Interesting mervyn. So you would know all about the Wapping days and the subterfuge involved in Murdoch bringing in strike-breaking Australians pretending to start another newspaper but introducing computerisation undercover. All heavily supported by Margaret Thatcher. It was a key moment for the Murdoch Empire, which has done so much damage to public culture and democracy. And yes, paper is still around and thriving on other continents in particular.
Although newspapers weren’t my sector, it was hard not to be aware of what the two b……rds Murdoch and Maxwell did to ruin many livelihoods. I had many acquaintances whose pensions were literally stolen by Maxwell, causing them to have to work well into their seventies to recover.
Antipodean, until the lockdown it was more myth than reality, but people working at home over lockdown and now typically working from home a few days a week needed to and still need to be paperless to make that work and what was a myth is now a reality - certainly in the legal profession, which used to be extremely paper heavy.
- or enroll in an anger management course - which might seem more responsible, but also very dull ?
Yes mervyn, there was a lot wrong with the old craft-based print industry unions. Apart from ghost working etc., there was plenty of old-fashioned racism and sexism. By the time they opened up to a more diverse workforce, it was too late. I'd be happy to be both employee shareholder and union member!
I think that has had an effect and also elements of digitisation, Green Flash. In my university and media worlds, paper academic journals are on the way out, and most of my opeds and commentary online (although some still in both formats). And as for the legal world, I imagine there is less paper, but I still see lawyers wheeling huge trolleys of documents into court! My main point is that we have to look at what is happening across the globe, not just our patch of it, and that in some countries more paper is being produced and used than ever before. So we'll have to wait a few decades for real progress on paperlessness.
I'm always suspicious of any notion of a golden age of journalism. I have a pretty varied media diet and find some good investigative journalism, reportage and commentary among the dross. In my direct dealings with the media, sometimes as a talking head, I meet some pretty good folk, especially in public service media. Many of them are hyper-cautious because they know that the Murdoch media are waiting for them with baseball bats. Improbably, even inside the Murdoch empire some good work gets done, but it's a slog.Virtually all media (inc printed and online newspapers ) are way out of touch with much of society and certainly with the lower classes.
' Football hooligans' / 'far right ' shamelessly used as go-to derogatory labels for all and sundry, by lazy , champagne quaffing, out of touch suburban dwelling journos and luvvies ....
Have newspapers ( from the Guardian to The Mail ) ever been so devoid of genuine quality and so short of independent thought ?
Should I join the TCE - to vent my anger
I saw that. They claim that they would be a "fully passive investor" but I've heard that before. GB News and the DM are interested too. The Telegraph makes a profit and the debt has been loaded on it from other operations by the Barclay family. There seems to be more concern about market concentration than foreign government ownership. Looks like UK media companies are following football clubs in being effectively owned and controlled by Middle Eastern states!
Not really. While the UK's Middle Eastern population is growing, it is proportionately small (only 0.6% of the total is Arab, for example). There is a very rich cluster with properties and funds, mostly in central London. The main factors are inward investment from the fossil fuel industry and geopolitics, with the West keen for obvious reasons to keep countries like the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar on side. Rishi Sunak is on his way to the UAE this week for COP28, so some tricky diplomacy there over the Telegraph sale.
You forgot the radio, Andy S! Despite having multiple editions, major print newspapers have struggled to keep up with breaking news. But they all have news websites now, including the Telegraph, with a combination of open and subscription access. That is much more flexible even than a 24-hour news TV channel, let alone scheduled TV bulletins (although TV channels also have an online news service!). The Telegraph has a subscription online version as well as being the last of the broadsheets. I would pluck out my eyes rather than subscribe to it, but it has a million subscribers, 70% of whom are digital, leaving almost a third still reading the paper version in the Tory shires!
Being a radio buff, I listen to BBC Radio 4 live and via podcast and I reside about a third of my life 11,000 miles from Plymouth, Andy S! Despite some interruptions to service, I did catch Argyle TV between 2am and 5am. Thank God we won. Nothing compared to the travelling Argyle supporters all over the country every other week, but one time that I can reflect on my media uses, including BBC and Herald websites, plus Pasoti. I get geo-blocked for radio in Devon, which many would think is a merciful relief!