Media Matters Stephen Glover
His attacks on the ‘print barons’ are outdated – and thin-skinned
For months Jeremy Corbyn has been the subject of spirited criticism, mostly, but not exclusively, in the Right-wing press. It has been shown that he has rubbed shoulders with people who want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. His presence at a wreath-laying ceremony in Tunis in honour of Palestinian terrorists (though arguably not his participation) has also been established. And disagreeable comments by him, suggesting that British ‘Zionists’ lack any sense of English irony despite having lived here all their lives, have been unearthed. By the way, the Labour leader is surely the last person on earth qualified to pontificate about irony.
In short, Corbyn has been given a thorough going-over by the press, which has led to his being called an anti-semite by some of his backbenchers and the former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sachs. No doubt he is upset and aggrieved. He does not share his critics’ assessment that he is an anti-semite. But if he were a wise man, he would have desisted from laying into the newspapers which have so effectively exposed his allegiances. Corbyn is not wise.
During a recent speech in Edinburgh, he resumed his previous attacks on the evil ‘print barons’ without mentioning that their publications have been giving him a very hard time. It was impossible to separate his animus against the press from his treatment at its hands. Listening to Corbyn declaring that ‘we must also break the stranglehold of elite power and billionaire domination over large parts of our media’ was rather like hearing a recidivist jailbird grumbling about the forces of law and order.
He did not explain exactly what breaking the stranglehold of the press barons might entail, other than to suggest that it would be a good idea for journalists to elect their editors, and for workers and readers to have seats on the boards of newspapers. That seems a pretty intrusive step – some of these workers and readers would presumably be hard Left members of Momentum – and we can be sure that, if he is ever given the chance, Corbyn will go much further in controlling newspapers in ways he is at present too shy to enlarge upon.
Like much of what he thinks, his views about press barons are stuck in the past. He accepted in his speech that newspapers have a circulation and commercial crisis but did not draw the obvious conclusion that their owners are much less powerful than they used to be. (He even blamed them for dwindling sales.) In Corbyn’s anachronistic bonce, press barons are like men such as Northcliffe or Beaverbrook. Newspapers ‘too often set the broadcast agenda’. (He would like also to run a broom through the BBC.)
The truth is that Rupert Murdoch has limited control over the Times, though not over the declining Sun; Lord Rothermere allowed Paul Dacre to edit the Daily Mail as he chose to (and sometimes in opposition to Rothermere’s own beliefs); and the Barclay brothers, proprietors of the flagging Telegraph titles, have been weak and ineffectual.
At the best of times, politicians have no business telling newspapers how they should conduct themselves. Their only proper role is to resist monopoly power. Corbyn went much further in his speech than any politician in living memory. His wish to ‘reduce the power of media bosses and owners in the private sector’ can only be interpreted as a desire to restrict the freedom of the press to criticise him and his supporters, whether for alleged anti-semitism or anything else.
Isn’t that sinister? And yet these appalling threats from a man who may be our next prime minister passed almost without disapproving comment in the British media.
Readers of this column will be familiar with the melancholy story of the seemingly inexorable decline in newspaper circulation.
But there is one sphere where the printed word is bucking the trend – upmarket magazines. The latest ABC sales figures confirm that these publications are doing extremely well.
The Economist increased its UK circulation by eight per cent year-onyear. The Spectator (excluding Australia) was up by 11 per cent, while the Times Literary Supplement rose by a whopping 17 per cent. And The Oldie, too, has had a small circulation increase over the period.
Some upmarket magazines suffered a modest decline in sales, though the Week reported a more substantial 12 per cent loss. On the other hand, the Week Junior, launched in 2015, turned in a 29 per cent circulation spurt year-on-year.
Many newspaper journalists understandably mourn the tendency of some readers to desert newsprint in favour of the often less engaging screen. Yet for readers of grown-up magazines, the physical object retains its attraction. No doubt this is largely because such publications have a longer shelf life than daily newspapers. Reports of the death of the printed word have been much exaggerated.