Dr. Ab.,hflIlOIi is i"timately fl/miliar with 6 inside fvorki'llfl of the British 1)rr.:<~, h,wing SpOilt mOllY ywrs of his jourllalistic care r ill Ellylulld. THE BRITISH PRESS By K. H. AI3 'HAGE~ HE Brit,ish press, as we see it today, -there were in London two daily papers differs in lUany ways from the press with circulations of o"er 2 millions, four T of the countries of the European others with roughly I! millions ach, and {'ont.inent., t.he principal ditIerence being ono approaching the 1 million mark. that in (:rcat Britain t.he prcss as a whole has lost it character of an organ of "NATIONAL" NEWSPAPI':RS national politics. This does not mean Kotwithstanding its se"e/\ or eight that there are no political newspapers in million inhabitants, London can naturally the Briti h Isles or that the majority of nut absorb these enormOllil {'irculations. the pnpcrs do not represent political This leads us to an interesting phenome­ views of a kind. But the main source non, viz., that the big London dailies cater of the forces moving the British press is for the news demands not only of tbe to be found nowadays not iu the political metropolis but of the whole of the United int.cntions of the owners or controlling Kingdom. The London morning p:tpers interests of most of the newspapers, but are called "national newspapers," a. nAme in t.he openly admitted intention of earn­ which does not by any meallS imply a ing money by means of newspaper pub­ national or nationalist policy on the part lishing. The press in Great Britain has of these papers but only stresses their become primarily a busine s propo ition, nation-wido distribution. This distribu­ it is regarded as an "industry." tion requires a highly developed trans­ Way of making money by newspaper port system by rail, roau, and ship. publishing can in the final analysis be This system has been organized on a. reduced to two factors: circulation and collective basis by the Newspaper Pro­ advertisement.s. It is the latter which pl'ietors' Association, which runs special really bring in the money, as the low newspaper trains and motor trucks, en­ retail price of one penny cannot even gages distribution agents in big and small cover the cost of paper and printing, let localities, etc., the members of the As­ alone editorial and overhead expenses. sociation sharing in tho cost of the But the attraction of a jOlunal to poten­ organization according to the number of tial ad"ertisers depends on the quantity copies of their journals handled by the and quality of its readers, and in the services of the Association. case of mass-production goods it is chiefly In spite of the fact that all the mem­ the number of the readers that counts. bers compete with eat'b other, friction haA Circulation is therefore an essential prem­ occurred very rarely. Among th ex­ ise of gaining advert,isement.. The ever­ ceptions may be mentioned the case of lasting Oattie for circulation dominates the Sunday Referee a few years before the new paper life of Creat Britain. It t.he outbreak of the present war. The has led to the elimination of many once paper was at that time owned by the famous newspapers and to the riso of film magnate Isidore Ostrer, who trien to jourmdtl with Cil'cuIntioDs which would advertise his journal by mea.ns of an ha'~e b 'n regarded as fantastic less than extensive broadc~tillg program, on the a generat.ion a o. In 19:.19- ·i.nce the American model, in Engli h from Radio outbreak of \Vorld \Var l[ no exa t cir­ Lu_xembul'g, rented by him for t.his pur­ culation figw'es have oeen maue available puse. Th~ comoirmtion of radio and 406 THE XXth CENTURY newspaper was regarded by the majority thaJl one edition every da.y. Although of the newspaper proprietors as a threat a morning papcr and an evening paper to the interests of the pres. in general may very often be published by the and, as Ostrer refused to yield, the As­ same firm, both paper will have their sociation excluded the Sunday Referee sepu,rate identities, usuaUy not only in from its transport and distribution serv­ name but also in character and in editorial ices. The circulation of the paper­ staff (although it happens that some of neyer very important-dwindled rapidly, tho collaborators do work for several and in the end Ostrer sold the paper, papers published by the same firm). which was then amalgaml1,ted with the Generally speaking, the morning papers Sunday Chronicle belonging to the Allied carry the weightier stuff. Foreign and Newspapers group. imperial news as well as the morc im­ As another instance of the power portant items of internal politics will, as of th~ Newspaper Proprietors' As­ a rule, be dealt with in their columns. sociation it may be mentioned that, up The evening papers, although they, too, to the time of the Anglo-Soviet alliance contain "hot" political news, if and as in 1941, it consistently refused to admit far as such is available, specialize in re­ the only Communist daily, the Daily ports on sports events, local atfair!', and Worker, to its membership and services, social gossip. Many of them also cater thus making the distribution of the Com­ for the entertainment of various das es munist paper extremely difl'icult and of readers by publishing short stories, expensive. serialized novels, book reviews, etc. The evening papers published in London serve So the newspaper reader in all of the metropolis and its surrounding.' only, Great Britain from Land's End to John thus leaving the field in the province, in O'Groats, and in tbe bigger cities of the evening, to local journals. Compared Northern Ireland, finds his London paper with seven popuJal' morning papers with on his breakfast table; 111'ld the priee is an aggrega.te daily circulation (in 1939) the i'ame everywhere, one penny in the of about 11 millions, we find only three case of the popular daily papers, twopence evening paper::; in the metropoli;; witb a for the voluminous Sunday papers with ci.rcllh~tion of together SOllle It millions. 10 to 32 pages of text. PROVIKClAL AND EVE~L.'W JOURNALS Newspllper publishing of such scope and size requires enormous capital. In Only comparat,ively few provincial ~n article published in the Daily 1'elegraph morning papers of any importance have in May 1939, Lord Camrose, the control­ succeeded in survh7"ing the competition ling shareholder of the paper, estimated of the "national" morning papers centered the value of the land, buildings, and in London. This is understandable, as plant belonging to the Daily Telegraph the enormou circulations allow the latter Company-all of which he describes as to engage the services of first-cia" s edi­ necessary for the actual production of torird stafJs and news services against the paper-at, £1,300,000, adding that which pro\'ineial papers of moderate cir­ the capital assets of the four so-called culation and means cannot hope to "popular" ne\\'spapers (those with cir­ ('Olllpete succcssfuLly. Those morning culations of It to over 2 millions) are papers in the provinces which did sUl"vive proba.bly very much more. The majority 0\0\'0 their further ex istence \\itll few of the big London papers are publisrlCd exceptions to the fact that they were by public companies whose preference takell over by big llewspa.pol.' combines sba.res are widely distributed in the wwcb arc able to supply them with public, while a controlling interest in the articlE:'~ lWei report.s comptuable ill quality ordinary stock is usually in the hands of to t hose of t.he London press. one or a few persons who direct the The British pre'S8 docs not have the editorial policy of t,he paper or pap~rs institution of papers published in more cOLlcerned. THE BRITISH l'HE,'S ·107 NEW,PAPER AXD POLlTIC ti_er~' circle enforcpc! an emhar 0 on all reports about thr ncti\'itic,.. ot" the Britif;h The bu in eham tel' of most, of t hc l'nion of Fa.cists led by :-iiI' 0 'wRld Rritish n w, pap 'rs find p<.Lrticularly of )lo,'leY and secured a cOlllpll'te \'ietor)' th 'popular" t1aili '. makes it cxtr mely O\'cr Lord ,otherrll re whell ill 1934 the difficult if not ill1pu~"iIJIl' for tile mcn at J the helm to follow a con;<istcnt political latter carnc u openly with hi'" Daily J/ail in support uf 'ir Oswald )lo>1le)', line, On the whole, rxp'riencl' :'l'l'm" to 13\' threafenil1C' t·u withdraw 011 the'ir !>how tLat the j>ublisller;:; of Briti:;h ncws­ C'on~rM'ts paper,: ra her than try to inUuen their I\('tverti:::ing frum th Daily J/Il!l and its "st a b.lc COlll panions "th 'unday r ackr" politil'Hlly, k('ep t.hpir ars \-er.... patch 11:\(1 tit,. EI' JYeu", they r10!>C' to t lit' ground in order to ru ss thc 1J; 11111g brc>uO'ht Lord Rot hcrmere to heel within likes fi.nd di.~likes of tlit' gcneral Jlublic 1'0 o a few weeks, thc ]Jaily ,Mail giving up H. not to utTend any illlportant ;,;cction, because that would lH' tantamount to it' slipp"rt of thl' H.Ll-'" as Fuddenly 10"il1g eorre:>p Jl(Ji.ng numher;,; f sub­ it had tllkC'n up thc Fa.