Paul Dacre

The curious omission from Alan Rusbridger’s book

Alan Rusbridger’s new book, Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now, is a thoughtful, if somewhat prolix, analysis of the tectonic changes that the internet is effecting on journalism. But its real message – and how insidiously it drips through the pages – is that virtually every national newspaper in Britain is scurrilous, corrupt and amoral with one iridescent exception. Yes, you’ve guessed it: the Guardian.

Now Alan is a very gifted journalist with huge achievements to his name – achievements, incidentally that he’s not reluctant to dwell on. So how sad that the defining tone of this tome is sanctimony and self-justification. Unedifyingly, it manages to combine rather cloying self-glorification and moral superiority with an almost visceral contempt of and disdain for the rest of the press. A somewhat chilling lack of self-awareness fuses with a hyper-sensitivity to the flaws of others. Indeed, its sine qua non is that only Alan and the Guardian are capable of producing what he calls “worthwhile” journalism. This book contains some of the most unpleasant ad hominem attacks on individuals that I have ever read in a work about Fleet Street. In it, the red tops have a business model based on invading people’s privacy and are beyond redemption. He manages a sliver of begrudging respect for the Daily Mail‘s journalism, but the paper itself – and I – are beyond the pale.

Inevitably, Rupert Murdoch is the devil incarnate. But what a pity that the book can’t summon the generosity to admit that the Times today is an excellent, highly respected, profitable serious paper. More pertinently, its subscription package seems to have cracked the internet conundrum – something the Guardian has so conspicuously failed to do. But then the book is a masterclass in the art of sly omissions.

This memoir’s greater omission is that it ignores one of the most fascinating media stories of the past few years: how a dramatic putsch by an utterly demoralised staff deposed an incoming Scott Trust chairman after the once-profitable Guardian had been reduced to an economic basket case, by vanity, hubris and eye-watering financial misjudgement.

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