Friday 6 March 1987

HIGHER STANDARDS

Paul Anderson, Tribune column, 6 March 1987

The new Robert Maxwell London paper, the Daily News, has come as a pleasant surprise. Unlike Maxwell's other tabloids, it actually contains some serious popular journalism - and, unlike its rival, the Standard, it's not rabidly right-wing. The first week's editions broke several important stories. The paper didn't join the dirty campaign against Labour's candi­date in the Greenwich by-election, Deirdre Wood. And its coverage of domestic and foreign news is exem­plary. The sports section is lively; the columnists are a fair cross-section of London political personali­ties (including Ken Livingstone); and the entertain­ments listings and reviews are superb.

Time will tell whether the first week's standards will be maintained. I suspect the paper will not be publishing quite the number of pages, let alone the number of editions, once things have settled down. But I hope that Maxwell - who's a shrewd follower of market demand if nothing else - realises that London­ers do not find the pap the Standard serves up to them particularly satisfying, and that he'll allow a large degree of editorial autonomy to the Daily News.

In the meantime, Lord Rothermere, owner of the Standard, must be getting just a little nervous. The Daily News is, quite simply, bigger and better than the Standard, and he must be thinking that it's only a matter of time before the Daily News establishes itself at a much larger circulation, threatening the Stan­dard's advertising revenue.

It's very difficult to feel any sympathy for Rothermere: the Standard ranks with The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Sunday Telegraph for reactionary bigot­ry, and it has failed time and time again to break stories that it should have broken. Its columnists are (with the exception of Sam White in Paris) a rag-bag of drunks and incompetents, its regular cartoonist the worst in the land, and its foreign coverage (when not taken straight from the wire service) execrable.

But the Standard isn't the only publication likely to be hit by the Daily News. The morning national tabloids, particularly those at the upper end of the market (the ailing Daily Express, the appalling Daily Mail and the anodine Today) stand to lose out to the Daily News's morning edition, whether or not Max­well decides to turn the Daily News into a national paper (which he could be well-placed to do). And the quality of the Daily News entertainments guide could undermine sales of the London weekly listings maga­zines, particularly the increasingly tame and tepid Time Out. (City Limits, with its more "alternative" readership, seems relatively safe.)

If the Daily News does turn out to be a great success in its current form, it should do a lot to dispel the myth that serious popular journalism married to a left-of-centre editorial line won't sell - which in turn should give encouragement to everyone at News on Sunday, the soon-to-be-launched independent Manchester-based Left popular newspaper.

Of course, News on Sunday doesn't have Maxwell's resources for promotion - nor is it being launched into a market in which one journalistic joke of a newspaper has a monopoly position. It has also had some impressive public editorial bust-ups to cope with before launch day.

Nevertheless, the Daily News augurs well for News on Sunday - and that in turn augurs well for all of us that dream of having the left press we deserve. Who knows: after News on Sunday, a British left daily to vie with Liberation, Tageszeitung or Il Manifesto, attacking the Guardian's market from the left? But perhaps that's just a little too far-fetched...