Explaining his reasons for starting his newspaper, John Walter, the founder of The Times, informed his readers in the first edition on 1 January 1785 that it ‘ought to be the register of the times, and faithful recorder of every species of intelligence; it ought not to be engrossed by any particular object; but, like a well covered table, it should contain something suited to every palate’.55 Times moved on, but the founder’s vision was honoured.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Rupert Murdoch announces he is buying The Times, 22 January 1981, with Harold Evans (left) and William Rees-Mogg © Times Newspapers Limited
Gray’s Inn Road, home of The Times from 1974 to 1986 © Times Newspapers Limited
Harold Evans © Times Newspapers Limited
Sir Edward Pickering © Times Newspapers Limited
Rupert Murdoch as Times proprietor in his Press Hall © The Sunday Times
Editor Charles Douglas-Home addresses his staff, March 1982 © Times Newspapers Limited
Lord Dacre heads to Hamburg to tell the world the Hitler diaries are genuine in April 1983 © Press Association
Rupert Murdoch and the Queen mark The Times’s bicentenary in 1985 © Times Newspapers Limited
Charles Douglas-Home at a point-to-point © Jim Meads
Charles Douglas-Home in his hospital bed © Times Newspapers Limited
Charles Wilson, editor 1985–1990 © Times Newspapers Limited
Rupert Murdoch briefs the press on the deadlock in talks with the print unions, 19 January 1986 © Graeme Cookson
The Siege of Wapping, 1986
A scuffle outside The Times during the Wapping dispute, 17 February 1986 © News Group Newspapers
Print unions march down Fleet Street in January 1987 © Press Association
Striking News International workers shout at former colleagues during the Wapping dispute © Press Association Photos
The arson of News International’s warehouse in Deptford, 2 June 1986
Times journalists take the honours at the 1988 British Press Awards © Times Newspapers Limited
The Times’s Wapping office © Peter Trievnor
Simon Jenkins © Times Newspapers Limited
Andrew Knight © Times Newspapers Limited
Bernard Levin © Times Newspapers Limited
Matthew Parris in Kabul © Times Newspapers Limited
Peter Stothard © Times Newspapers Limited
John Bryant © Daily Mail
Rosemary Righter © Martin Beddall
Simon Barnes © Times Newspapers Limited
Lynne Truss © Martin Beddall
Caitlin Moran © Times Newspapers Limited
Peter Brookes © Peter Brookes
The Times team interviews Tony Blair during the 1997 election campaign © Times Newspapers Limited
Anatole Kaletsky © Times Newspapers Limited
Michael Gove © Times Newspapers Limited
Mary Ann Sieghart © Times Newspapers Limited
Sandra Parsons © Times Newspapers Limited
Patience Wheatcroft © Times Newspapers Limited
Richard Morrison © Times Newspapers Limited
Richard Beeston in Iraq © Majid Karimian
Anthony Loyd in Afghanistan © Seamus Murphy
Sam Kiley © Times Newspapers Limited
Janine di Giovanni under fire in Aghanistan © Miami Herald/Andrew Bosch
Peter Stothard says farewell, March 2002 © Times Newspapers Limited
While every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright material reproduced herein, the publishers would like to apologise for any omissions and will be pleased to incorporate missing acknowledgements in any future editions.
PLATES
Rupert Murdoch announces he is buying The Times, flanked by its incoming and outgoing editors, Harold Evans and William Rees-Mogg.
Gray’s Inn Road, home of The Times from 1974 to 1986.
Harold Evans
Sir Edward Pickering, editor for Beaverbrook and mentor to Murdoch.
The proprietor in his Press Hall.
March 1982, Charles Douglas-Home announces his editorial intentions. Fred Emery reserves judgement.
Lamb to the slaughter. Lord Dacre on his way to Hamburg to tell the world’s press that the Hitler diaries are genuine.
Murdoch gives the Queen a crash course in page make-up when she visits the paper for its bicentenary in 1985.
Douglas-Home clears the hedges at a point-to-point.
Facing the final hurdle. Douglas-Home continued editing The Times in the last weeks of his life from a hospital bed.
Charles Wilson, editor 1985–1990.
Flanked by Bill O’Neill and Bruce Matthews, Rupert Murdoch briefs the press on the deadlock in talks with the print unions, 19 January 1986.
Peterloo ’86: The Siege of Wapping.
The nightly scuffles outside The Times during the Wapping dispute resulted in almost 1,500 arrests.
The print unions on the march, 24 January 1987. Mike Hicks was convicted for assault.
‘Sc-aaa-b!’ The blackleg welcoming committee serenade their former colleagues.
The arson of News International’s warehouse in Deptford – the most intense blaze in London since the Blitz.
Times journalists take the honours at the 1988 British Press Awards. Robert Fisk, Bernard Levin, Howard Foster, John Woodcock, Barbara Amiel and John Goodbody.
Like life on a nuclear submarine, there was little legroom in The Times’s elongated and windowless Wapping home. From the upper gantry, Charlie Wilson could berate the ratings.
Simon Jenkins
Andrew Knight
Bernard Levin at home.
Downtown Kabul. Matthew Parris at ease with the locals.
Peter Stothard, editor 1992–2002.
John Bryant, distance runner and deputy editor.
Rosemary Righter, an accomplished duellist with the pen against tyranny’s swords.
Simon Barnes with a friend.
Lynne Truss. Sport for all.
Caitlin Moran. Testimonies of youth.
Peter Brookes, master cartoonist.
Gentlemen of The Times pay Tony Blair a house call during the 1997 election campaign. Clockwise from Blair are Peter Stothard, Anatole Kaletsky, Alastair Campbell (Blair’s press secretary) and Peter Riddell.
Anatole Kaletsky
Michael Gove
Mary Ann Sieghart
Sandra Parsons
Patience Wheatcroft.
Arts editor Richard Morrison always cast a cultured eye.
Halabja, northern Iraq, 1988. Richard Beeston uncovers the victims of Saddam’s chemical weapons attack on his Kurdish subjects.
A light in the darkness. Anthony Loyd files from the Afghan battlefront in 2001.
Sam Kiley. Genocidal Hutus in Rwanda assumed he was a friendly French paratrooper on a secret mission.
Afghanistan: Janine di Giovanni comes under fire on the road to Tora Bora.
The last word. Peter Stothard bids farewell after ten years as editor, applauded by his deputy editor, Ben Preston, Ben Macintyre (seated) and George Brock, managing editor.
NOTES
CHAPTER ONE: A LICENCE TO LOSE MONEY (PP. 1–44)
1. Financial Times, 23 October 1980; UK Press Gazette, 27 October 1980.
2. Listener, 30 October 1980.
3. Price Waterhouse’s audit for the TNL Directors’ Report (Hamilton 9762/6).
4. UK Press Gazette, 27 October 1980.
5. Sir Gordon Brunton to the author, interview, 8 April 2003.
6. The Times, 23 October 1980.
7. Times Archive, Box 9383.1.
8. Patrick Marnham in Spectator, 20 February 1982.
9. Louis Heren on Panorama, BBC TV, 17 November 1980.
10. William Rees-Mogg, undated memo [22 October 1980], Box. 9335.
11. William Rees-Mogg, ‘Now The Times is going to fight for herself’, The Times, 23 October 1980.
12. In particular, see The Times, lett
ers page, 28 October 1980.
13. Harold Evans, Good Times, Bad Times, pp. 97, 108.
14. John Grigg, The History of The Times, vol. VI: The Thomson Years, p. 554; Evans, Good Times, Bad Times, p. 108; Listener, 30 October 1980.
15. William Rees-Mogg to the author, interview, 3 December 2001.
16. William Rees-Mogg to the author, interview, 3 December 2001.
17. Quoted in Piers Brendon, The Life and Death of the Press Barons, p. 247.
18. Michael Leapman in The Times, 27 September 1980; Michael Leapman, Barefaced Cheek, p. 190.
19. William Rees-Mogg to the author, interview, 3 December 2001; Leapman, Barefaced Cheek, pp. 184–6; Evans, Good Times, Bad Times, pp. 96–7.
20. William Rees-Mogg to the author, interview, 3 December 2001; William Rees-Mogg in Independent, 29 October 1990.
21. Minutes of ad hoc committee on TNL, Thomson British Holdings Ltd, 18 September 1980. Hamilton Papers 9758/4.
22. Sir Gordon Brunton to the author, interview, 8 April 2003.
23. Rupert Murdoch to the author, interview, 4 August 2003.
24. Denis Hamilton, Editor-in-Chief.
25. Quoted in Simon Jenkins, The Market for Glory, p. 53.
26. Newsweek, 3 November 1980.
27. Sir Gordon Brunton to the author, interview, 8 April 2003.
28. Linda Melvern, The End of the Street, p. 175.
29. Tim Austin to the author, interview, 4 March 2003.
30. Marmaduke Hussey, Chance Governs All, pp. 129, 132.
31. Financial Times, 18 February 1986.
32. Bill O’Neill, Copy Out manuscript.
33. William Rees-Mogg to the author, interview, 3 December 2001; Hussey, Chance Governs All, p. 164.
34. Andrew Knight to the author, 2 December 2004.
35. Simon Jenkins, The Market for Glory, p. 149.
36. And the feeling appeared equally hostile among staff at the Sunday Times: Harold Evans to Sir Gordon Brunton, memo, 9 February 1980.
37. The Times, 30 August 1980.
38. Ibid.
39. Letters from Alan Reid and T. C. M. Powell, The Times, 30 August 1980.
40. William Rees-Mogg, unsigned leader, ‘How to Kill a Newspaper’, The Times, 30 August 1980.
41. Sir Gordon Brunton to the author, interview, 8 April 2003.
42. Lord Thomson of Fleet, press release, 22 October 1980. File 9335.
43. Harold Evans at a luncheon talk to Morgan Grampian journalists, quoted in UK Press Gazette, 27 October 1980.
44. Paul Johnson, Spectator, 31 January 1981.
45. Grigg, The Thomson Years, pp. 554, 556; Sir Gordon Brunton to the author, interview, 8 April 2003; Denis Hamilton, Editor-in-Chief, p. 179; Evans, Good Times, Bad Times, p. 125.
46. Evans, Good Times, Bad Times, pp. 89–91, 111, 125.
47. Iverach McDonald, The History of The Times, vol. V: Struggles in War and Peace 1939–1966, pp. 409–28; Jenkins, Market for Glory, p. 53.
48. Rupert Murdoch to the author, interview, 4 August 2003.
49. Sir Gordon Brunton to the author, interview, 8 April 2003.
50. Quoted in S. J. Taylor, An Unlikely Hero, p. 180.
51. Sir Gordon Brunton to the author, interview, 8 April 2003.
52. Richard Searby to the author, interview, 11 June 2002.
53. Evans, Good Times, Bad Times, p. 122.
54. Sir Denis Hamilton to Sir Gordon Brunton, 9 January 1980, Brunton Papers.
55. Sir Denis Hamilton to the Directors of TNHL, 16 January 1981. Hamilton Papers.
56. Evans, Good Times, Bad Times, pp. 106–7.
57. Harold Evans to Sir Gordon Brunton, 20 January 1981, (underlining as in original), Brunton Papers.
58. Denis Hamilton to Directors of TNHL, 16 January 1981. Hamilton Papers.
59. Quoted in the Sunday Times, 15 February 1981.
60. Minutes of the TNL Editorial Vetting Committee, 21 January 1981, file A759–9335.
61. William Rees-Mogg to the author, interview, 3 December 2001.
62. Paul Johnson, Spectator, 20 April 1985.
63. Statements by Sir Gordon Brunton and Rupert Murdoch, press releases, 22 January 1981, Hamilton Papers A759–9335.
64. Evening Standard, 22 January 1981.
65. Sunday Times, 15 February 1981; Daily Telegraph, 29 September 1981.
66. Sir Gordon Brunton to the author, interview, 8 April 2003.
67. The Times, 20 January 1981.
68. Record of Murdoch’s remarks to staff, 26 January 1981, Hamilton Papers A759–9335; The Times, 27 January 1981.
69. The Times, 27 January 1981.
70. Market share breakdown in memo of 26 January 1981 in Hamilton Papers.
71. Paul Johnson, Spectator, 31 January 1981.
72. James Evans (Director, The Thomson Organisation) to John Biffen, 26 January 1981; Thomson submission to the Department of Trade and Industry.
73. Sir Gordon Brunton to the author, interview, 8 April 2003.
74. Rupert Murdoch to the author, interview, 5 August 2003.
75. Ibid.
76. Woodrow Wyatt, Journals of Woodrow Wyatt, Vol. I, p. 372, diary entry, 14 June 1987.
77. Rupert Murdoch to John Grigg, Grigg, The Thomson Years, p. 573.
78. Lord Biffen to the author, interview, 1 August 2003.
79. Hamilton Papers 9758/4; The Times, 28 January 1981; Sunday Times, 15 February 1981.
80. Hansard, 27 January 1981; The Times, 28 January 1981.
81. Jonathan Aitken to the author, interview, 27 May 2003.
82. Hansard, 27 January 1981.
83. Jonathan Aitken to the author, interview, 27 May 2003.
84. The Times, 26 February 1981; Alan Watkins, A Short Walk Down Fleet Street, pp. 178–9; Jenkins, Market for Glory, pp. 169–70.
85. Thomson submission to the Department of Trade and Industry.
86. John Biffen to John Smith, 3 February 1981, letter reprinted in The Times, 4 February 1981.
87. Evans, Good Times, Bad Times, p. 143.
88. Ibid., pp. 151–3; Sunday Times, 18 February 1981.
89. Jenkins, Market for Glory, p. 58.
90. The Times, 13 February 1981.
91. O’Neill, Copy Out.
92. Bill Bryson, Notes from a Small Island, pp 46–7.
93. O’Neill, Copy Out, p. 15; Sunday Times, 15 February 1981; Evans, Good Times, Bad Times, p. 182; Grigg, The Thomson Years, p. 576; The Times, 13 February 1981.
94. Richard Searby to the author, interview, 11 June 2002.
95. Quoted in William Shawcross, Murdoch, p. 38.
96. Shawcross, Murdoch, pp. 47–9; Rupert Murdoch to the author, interview, 4 August 2003.
97. Quoted in Shawcross, Murdoch, p. 61.
98. Murdoch quoted in Chief Executive magazine; quoted in TNL News, November 1982.
99. Maxwell Newton in ‘Six Australians: Profiles of Power’, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 1 January 1966, quoted in Neil Chenoweth, Virtual Murdoch, p. 32.
100. Sunday Times, 15 February 1981; Daily Telegraph, 30 September 1981.
101. Rupert Murdoch, speech at Melbourne University, 15 November 1972.
102. Sun, headlines, 11 January and 30 April 1979.
103. Leading article, ‘The Fifth Proprietorship’, The Times, 13 February 1981.
104. Quoted in Leapman, Barefaced Cheek, p. 174.
CHAPTER TWO: ‘THE GREATEST EDITOR IN THE WORLD’ (PP. 45–118)
1. Hugh Stephenson to Denis Hamilton, 13 February 1981, Hamilton Papers 9383/12.
2. Quoted in Michael Leapman, Barefaced Cheek, p. 203.
3. Owen Hickey to Denis Hamilton, 11 February 1981, Hamilton Papers 9383/12.
4. John Grigg, The History of The Times, vol. VI: The Thomson Years, p. 376; Leapman, Barefaced Cheek, p. 201.
5. Rupert Murdoch to the author, interview, 4 August 2003.
6. Bruce Page, ‘Into the arms of Count Dracula’, New Statesman, 30 January 1981.
7. Ru
pert Murdoch to the annual lunch of the Advertising Association, quoted in TNL News, April 1981.
8. Richard Searby to the author, interview, 11 June 2002; Leapman, Barefaced Cheek, pp. 204–5.
9. Marmaduke Hussey, Chance Governs All, p. 179.
The History of the Times Page 90