Since I posted on my visit to address the Cambridge Union last year, there have been 7,020 hits on that post. There have also been many hundreds of emails asking, "Well what did you actually say?"
Well here it is, for the first time. Some of it historic but much of it I hope, an insight into the workings of Fleet Street and News International, our failings, our future and our need to reform.
Since then, I have gone on to launch TalentGB, an on-line directory of artistes' showreels.
Tonight, I stand before you
in the vortex of the most cataclysmic storm in the history of newspapers.
I’d like to start by giving
you an idea of what it’s like to be caught up in this storm. And then analyse
how we arrived at this crisis before outlining how I believe only a wholesale
tabloid revolution will save this part of our industry from extinction.
I will also discuss why I
believe it is important that we have a flourishing tabloid industry,
illustrating it with examples such as the cricket match fixing expose, the
jailing of Jeffrey Archer for perjury and the David Beckham scoop, all of which
won major industry awards.
In the interests of
balance, I’ll also include perhaps the most famous example of where it was
perceived we got it spectacularly wrong – the Max Mosley expose.
For the past three years,
four of the country’s most powerful institutions have been ranged against us
and, on occasions, all at once against me.
The first is Scotland Yard.
Many of my former colleagues at News International – and myself included – are
on bail as the biggest police operation in British criminal history, investigates
allegations of phone hacking, corruption and perverting the course of justice.
The second is the
Judiciary. The Leveson Inquiry is scrutinising journalistic ethics and
practices and looks set to impose upon us independent, external regulation.
The third is Parliament and
in particular, the Culture, Media and Sport select committee, which has
conducted a lengthy investigation and concluded there was a huge cover-up on
phone hacking at News International at the highest levels of the business. And
they have branded Rupert Murdoch as being unfit to run a major international
company.
At the Cambridge Union
Finally, there is the
Press. Even some of my colleagues in the media have mounted aggressive
investigations into News International’s working practices, leveling damning
allegations against it – some true, some false.
At times I have felt more
than a little overwhelmed to have such a powerful group of institutions firing
their guns at me – Scotland Yard, Parliament, the Judiciary and the Press. And
then finally, last September when it unfairly dismissed me, my employer of
20-odd years, News International.
Normally, when someone cries,
“Everyone’s out to get me!”, we dismiss them as paranoid, delusional fools.
When I say it, people say, “Hey that’s not true Nev. Your mum quite likes you!”
Last week on Radio 4’s PM
programme, Eddie Mair caught me on the hop when he pressed me over and over to
reveal my mental state because of all this. I nonchalantly replied that I was,
“Just soldiering on”.
If the truth be told, last
September, when my back was firmly against the wall and the firing squad was
assembled in front of me, a huge black cloud appeared above my head, Eeyore
style.
In fact, I reached such a
nadir of gloom, as to make King Lear sound like an hysterical optimist, under
the influence of laughing gas.
There are only a few places
where you can get away with a gag like that!
With apologies to Tom
Sharpe for misquoting him.
For me, turmoil has become
the new ‘normal’. When tranquility eventually returns, I expect I’ll be
slightly spooked by the whole idea.
Sadly, for some of my
colleagues, the pressure has proved too much. Three have attempted suicide. And
there have been two heart attacks, one, tragically, fatal.
So there you have the crisis
in a nutshell. For me personally, for my profession and for our industry as a
whole.
We in the print media are
at a crossroads and if we choose to carry on the path we have trodden so
doggedly and in the same clothes, for more than a century, tabloid newspapers
will cease to exist in a generation.
The bond of trust with our
readers has been shattered over the past few years. And our style and presence
is antiquated.
In the days of the
internet, tablets, blackberrys, iPhones and apps, it strikes me as odd that a
tabloid newspaper is an often damp piece of paper shoved through our letter
boxes by a schoolboy on a bike at 7am to be read by dad on the train. Let’s
face it, we’re hardly cutting edge.
And if our readers don’t
like the tone of what they read or don’t trust it, they will keep falling away
in the millions until paper upon paper, we fail and vanish from the streets.
So back to the crossroads.
We carry on our well trodden path at our peril. To survive, we must alter our
course.
If we don’t, Lord Justice
Leveson, wielding his mighty power, buttressed by Prime Ministerial patronage,
will surely foist it upon us.
To agree with this position
I realise you need to accept the need for reform exists. You either do or you
don’t. I do.
The Leveson Inquiry should
be the spark that ignites a tabloid revolution.
In fact, without radical
reform, tabloid newspapers will slowly fade from any meaningful prominence in
our lives. They are dying as we speak.
I am a huge admirer of our
industry. And a fierce and loyal protector of those who inhabit it. But I am
not blind to our ancient style and tactics which make us an anachronism on the
modern media landscape. Privately, I know many of us feel this way.
The need to modernise and
revolutionise our technology – iPads, paid-for internet content etc – I’ll
argue for later in this talk.
But the case for tone and
style has been largely overlooked.
Tabloids which were once
merely strident and bold have stepped over the edge, inhabiting dark agendas of
hate and gratuitous criticism.
We are like the cocky bigot
at the dinner party. Embarrassing and out of step with the assembled guests who
thought they had invited Mark Zuckerberg but got Sid James instead.
Tabloids are losing the
bond of trust and loyalty with their readers, especially the young who see our
tone and style as crass, heavy handed and old fashioned.
To the under 25s, we are as
cutting edge as Alvar Lidell reading the BBC news on the wireless in a dinner
jacket.
Vicious character
assassinations, bogus public interest defences, gross invasions of privacy,
sensational misleading headlines, cliché ridden copy. They don’t like the cut
of our jib. And they don’t buy us in numbers that matter anymore.
How many of you here buy
and read any newspaper as opposed to reading one on line?
And you are among the most
literate and inquisitive people in our country. But you are in your teens and
early twenties most of you.
You don’t like the cut of
our jib.
And after a raft of phone
hacking admissions and allegations, we are no longer seen as the gruff but
dependable watchdog.
The dog developed a vicious
bite, attacked the readers and they no longer want him in their home.
But we cannot simply
transfer our existing tabloid model onto the new, burgeoning technology in much
the same way as the BBC could not hope to modernise itself by putting
brilliantined old Alvar on their website.
To do so will see the
continued, inexorable decline in our readership and our inevitable demise.
Our industry desperately
needs to find a new voice if it wants to continue being heard.
Leveson will provide a once
in a lifetime opportunity for us to look at ourselves squarely in the mirror
and see all our faults and foibles laid bare and put them right. We delude ourselves
if we look in this mirror and believe we are still, “the fairest of them all”.
The criticisms which have
been hurled our way are sometimes exaggerated, and often one-sided. But many
are painfully accurate.
We need to rein in our
worst excesses, re-establish a bond of trust with the reader and refine each
newspaper’s unique personality and attitude which has remained frozen since the
1950s and 60s.
It is not just our public
face which needs modernising. Many tabloid newspapers are antediluvian to their
hidden cores and management styles are of another age.
I still cringe at the
memory of one poor freelance who was on a shift and a little late with some
copy. In full earshot of the office, the executive walked over to her desk and
told her: “Put your coat on, go home, don’t come back.”
Another gimlet-eyed
executive told a well respected staffer being sent on a big buy-up: “Your
wife’s just had a baby, you have a big mortgage, don’t f*** up! You need this
job.”
And I am unable to forgive
News International for making one of our most respected and valued colleagues
redundant when his young wife was battling a life threatening illness.
Staff brutality like this
takes place on a regular basis. When I was news editor, I was asked to attend
several News International seminars organised by HR where the chief theme was,
“How to Sack Your Staff and Not Give Them a Pay-off”.
The irony of that, given my
current position, is not lost on me!
I console myself with the
memory of being called as a witness to one sacking and telling them, in
front of their intended victim, exactly what I thought of their bogus
'disciplinary'.
For more than quarter of a
century, trade unions have not been recognized at News International and it
shows.
Although I can never claim to
have been bullied at work, I witnessed countless others who were. And that
climate of fear can create a culture of risk and rule bending in the interests
of self-preservation.
The case for the National
Union of Journalists gaining a strong foothold back in News International has
never been stronger and I urge all my colleagues there to ensure that it is.
I expect Leveson to push
all our problems to the surface and we ignore them at our peril.
It remains to be seen if
the Inquiry is up to the job of course but we must hope that it is.
I have a few criticisms.
A few random, crank
witnesses seem to have been called merely because they are visible. One was an
industry outsider who loathes tabloid journalism. Everything he related to the
Inquiry was based on supposition and hearsay. The fact that he had written a
book based on all of this seemed bizarrely to qualify him as an expert
witness. And the Inquiry lapped up his bile.
But it was a reporter’s
appearance which did most to damage the credibility of Leveson and his team.
They smiled indulgently as
he poured out his vicious parody of tabloid journalism. Worse, they failed to
step in when he began to hurl unfounded allegations against Rebekah Brooks and
Andy Coulson, seriously prejudicing any possible criminal proceedings against
them.
When I took the stand and
offered an alternative account, it was met with sneers.
The Leveson Inquiry must
avoid at all costs the nervous belief that its raison d'être will only been
served if it finds fault with us and that many millions of pounds of public
funds will have been wasted if he concludes nothing is amiss in the tabloid
world.
Certainly, Lord Justice
Leveson looked strangely unfamiliar with our management structures when he
appeared bewildered by my assertion that a chief reporter would have no
influence upon whether or not video footage of Max Mosley should be up-loaded
to our website and whether Mr Mosley should or should not be contacted prior to
publication.
That would be like me
assuming it will be one of Lord Justice Leveson’s solicitors who will be
reaching conclusions, making recommendations and writing a report when the
Inquiry ends and not the learned man himself.
The Inquiry needs to get a
firm grip on how newspaper decisions are made and who makes them if it is to
have any real understanding of how our industry works and make any meaningful
criticisms of it.
It is perhaps too much for us to expect a blemish
free Inquiry during thousands of hours and millions of spoken and written
words.
The calibre and quality of
the Leveson Inquiry team is impeccable.
But they must ensure they
give no-one the excuse to brand it a “circus” or “anti-tabloid”, words which
have already been bandied about a little too often.
We need a
tabloid press. It is a massive force for good, as the Daily Mail’s bold
coverage of the Stephen Lawrence murder has shown.
We need Leveson to allow us
to see ourselves as we are, to move on and reform. And there must be the desire
within us to do so.
But he must ensure the
mirror he holds before us is shining and true and not a twisted fairground
distortion.
Lord Justice Leveson may help us alter our style
and approach – the cut of our jib. But he can’t alter the platform upon we
display our wares. The piece of paper shoved through our letter box, or a nice
shiny tablet with lots of apps.
It is the shiny tablet which will replace us. And
paid-for websites. More of this later.
Last week, the Culture, Media and Sport select
committee published its report into phone hacking at the News of the World and
it plunged New International – which controls 40 per cent of the national press
– into further turmoil.
Some of the top executives at the News of the World
and News International were branded as orchestrating a cover-up and withholding
information from the committee, raising the possibility of being found in
contempt of Parliament.
But the most damning and damaging finding was that
Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corporation, News International’s parent
company, was unfit to run a major corporation.
This is a dangerous parliamentary precedent and one
which imperils not only the tabloid industry, but the whole freedom of the
press.
The decision was split rigidly along party lines
with the Labour party members leading the charge to trash the reputation of the
most successful media mogul in mine or anyone else’s lifetime.
It’s no surprise to learn that Labour is still
bitter about losing Murdoch’s backing at the last election.
Powerful, successful industry magnates, including
multi billionaire media moguls, have always divided public opinion. Murdoch has
always been a bogeyman of the left.
But when our politicians allow their prejudices to
cloud their judgement and overstep their remit by potentially weakening the
leader and creator of the biggest section of the free press in the world, we
are entering dangerous waters.
It is up to the readers and ultimately the
shareholders, to decide whether Rupert Murdoch is a fit and proper person to
run News Corporation – not disgruntled, dogma ridden politicians.
Let us not forget, if it were not for Murdoch, the
Times and the Sunday Times would not exist. These great British institutions
would have closed 30 years ago for good.
Over the years, Murdoch has pumped hundreds of millions
of pounds into these loss making products to keep them afloat.
I wonder which other multi-billionaire media mogul
with an overwhelming desire to burn millions of pounds every year do they
imagine will want to take his place if Murdoch sells up and ships out?
And if the Labour members of the CMS committee
believe they were doing the British press a favour by attempting to hole
Murdoch below the waterline, they were naive in the extreme.
The British press is in enough peril as it is,
without our elected politicians manufacturing a further crisis.
An extreme example of political function being
contaminated by personal prejudice came during my meeting with Tom Watson, a
member of the CMS committee at my home in October last year.
As we explored a way for me to provide written
evidence to the committee’s inquiry into phone hacking, one story made his ears
prick up.
He was keen to know if he had been placed under
surveillance.
I informed him, in the strictest confidence that
News International executives (not News the World executives you will note) had
ordered round the clock surveillance on members of the CMS committee when it
began its investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World.
But all the reporters involved had balked at the
idea, considering it to be espionage, not journalism. The journalists sabotaged
the plan through by deliberate procrastination and the plan was shelved.
Mr Watson entered my home an MP. An hour later he
left a best selling author.
He broke our confidential pact, sold his committee
credentials down the river and published the information in his book. Mr Watson
was willing to risk a lot of professional opprobrium if it meant he could
further damage Murdoch, who was unaware of the jettisoned plot in the first
place.
This is a further example of how politicians should
be regarded with scepticism when they pronounce on the merits of Rupert Murdoch
and his stewardship of his newspapers. Much of it is born from
self-aggrandisement or else springs from immature left wing dogma spouted in
the less sophisticated Junior Common Rooms which roughly goes, “I am a
socialist – therefore I must believe all policemen are facists, Princess Diana
was killed by the Duke of Edinburgh and Rupert Murdoch eats babies for
breakfast”.
The revelation however,
does illustrate one of the most vicious attempts at character assassination in
the history of British journalism.
And it was the executives
at News International – not the News of the World - who tried to orchestrate it
in order to glean negative information about the MPs’ personal lives in order
to embarrass and discredit them and make them back off from their inquiry.
It was an appallingly
misjudged plan and a shameful chapter in News International’s history. But
there are dozens of similar examples I could site over the past 20 years where
News International has tried to manipulate events in a similar fashion.
Earlier this year, the
company used a hideous expression to describe their internal clean-up operation
on their newspapers. They said they were, “draining the swamp”.
And there has been a
consistent attempt by News International to try to clean its own face by
distancing itself from the News of the World and pretending all the company’s
problems are buried in the newspaper’s coffin to quietly rot and disappear.
This is akin to arguing
that it wasn’t Richard Nixon who was responsible for Watergate but the agents
who planted the bugs.
The “swamp”, if that’s what
News International wish to call it, was designed by them, polluted by them and infested
by them.
We may spend hours debating
how newspapers should change and alter course. But we may as well save our
breath, if the companies which own them remain so machiavellian in their
approach yet pretend they are innocent bystanders.
It is not the newspapers
which are the swamps but the companies which run them, rule them and govern
them.
However, we are noticing a softening around the
edges since the Leveson Inquiry began.
The Sun’s Sunday edition has lost a lot of the News
of the World’s hard edges. There are certainly fewer investigations into
people’s private lives.
Whether that is a good or a bad thing is a matter
for debate. But the softer edged Sun is still selling more than 2 million
copies a week and is just an infant publication. So the readers obviously
approve.
Has anyone ever noticed that since the closure of
the News of the World, no MPs have had any extra marital affairs?
OK, so the scandal content has gone down and the
softer, female friendly story count has gone up, coaxing in thousands upon
thousands of women readers who had shunned the News of the World which focused
heavily on engaging with male readers.
Many now see the Sun’s Sunday edition as being a
paper they would feel happy to leave out on the coffee table for the kids to read,
whereas the same could not be traditionally said of the News of the World which
specialized in exposing the dark, seamy side of life.
Other newspapers are beginning to show restraint in
their news coverage. I doubt we will ever see the gratuitous and appalling
vilification of Christopher Jeffries again.
Mr Jeffries, a neighbour of Joanna Yeates, a young
woman murdered in Bristol, was branded a main suspect and his life turned
upside down – his only crime his eccentricity and an uncanny resemblance to the
late Quentin Crisp.
This is when Fleet Street turns feral. And the
readers don’t like it. Under the scrutiny of Lord Justice Leveson’s microscope,
this has been made abundantly clear to us all.
The outright hostility to the McCanns by certain
sections of the press has also highlighted how dark agendas pollute papers and
poison readers.
The twisted insinuation that this grieving couple
had some involvement in the death of their daughter Madeleine was one of the
most offensive newspaper agendas in recent times.
If you go onto twitter you will see the legacy of
that offensive and discredited news agenda – thousands of misinformed members
of the public who still obsessively believe Gerry and Kate to be guilty.
That section of the press has added to the already
intolerable burden of pain endured by the McCanns.
Like phone hacking, dark agendas such as these have
no place in modern newspapers. The public don’t like it. They may not force
them to break their reading habit and cancel their subscriptions. But they we
will not persuade the new generation of readers – people like yourselves – to
buy us in any significant numbers. You don’t like it and you won’t accept it.
There have been hundreds of cases like Christopher
Jeffries and the McCanns over the decades. Since the Leveson Inquiry began,
editors have been exercising a restraining hand.
When Leveson has finished, we need to maintain this
new dawn of enlightenment or face extinction as the new generation of
internet-savvy readers go to the web for their many sources of news.
The regard to matters of privacy has been drawn
into sharper focus of course since the News of the World published its
investigation into Max Mosley’s sado-masochistic orgies with call girls.
I was the author of that story and it was to have
huge ramifications for the industry, far beyond what we could have ever
expected.
Mr Justice Eady ruled that we had breached his
privacy because there was no evidence of a Nazi theme in the orgies. It was, in
his opinion, a common or garden orgy and therefore his business alone and no
one else’s.
We disagreed. We argued there were multiple
examples of a Nazi theme running throughout and as the elected head of the FIA,
his 100 million members, many of whom would have been Jews, had a right to
know. We fervently believed we had the strongest possible public interest
defence.
We lost and had to pay him £60,000 in damages, a
record for a breach of privacy case.
This had a chilling effect on newspaper
investigations and since then, many have held back if there is even the
remotest chance of a privacy action.
Many outside the industry see this as a good thing.
If there is a positive to take out of the Mosley
case, it is that it has helped editors sharpen their focus on matters of
privacy.
And it may, inadvertently end up giving the readers
the softer tabloid I believe they, especially the younger readers, prefer.
Lest anyone think I am taking credit for this, let
me say this is purely down to the ruling of Mr Justice Eady and the tenacious
Mr Mosley.
So how do we modernise?
I have identified our tone and style as being
antiquated and out of step with the youth of today.
But also, the medium by which we transmit our news
– this piece of paper shoved through the letter box by the schoolboy after
being loaded onto juggernauts and transported by road around the country.
It’s primitive, archaic, inefficient and involves
huge cost.
I don’t think we will see it survive the next 10 or
15 years.
Very soon, with newspapers uploading increasing
amounts of content on-line, the rise in the use of tablets and apps, very soon
newspapers will become obsolete.
Already, reading a newspaper app on a tablet is an
enjoyable experience. It’s clean and clear and to the many millions of us who
now spend our lives on screen, the format is more familiar.
In order to survive, newspapers must throw as much
finance as they possible can into increasing the quality of their on-line
presence to capture the younger generation of readers who will decide the fate
of our industry in the next decade.
Those who fail to do so, and many newspapers are
guilty of this, will be the ones who fall by the wayside.
The future of newspaper journalism in Britain will
be forged in the furnace of revolutionary technology and invention and fierce
on-line competition and those who don’t like the heat will melt from the scene.
Already we can see the superb quality of the Daily
Mail’s formidable on-line presence which overshadows all its tabloid rivals,
many of whom appear not to be even in the race yet.
The Times, with News International’s bold move to
charge for on-line access, is surely the financial business model all must
eventually follow.
Journalism is an extremely costly business and
cannot be given away free.
This is where the BBC is at a huge advantage to its
competitors. Its excellent news website is produced at great cost. But it is
funded by the licence payer.
If it remains free to access during this do or die
revolution, which I maintain will decide the future of our newspaper industry
in the next few years, it could hasten the demise of some of our most historic
titles.
The playing field has to be leveled and the
regulators need to take a serious look at the BBC’s free news website and
decide whether it enjoys a grossly unfair and destructive advantage in the
market place. I believe it does.
Tabloid newspapers, when they are properly run and
responsibly edited are a massive force for good.
We only have to look at the biggest stories of the
past few years to see that. The News of the World investigation into Jeffrey
Archer saw the author and Peer jailed for perjury. The Pakistani cricket, match
fixing scandal was also exposed by the News of the World. And the Daily Mail’s
remorseless campaign to see justice for Stephen Lawrence finally put his
killers behind bars last year.
Ladies and gentlemen our future is in this very
room and if this list is to carry on, we must radically reform and move with
growing confidence to embrace all that technology can offer and ensure our
tabloid industry, which was once the envy of the world, is once again a beacon
of truth which you would want to read. And you would be proud to work for.
.
