated British history. One front page denounces Robert Mugabe as ‘The Black Hitler’ long before the destruction his savage rule would wreak on Zimbabwe was clear. Then there are, of course, its world-famous exposes. Hugh Grant’s call girl, Divine Brown. David Mellor, caught playing away in a Chelsea top. But the paper’s power lay in its ability to project the toughest, grittiest subjects in Britain. And not giving a damn if this annoyed anyone in power.
As an outside columnist, I’ve been amazed at the freedom I’ve always been given. No ‘party line’ to take — ever. Freedom like that is increasingly rare. But even more rare is the scale and ambition of this newspapers’ investigations. Take last year’s award-winning scoop, for cricket match-fixing. It was summed up by that iconic photograph, of a cricket agent counting £150,000 in cash given from an undercover reporter. Which other newspaper would risk that amount of cash, simply to expose corruption in sport? Who will now step into the breach? Something tells me it won’t be the Guardian on Sunday.
The sad truth is that British newspapers — what some CoffeeHousers would call the Dead Tree Press — are haemorrhaging readers and money, and axing expensive investigations. Then we have the creeping privacy laws, which have already created in Britain the feeling that already exists in France: that one is never told just what the rich and powerful are up to. On Monday, I watched Robbie Williams at the Take That concert bring the house down with a wee ditty: “I did some coke, and slept with a whore. But that’s what a superinjunction is for!” Then: “Who’s going to be my superinjunction tonight?” The girls went wild, and the guys laughed. This is the country we’re living in now. Where the rich and powerful can take out court orders to gag women whom they sleep with. Helen Wood, an ex-escot and Spectator diarist, was at our summer party last week. One of her former clients is a famous actor, rich enough to take out a superinjunction to ban her naming him. When she applied for an injunction, to stop the press revealing her name, she was refused.
In Britain, the rich and powerful are finally winning a power struggle over what used to be a fearless, investigatory press. No one can deny that, for the News of the World, the mortal blow was self-inflicted. But nor can anyone deny that the News of the World has been one of the most effective, popular and successful newspapers in world history. As I was told when I joined: you don’t work for this newspaper. You work for its readers. And there is no greater honour. This isn’t just the end of a newspaper, but the end of an era in British investigatory journalism. Something has been cut down today, never to grow again.
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