Media - Bill Hagerty tells the new proprietor how to turn the Express into a Big One
I have never edited the Daily Express. At least, I don't think I have. Over the years, editors shuttled in and out of the paper more frequently than District Line trains run on the Richmond branch of the London Underground, so I cannot be sure. One thing I know for certain, however, is that if I did sit in the editor's chair, it wasn't my fault that the Express, instead of closing the circulation gap between it and the Daily Mail, continued its inexorable plunge. It was the proprietor's.
Richard Desmond, flushed with success following the rise and rise of such titles as Asian Babes, Horny Housewives and Big Ones International, should bear this in mind when attempting to turn the waif of the British dailies into a horny big babe. (In the days following Desmond's triumphant acquisition of the Express Group, I searched my local newsagents for a copy of Big Ones International, but could find only Disney's Big Time - which, despite the offer of a "free blow-up keyring", is, I suspect, not the same thing at all.)
There are lessons to be learnt by press barons - especially those dipping their toes into the shark-infested waters of national newspaper publishing for the first time - from the study of the comparative histories of the Express and the Mail. From 1964, the year of Lord Beaverbrook's death, until the present day, there have been 12 different editors at the helm of the Daily Express. Excluding the remainder of Bob Edwards's second editorship of the paper, which ended the following year, and the ten-year tenure of Nicholas, later Sir Nicholas, Lloyd - a long day's journey into knighthood - each incumbent spent an average of two and a half years in office. Derek Marks, who followed Edwards and stayed for six years, makes that average look healthier than it really is, and his successor, Ian McColl (1971-74), managed to hang in there until a stream of proprietors began to change editors like socks.
Beaverbrook's heir, Max Aitken, brought in Alastair Burnett (two years), Roy Wright and Arthur Firth (a year or so each), who sandwiched Derek Jameson's three-year stint before he shuffled off to help found the Daily Star. Lord Matthews, as he was to become, took control in 1977, and Christopher Ward (1981-83) and Sir Larry Lamb were appointed before Lord Stevens, as he was to become (all these honours will not have escaped Desmond's notice), took over the company and, in 1986, brought in Lloyd. Richard Addis and Rosie Boycott, the custodians during Lord Hollick's stewardship of Beaverbrook's tattered legacy, complete the list.
At the Daily Mail in 1964, Mike Randall - an editor's editor if ever there was one, although unable to translate his editorial flair into increased sales - had been in charge since the previous year. The paper trailed the Express the way a forlorn puppy dogs the feet of its master, so, in 1966, Randall made way for Arthur Brittenden, who occupied the chair until Lord (Vere) Rothermere merged the Daily Sketch into the title under the editorship of the Sketch's David, later Sir David, English.
English was in charge from 1971 until 1992; Paul Dacre since then. The average length of editorship at the Mail since 1964 is three and a half times that at the Express.
Vere Harmsworth knew a thing or two about running newspapers. He knew that sensible and consistent investment, in his papers and in people, would pay off. He knew not only what to do, from turning the Mail tabloid to launching the Mail on Sunday, but when to do it. He was brave, as he showed by nurturing, rather than throttling soon after birth, the sickly MoS, and, above all, he knew that successful editors, far from falling from trees, are harder to find than a good deed in the harsh commercial world of the national press.
Harmsworth recognised English's brilliance, and together they slaughtered the Express. But they were aided and abetted by a succession of Express Group chairmen and chief executives who mostly couldn't tell an inspired editor from a Dalek and consistently denied the paper the kind of sustained investment that might have enabled it to clamber back from its knees to its feet.
Desmond may be prepared to put his money where his mouth is - upturned at the corners, as it is, in sheer delight at his recent conquest. He may even have the nerve and good sense to put his faith in an accomplished journalist who can do something to stop Lord Beaverbrook spinning in his grave so ferociously that it's a wonder he hasn't drilled through to the surface by now. But I wouldn't bet on it. Unless there's a genius running Big Ones International, that is.
There was barely a new fact in the thousands of words of recycled guff about Richard Desmond that appeared in the national press following his capture of the Express Group. The "profiles" and long think pieces were par for the course, stupefyingly boring and written with the awe and respect invariably granted to those who accumulate vast wealth, no matter how. Indeed, the wall-to-wall coverage in the Sunday Times, largely written by John Jay, was so sycophantic it may well have broken the course record. It was left to one of Desmond's new toys, the Sunday Express, while walking across the eggshells of an unknown ego, to reveal something I didn't know: that the favourite drummer of the paper's drum-playing new proprietor is the late Buddy Rich.
Fascinating. Indubitably a great drummer, Rich was also notoriously lacking in any of the social graces. According to the cornet player and writer Digby Fairweather, he had "an abrasive tongue" and was "a ruthless, even cruel, taskmaster".
A hero figure all round, then.
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