One thing the British do not whinge about – unlike Australians — is their newspapers.
And why would they? The British Press is a wonderful beast, or should I say beasts. And there is another reason for the lack of whinge which will I explain anon.
For the past couple of weeks, I have been sampling the best and the worst of it. Some days, I am sure, I was the only person in Britain to have bought a copy of both The Times and the Daily Star – the opposite ends of the British national press.
Britain has 10 national dailies: five broadsheet, serious papers; two midbrow tabloids; and three red-top shocker tabloids.
The Daily Star, was called, by someone I knew who worked on it, the Daily Bonk. (He was a football writer.) The Bonk does not even have a veneer of news. Rather it has some splinters and chaff of news inside; the veneer is the smooth semi-clad woman on the front cover who sells the paper.
The bits of news inside give the Daily Star sufficient respectability for nearly a million people to buy it. If anyone wants porn there is any amount of it on the internet and in cling-wrapped magazines in newsagents. But that is a different market. There is still a very large market in “respectable”, soft porn bought under the guise of a daily paper which can be read – or ogled at – in public and in, at least some, family homes.
Like all British newspapers it is full of headlines that play on words. The Bonk’s lead story on the day I bought it (for purely research purposes) was headed “CLINIC FOR TXT MANIACS”.
The rest of the paper’s content between semi-clad women (more pictures downloadable to your mobile, can you believe) is full of stars, diets, a little royalty and any number of lurid sex-assault cases beefed up with time and place references downgraded; “Leeds Crown Court was told recently.”
The Bonk is an easy target, but Britons should take is seriously. It is eating into the circulation of the other two red-top tabloids – the leftist Mirror and Rupert Murdoch’s conservative Sun.
The Bonk (started in 1975) was up 30 per cent to 870,000 in the year ended to June 30, 2003. The Daily Mirror was down 8 per cent to 1,948,000 and The Sun (started in 1964) was down half a percent to 3,509,000. Detestably simplistic though they may be, at least the Mirror and the Sun give their readers some political news and always written in succinct, grammatical English.
Next up are the midbrow tabloids, for people with middle incomes and middle education. These (and the five serious broadsheets) all started in the 18th and 19th century. The Daily Mail, on 2,413,000, and the Express, on 940,000, appeal to a middle mass of respectable, middle-class people. They shout a bit, but there are no tits. Their opinion pieces are didactic, rather than well argued. Their readers would nod agreement and vote — Conservative.
They both report criminals being given lenient sentences amid families’ anguish; the elderly being denied medical treatment; and the zealousness of the bureaucracy.
It is all neatly summed up in the heading on a Daily Express editorial this month: “Bureaucracy should never prevent justice being done.”
Just nod; there is no need to read the words under the heading.
The five serious broadsheets, for people with higher incomes and higher education, have a combined circulation of less than that of The Sun. But their advertisements – which finance the journalism – are far more lucrative because they reach a market with more disposable income and more expensive tastes
The Financial Times (463,000) appeals to business. It is a business tool not a newspaper – full of indices and projections to help people make money.
The Times is establishment conservative. Its circulation dropped 10 per cent to the end of last financial year to 632,000, mainly through pulling out of circulation wars where it gave papers away at silly prices.
The Daily Telegraph is old duffer, rabid conservative. Its circulation is dying, but still at the top of the broadsheets at 915,000. Everything is a Labour tax plot. But it remains the best “news” paper. It reports more news in straight reporting style than any other paper in Britain.
The Guardian is saving the world. It gives proper attention to the environment and Aids in Africa by leading the paper with them – often. It is bought by men with beards wearing jumpers and anoraks, and grey women who don’t wear make up. It has a good business section, though. After all, the sort of people who can afford to have a social conscience and the time to wallow in it, invariably have shares and property.
Every daily has a suite of high profile columnists and/or gossip writers whose picture bylines are bigger than or almost as big as the headlines they write under.
Lastly, The Independent. It is faltering, alas. It now sells 220,000. But for me, it is the best of the lot, with The Times a close second. It matters not whether they are in the original broadsheet or in the new, optional tabloid format; the words are the same. In The Independent, as well as good reportage, you get an argument well argued. And it can come from left, right or centre.
And therein lies the rub. That is my sort of paper. I can buy it and have no cause for complaint.
In Australia, The Australian’s arguments will not surprise me: earnest Paul Kelly and Greg Sheridan telling me the merits of the American alliance. In The Canberra Times, I will have to turn through pages of Year 10 and Year 12 formals and other soft news to get to the op-ed page which is invariably of a high standard and eclectic enough always to be interesting. In The Sydney Morning Herald I will have to turn through pages of Sydney council wrangling to get to the same thing.
On the other hand, other consumers of Australian papers will bemoan wads of boring politics, opinion pieces and foreign news getting the way of sport, and who is shagging who in the entertainment world. In Britain they could buy the Bonk.
It is a product of geography and economics. When newspapers began it was not possible in Australia (or the US or Canada) for a newspaper to attempt to serve the whole nation. In the tiny island that is Britain, with a good train service, a paper printed in London could be on the breakfast table throughout the nation.
So, Australian papers tend to try to be all things to all people in a single small geographic area; whereas the British papers pander to their particular political and economic segment throughout the whole nation.
As Aesop would testify, trying to please all can result in pleasing none. The British approve their papers. They buy and nod. They are the converted being preached to.
A good recent example was the coverage of a proposal that traffic wardens (parking inspectors) be given the power to issue tickets for other traffic infringements – illegal U-turns and the like. And traffic is a national issue in this tiny island.
In news, commentary and editorial opinion, The Sun, the Daily Express and the Daily Mail went into bat for brow-beaten motorists – their constituency, who all nodded in approval. The Daily Telegraph and The Times saw it as another form of Labour tax. The Independent thought it might relieve the strain on police and ease congestion.
The Guardian wrung its hands and dithered. We hate environmentally destructive cars, but there are civil liberties issues, besides most of the traffic wardens are black and isn’t there a question of racism here that the ugly rich white male motorist does not like being told what to do by a black traffic warden.
Each reader had empathy with the paper. There was no cause to whinge.
I fully expected to find a topless traffic warden in the Bonk, but despite my quite thorough research, I could not find one.