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o— Tory Press a5 = a ae It peter
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and all the Bully Boys’, he scribbled, have BETWEEN Fleet Street and Downing got to be stopped from ‘manipulating the Street there is a torrid Jove affair. The people just for political aims". enchantment began in earnest with the Bosses of big companies are often carcoverage by the mass media of the ried away with thoughts such as these.
Trafalgar House owns the Ritz Hotel and ‘winter of discontent’. Health and dozens of other companies, and Matthews is other public sector workers were also chairperson of the Cunard Steamship transformed into a public menace and Co., so he is often preoccupied with anxthen murderers in the pay strike which ieties about the labour movement and its preceded Margaret Thatcher's election leadership.
But Matthews’ memo pad happens to be victory. the Daily Express, and thus instead of fin- After 12 months of Tory rule, the ding their way to a wastepaper bin, his jotpress barons and the government were tings — with headlines and cartoons to so completely in each other's arms that match — are thrust through a few million letter boxes every morning. anyone who resisted Thatcher's policies Matthews, in his capacity as chairperson was well on the way to the status of ‘terof Express Newspapers, a subsidiary of rorist’ in the pages of the dailies.
Trafalgar House, did not stop at articles For the whole of Fleet Street, radio aimed at demobilising the TUC's Day of Acand TV, the TUC's Day of Action on tion, He set an example to other employers by taking four print unions to the High 14 May 1980 was the ‘Day of Shame’.
Court, where he obtained a ruling that the What continues to unite the mass media unions could not legally call on: their against the mass labour movement is members at the Express to strike on 14 May. that no one is to be allowed to say Noto That Tory judges should agree with a Tory newspaper group that is was unaccepthe Tories by way of collective action. table for trades unionists to take action Press freedom was on the agenda at against the policies of a Tory government is both the Labour Party conference and hardly a matter of surprise. Yet within hours the Trades Union Congress in 1979, of the verdict the mass media was discover- The mass media’s anti-working class ing a ‘revolt’ against the ‘Day of Shame’ in banner headlines, bias was roundly condemned, but the Teams of investigative journalists were proposals fell well short of effective acput to work to find evidence of this revolt, tion to counter the mounting abuse be- Any group of trades unionists prepared to ing heaped on trades unionists. grin and bear Thatcher's. policies was guaranteed a place in the limelight. The In this short pamphlet we look at Sun's ‘Rank and file rebel over Day of the nature of this bias and what lies Shame’ on 9 May, followed the next day behind it; how trades unionists can with “Flop of the Century!" was typical of answer back in the bosses’ media; and the mass media's counter-offensive. the kind of alternative media which can The tirade, almost exclusively aimed at the TUC leadership, was unprecedented this aid the fightback against the Tories, side of the 1926 General Strike. particularly the need for the labour The foot-in-the door press hounding leadership to launch a mass daily normally reserved for minor film stars or trade union militants involved in one of newspaper.
Fleet Street's ‘scandals’ was granted to Len Murray, on holiday in Madeira. Strangely, Enter the business executives in the news never have their homes or holiday hotel pictured in the ‘Bully Boys’ press.
The tactic was straightforward enough: the Tories and the media were out to make the most of the failure of the large majority Victor Matthews, chief cxecutive of of the trade union leadership to issue an in- Trafalgar House Investments, made a few struction to strike on 14 May, and its jottings in his personal memo pad on 16 queasiness over declaring it to be political April, 1980. ‘The unelected Lenin Murray action against the government.
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of Fleet Street, it supported James Callaghan against Michael Foot in the last leadership election. Like the rest of the bosses” press, it views the decisions of the 1979 Labour Party conference on reselection and the manifesto as a threat to civilisation, and Tony Benn as an enemy of the people.
The Mirror well summarised the position of the mass media in its editorial a few days before 14 May. Headlined ‘Fiasco fiesta’ and predicting the ‘Day of Chaos’, the article concluded: ‘The only Day of Action that counts in a democracy is Polling Day."
Never mind if the government has no On the eve of the Day of Action, the mandate to push unemployment over two press turned themselves into anti-strike million, to allow inflation to rocket over 20 sheets with a practical orientation, offering per cent, to destroy the welfare state, and to advice about how to deal with such prostep up the cold war — so long as the workblems as transport stoppages. On the day ing class is content to leave decisions to votes itself — when there was no national press — in Parliament, then the Tories, the City, and the broadcasting services sounded like a rail their backers in the media can laugh all the and bus inquiry service. In short the mass way to 1984, media's strike-breaking role was in top gear.
The media's stake The excluded in Thatcher beeen se ee | minority Like the rest of the employers, the press It goes without saying thatworkers who proprieters have a heavy financial stake in did take action on 14 May — between one the success of the government's antiand two million of them — did not have working class policies. The days of the Northeir voices heard in the mass media, While theliffe and Beaverbrook style of press some sections of the media, such as the baronetcy are now gone; multi-nationals BBC, are forever telling us of their concern and companies with widely diversified into serve ‘minorities’, the fact is that the vestments dominate the newspaper inmedia are deaf to the concerns and views of dustry, as well as commercial radio and millions of people — particularly those they ‘independent’ television, deem to be upsetting to the status quo.
Their profit performance, as with the There’s nothing new in that. On the rest of industry, depends on Thatcher's Vietnam war, for example, every major: ability to weaken the labour movement's national newspaper supported the American resistance to a sharp cut in working class livdeath machine. With a single voice, they ing standards. campaigned for Britain's entry into the In both the press and broadcasting, Common Market; there was a 40 per cent Management is anxious (to use new No vote in that poll. With the exception of technology to increase the rate of exploitathe Daily Mirror, they all want Britain to tion of its workforce, by shedding jobs. pursue its war in the North of Ireland by Coincidentally in the run-up to the TUC's keeping its troops there.
Day of Action, ITN was off the air because In terms of newspaper circulation, the of a dispute over electronic news gathering, Tories received proportionally twice as and most of the provincial press was shutmuch support from the national press in the down through a lock-out of the National May 1979 election as they obtained at the Graphical Association, which the employers . polls. Now, whatever their qualms about saw as much a battle over the print unions’ Thatcher's rule, no Fleet Street paper in any closed shop as over pay. way backs those who actively oppose the The lock-out at Times Newspapers government's policies. spoke volumes about the employers’ sup- The Daily Mirror proclaims its support posed defence of press freedom. Depriving for the Labour Party. More precisely, it readers of newspapers for almost a year was backs its kind of Labour Party, Like the rest a small price to pay for the prospect of
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undermining the print unions. directors get together at what is knows as the Yet the fact that the Thomson Organisa- Editor News and Current Affairs (ENCA) with highly profitable investments meeting. Much of their discussion is of ranging from holidays to North Sea oil, cgi such as how a major news Times Newspapers back into prowas treated, plans for election duction without defeating the unions incoverage, and policy on race coverage. dicates the to the capitalist class as a whole of maintaining its press. A one-way conversation Aa Stuart Hall, director of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmpr ge a Maervenay peret fig put it: ‘Capital deterthe structured field in which individuals compete to be heard." In practice even the used to describe the media is acon. They are only ‘mass’ in terms of the they reach. ‘Mass communication’ is very much a one-way conversation.
The mass of the population is firmly excluded from any say in how the mass media function, and the media ‘S$ are anxious to Keep it that way. Take the case of icasting.
The Independent Broadcasting Authority is the state-appointed body which hands The minutes of these meetings ought to out licences to print cash to the commercial by published in the Radio. Times. In fact TV and radio stations. It claims to consult they are distributed only to directors and the ae and listening public about these producers at the BBC, although they are ocstations, especially when their performance casionally leaked to the left press. In 1977 comes up for formal review the Campaign Against Racism in the Media This was the experience of Time Our notified several Labour MPs about an item reporter Jonathan Coe when he attempted in the ENCA minutes. which recorded that to find out about the IBA’s discussions on Sir Charles Curran, then Director-General the London radio stations LBC and Capital: of the BBC, had said that the National ‘My request to the IBA to attend, for Front should be treated as an ordinary purposes, a full meeting of the was received with great mirth. » Said “the authority's London officer, Stan Newens MP took this up with Cur- 15 Joos Conans: not even junior officers are ran, who replied to say that the remark had been taken ‘out of context’, and then went allowed to attend its meetings. on to complain “Your informant stands low ‘Could | read some of the minutes then? in my estimation... The fact of disclosure is Certainly not. Well, could I then attend a destructive of a freedom of exchange which meeting of the public's representatives, the is essential to honest and open discussion of local advisory committee? No. Could I see difficult editorial questions, the responsible minutes? No. Could I see any audience ge handling of which is vital to the democratic research reports? No. Could I see any of the process in so far as it is carried on in the documents relating to the formal review? broadest discussion of important public Absolutely not. issues." “Could I talk to any officer about the What this /9#4 Newspeak amounts to is review procedure? Nope, nor could I see any that viewers have no right to know the piece of paper connected in even the most Domi teh wan tae ten” (Time Our, policies of the BBC's bosses, which in this case allowed such atrocities as Ludovic Ken- -13 March 1980.) —_ nedy"s interview with Martin Webster on the And that great bastion of ‘public’ broad- 24 Hours programme, giving the latter free reign to put across his fascist ideas.
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The censored put the trade union movement's case for the Day of Action. Quite rightly, the print alternatives unions turned it down, To have accepted would have made it seem that NATSOPA wasn't prepared to defy Thatcher's law.
What predominates in the mass media is Yet Matthews’ offer let the cat out of the the capitalists’ view of the world. The workbag. For once, one of the press barons had ing class is fine so long as it reserves its acknowledged the fact that the labour energy for raising productivity. The movement did not have a voice in the mass unemployed are scroungers. Women are media and that it was entitled to it, Matbodies to be gaped at, or worthy mothers. thews’ admission, tacit though it may have Black people are a problem. The Irish are been, was not lost on the print unions. Ata the butt for jokes. Other foreigners, unless picket of the Express on the evening of 13 they're American, haven't really come down May, NATSOPA national assistant secretary Ted O’Brien had said that if all the from the trees.
As it happens, a MORI poll published in Fleet Street press had offered the unions Now! in February 1980 showed that 83 per four pages then the papers would be cent of those interviewed said they were inpublished on the Day of Action. terested in news about world affairs, as That, too, was a surprising developagainst 61 per cent interested in sports news ment. For years the leaders of the print and 62 per cent in information about the unions had baulked at the idea of Royal Family. ‘interference’ by their members in the On the receiving end of a mass media millionaires’ media. Printworkers who have which backs, more or less, the Tories’ constopped the presses over particularly offenception of the problems we face and the resive articles have often been fined by their quired solutions, the great majority of the unions, even where this action has been working class never hear, day in and day taken only after management refused the out, any alternative perspective or policies. right of reply.
While the print union leaders have join- The fightback ed with the rest of the labour leadership in denouncing the mass media's bias, distorstarts here tion, and suppression, they have far from encouraged printworkers to take action to At the demonstrations up and down the counter the media’s role. It's as if there had country on 14 May, condemnation of the been an unwritten agreement between the role of the mass media figured prominently print unions and the employers to maintain in the speeches of local and national trade Fleet Street jobs and wage levels so long as union leaders. Len Murray talked of the the unions accept press freedom as the pro- ‘gutter press’. Jack Dromey, secretary of prietorial right of the barons and their the SE Region TUC, referred to ‘mobs of editors. besotted hacks and their editors’. Many Right of reply descriptions were even less polite.
One of the most militant demonstrations was throuh Fleet Street itself. Led by the But in recent years the employers have print unions, 3,000 trades unionists raised shown themselves determined to end their their fists as they marched past the Daily Exside of the bargain and the print unions have press building, with shouts of ‘rubbish’, shown signs of challenging the dictatorship ‘scabs’, ‘Matthews out’ and “Thatcher out’. of the editors.
Fleet Street's propaganda machine was On 25 and 26 June 1977, for example, silenced on the Day of Action, and the there was a stoppage al the Observer over an sharpest blow against the Tories was struck advertisement from the National Associaby the print union NATSOPA. Its leadertion for Freedom calling for financial supship refused to obey a High Court injuncport for the Grunwick management. This was during the battle for union recognition tion to withdraw its circular calling on members at Express Newspapers to strike on at Grunwick, and the printworkers demanded the right of reply in the Gbserver on 14 May. behalf of the Grunwick strikers.
The threat of that defiance brought an unusual offer from Victor Matthews: if the They won a front-page statement, and print unions agreed to publish on 14 May, their action was endorsed by the executive of they could have four pages of the Express to the NGA, the main craft print union.
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In the same year, the NGA leadership Direct action signed a joint policy statement with the National Union of Journalists over race coverage. [t included endorsement of clause Discussions between groups confronting 10 of the NUJ's Code of Conduct, which biased coverage and media workers have states that a journalist ‘shall not originate proved productive in challenging that bias. material which encourages discrimination When the Hornsey Journal in North Lonon grounds of race, colour, creed, gender or don attacked public sector strikers during sexual orientation’. The statement added the ‘winter of discontent", the strike support that the two unions would defend any committee met with the NUJ chapel on the member who out of conscience refused to paper, and the chapel supported a picket of work On any racist material. the paper. Management was obliged to It was unprecedented for a print union to publish a statement from the strikers about adopt a policy on editorial coverage, and the the reasons for their action. statement has since been endorsed by NAT- At the nearby Tottenham Weekly Herald SOPA. Discussions are underway with action was taken in the autumn of 1976 against its persistently racist coverage. Al a SOGAT.
Both the Labour Party conference and meeting attended by half a dozen reporters the Trades Union Congress discussed press and sub-editors from the paper, local trades freedom in 1979, in the wake of the ‘winter unionists, representatives of the black comof discontent’ and Labour's election defeat. munity, and other NUJ members let the Delegates and platform speakers all express- Herald journalists know what they thought ed great anger at the press. At the TUC, ofof headlines ike ‘What about us whites asks ficials of NATSOPA made an exceptional angry councillor’ and ‘Black girls" brutal atoffer: anyone who was on the receiving end tack on home help’. of press hostility should contact their union It was a heated discussion, and the local they would secure for them the right of anti-racist committee followed it up with a picket of the paper and a leaflet condemning reply.
Todate that offer has not been taken up, its coverage. ‘The racists among the Herald and NATSOPA has hardly gone out of its journalists found themselves in a way to promote it, not least among its own beleaguered minority, and this resulted in an members. The 14 May coverage, for inimprovement of the paper’s race coverage. stance, cried out for a union response in the Direct action has scored some notable mass media but the print unions made no successes in gaining the right of rely to effori to obtain it. hostile coverage. In January 1978 the Lon- Yet the proposal by NATSOPA officials don Evening News published a sensational suggests a crucial means of breaking into big and witch-hunting story about lesbians bebusiness's hold on the mass media. If print ing permitted artificial insemination in and other media workers can be won to fight order that they could bear children. for the right of reply, the working class will The day after the article was published, be able to impose a vital measure of press over 20 feminists, lesbians, and socialists ocfreedom on the mass media. How can this be cupied the newspaper offices and collectively confronted the editor, despite physical done?
Baily an Mail _ Batty am mail Ba Baily 2m Mail Hl ap wane imemayramie im law 3 law and ender Rees refused to bring in new carbs " TORIES: MAKE RACE: TORIES MME 10 Nee = BRITAIN SAF E HIGHT ALO ALONE
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harassment and a barrage of abuse from Campaign for journalists, They won a detailed right of reply, in which they rejected the self-created Press Freedom right of the Evening News to judge lesbians’ suitability for maternity.
On many issues, even the coverage of the THE GUARDIAN TUC's Day of Action, it will be necessary to win media workers to the idea that a reply to hostile coverage is a right; that media The following summer, a snide report in owners, Managers, editors, and journalists the Guardian on Gay Pride Week brought a do not have an inalienable right to set the similar response from gays, with a similar terms of debate. The Campaign for Press result.
Freedom is favourably placed to do battle On some issues direct action seems to be on this front.
The campaign was launched at the necessary to gain any coverage at all; On 4 May 1980 the subject of Capital Radio's live Trades Union Congress in 1979 with aims debate programme Headline was ‘Do you close to those expressed in a resolution passreally need a car?’. The producer began by ed unanimously at the Congress; essentially telling the studio audience: ‘This is your to expose the bias of the existing mass media show and it’s up to you to make the most of and to debate the kind of alternatives that it." A group of women in the audience decidwould be valuable to the working class. ed to take her at her word. First one then Backed by the print unions and figures another went to the microphone to call for such as Tony Benn, the campaign soon registered strong support in terms of attensupport for 32 women in Northern Ireland's Armagh jail who are demanding political dance at its rallies and in the growth of its membership. Within six months some 150 Status.
After various attempts by the» prolabour movement organisations had joined, including 15 trade unions at national level. gramme presenters to restore normality, including physically gagging a speaker, several With support that bridges the media women moved towards the microphone unions and the wider workers’ movement, shouting ‘Stop media censorship on Ireland! the Campaign for Press Freedom can play a Political status now." And when told they substantial part in rolling back the press barons’ anti-working class offensive. First, by campaigning within the media unions for a commitment to fight for the right of reply, and secondly by publishing a practical guide for all those facing media hostility on how to win that right.
Much practical work could be done by the campaign and its supporters. During a strike, for example, meetings could be set up between the strikers and local media workers to discuss the media coverage and how the inevitable bias can be countered.
Where necessary, such actions as pickets and occupations of offending media can be suggested, In particular, if the kind of offer made by NATSOPA is to become a reality, the campaign should make its number one priority the publication of the name and phone number of the union representatives On every newspaper, radio, and TV station in the country. That would start to open the were ruining their credibility, one replied: channels to securing the right of reply. “We have to resort to tactics like this to get Nominally, the public has a means of on the fucking air..." The message got across seeking redress against the press by comto the audience at home, and Capital Radio plaining to the Press Council. That body has said that it would consider doing a promade no impression whatsoever on the gramme on the Armagh women. abuse heaped on the working class by the
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necessary role in this, but its circulation is as barons. Can you imagine the bourgeoisyet limited to some tens of thousands of dominated Press Council finding much to people. It doesn’t touch the millions ¢mcriticise in the coverage of the Day of braced by the bosses’ media. Action?
The National Union of Journalists has found the Press Council so unrepresentative and ineffectual that at its conference in April 1980 delegates voted to withdraw the union's representatives from the council and to call for its abolition. The NUJ is now preparing proposals for an alternative press council.
Workers’ press Protisateed by ues MMPS an THE TT my Rabel TORE, einer se rere vue eee inci a kim bar PRE PREM councils If the working class is to be able to make effective complaints against the press, an alternative press council will have to be established within the workers’ movement.
With a trade union membership in Bri- But a TUC or Labour Party sponsored body tain of nearly 13m, the trade union journals will need to do much more than simply pass can certainly reach very large numbers of judgements, since the editors would blithely working class people, if only on a monthly ignore them. Assessments of the press will basis. Yet few of these journals are widely have to be linked to action to counter the tead by union members. bias.
The fact is that most of the journals act To be effective, workers’ press councils simply as mouthpieces for the union leadershould be established at both the national ships. Discussion, controversy, and open and local level. The labour movement in debate on the issues facing the unions would Harrow, Middlesex, has set a useful precegreatly enhance the credibility of the jourdent here. nals and would be an invaluable aid in forg- Sick at the Tory Harrow Observer's bias, ing the policies that are needed to confront the local trades council, National Abortion the Tory offensive. An important step Campaign, women’s group, anti-racist comtowards democratising the union journals in mittee, Campaign for Homosexual Equality this way would be the regular election of and other organisations came together in their editors. May 1980 to pool their experience in relatior In addition to the reluctance of the TUC to the local newspaper and to compile a leaders to build the Day of Action as a dossier on its methods of dealing with news. political strike against the government, and When that is prepared they will. aptheir failure to see it as more than a one-off proach the NUJ chapel on the Harrow protest, the labour movement's response to Observer for discussions on how the distorthe tirade of the Tories and the media was tion and censorship of their views should be extremely weak. There ought to have been dealt with, By maintaining its monitoring hundreds upon hundreds of meetings up and taking action to counter press abuse, the and down the country, and tens of group could achieve a thousand times more thousands of leaflets and broadsheets than the Press Council has ever done. should have been produced to answer the slander of the barons.
The alternatives Strike and factory Breaking into the capitalists’ monopoly bulletins of the existing mass media is only part of the fight for press freedom. To advance ils struggles and to forge socialist solutions to While the mass media's role over the the problems it faces, the working class has Day of Action highlights the need for the to develop media of its own. labour movement to extend its own means The left press, most of which is aligned of propaganda, that requirement did not to particular parties and groups, plays a begin or end on 14 May.
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and-file steelworkers during the steel strike in 1980.
stewards committees are also a useful means of i the pro-management propaganda of the media, and raising The Guerdian, with a circulation of a shopfloor issues. third of a million, is not an irrelevant factor in the political scene. A labour movement Local alternatives paper which achieved a circulation remotely approaching that figure would have its news, arguments, and calls to action The fight against the Tories is, of course, debated and amplified throughout the not simply on the industrial front. The cuts, workers’ organisations. racism, and attacks on the rights of women There can be little doubt that only the and youth are all part of a strategy aimed at mass Organisations of the working class, the weakening and dividing the working class. trade unions and the Labour Party, have the At local and national level, therefore, the resources to fund a newspaper with this workers’ movement requires media which potential. Yet the highest estimated cost for can reach hundreds of thousands of people launching a mass daily paper amounts to a at work and in the community. levy of about Ip a week on Britain's 13m That development has begun to take trade union members. place with the launching of alternative local The question remains, though: Given newspapers, which the Campaign for Press that the labour leadership would seek to Freedom is encouraging. exercise full editorial control over a daily While such papers can greatly enhance paper, would it be worth having? the ability of the workers’ movement to raise issues and build for action in the community, the difficulty of launching and sustaining local papers should not be underestimated, The weekly Hull News, backed by Hull Trades Council, lasted for only two issues in October 1979, The Easr End News, in East London, will have campaigned for about a year to raise its target launch fund of £25,000.
If local papers are not to be substantially dependent on commercial advertising, with the political pressures that inevitably brings, they will need a solid base of support within the local workers’ movement. This can only be won if the newspapers themselves are politically committed to the anti-Tory strug- ‘Daily Lionel’? gle, and seck the widest possible involvement in their production and distribution from the working class.
Even in the most unfavourable of circumstances, the answer has to be Yes. It has National daily been 5 that a labour movement daily be a ‘Daily Lionel’ (a reference to the TUC's general secretary). Yet who Ever since the collapse of the Daily Herald as the labour movement's national of Action dictated by Congress House
9
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Vulnerable line would not have been infinitely preferable to all of Fleet Street's propaganda? The labour leadership would have used a daily paper to Quite conceivably, this lack of eagerness build for action on 14 May, only halfstems from a reluctance to have to spell out heartedly, but they would not attack it as the their policies day after day to hundreds of bosses’ media did. thousands of workers. A daily paper would And what of other actions against the not simply have to take a position on major Tories? The TUC led the demonstration strikes, but on every issue of the day, against the Corrie anti-abortion Bill in October "79. The Labour Party was in front That would certainly raise the level of of the march against the government's racist political consciousness in the workers’ Nationalities Bill the following month. And both bodies oppose — at least at the level of movement — and for that reason alone socialists should be calling for the labour policy — the Tories’ Employment Bill, leadership to launch which is at the centre of their attack on the a daily.
Much I on the vitality of the unions. struggle against the Tory government. As This is certainly not to say that the resistance to its policies becomes more exlabour leadership is to the fore in working tensive, so will the hysteria of its media, class struggles. Its support for the steel presenting in an increasingly vivid manner strike, for example, was practically nonthe need for an alternative mass media. existent. The position of the TUC leadership | wider the struggles against on the ‘winter of discontent" under the Thatcher, the greater will be the demand Labour government was to say the least that any labour movement daily provides a equivocal, So would it have made any difgenuine lead in the struggle, and the ference to the strikes of the public sector likelihood that back-tracking on the part of workers and the lorry drivers if there had the leadership will be challenged on. the been a labour movement daily at that time?
Almost certainly Yes. It was one thing pages of the movement's paper. for Fleet Street to denounce these actions. That, after all, was only to be expected. But Eight men if the paper of their movement had done any such thing, there surely would have been In its submission to the last Royal Comsizeable pickets outside Congress House and mission on the Press, the TUC General Transport House demanding support for Council said: *The fact that eight men conthe strikes and at the very least the right to trol 90 per cent of Britain's papers means put their case in the workers’ daily. that the concept of ‘‘freedom of expression The labour leadership has not so far exor independence of editorial” is somewhat pressed much enthusiasm for a daily paper.
Orwellian.’ The Labour right has said not a word. On ellian.
The TUC should take its own assessment the left, Tony Benn has said that the moveto heart. Editorial management of a labour ment should first launch local papers. Moss movement daily should rest with a board Evans, general secretary of the Transport directly elected by the Trades Union Con- Union, is about the only union leader to put gress and the Labour Party conference. his members’ money on the line by com- Representatives of the women's movement miting th TGWU to a minimum of and the black community should be co- £250,000 a year towards a daily.
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a BI -
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opted — their fight is alongside and within represent working class opinion is way off the labour movement, and their voice has to beam. : be heard. The provision of the right of reply It was in periods of great upsurges in and open debate would establish the basic class struggle — at the turn of the 18th cenprecepts of press freedom in the paper's col- tury into the 19th century, and again just umns. before and after the First World War — that itis a familiar argument of the upholders radical newspapers had a wide readership in of the proprietors’ press freedom that a the working class. The present period could labour movement paper would be doomed well present the same opportunities, in the because the working class reads the Mirror field of broadcasting as well as the press. and the Sun. The fact that between one and The bourgeoisie’s monopoly of the mass two million people took action on 14 May, media could be terminated for good. despite the efforts of these and other newspapers, indicates that their claim to 23 May 1980
' . re THE aims, structure, and financial The structure of the Fast End News allows organisation of the Fast End News have been for as much consultation as possible with the agreed on @ democratic basis. We are not people who run it — the readers. under the control of any political party, nor The problems of bringing people together are we in the pocket of advertisers, nor are are well known. But the people of the East we under the thumb of anyone who puts a lot End face difficult years ahead and can only of money into the project. tackle the problems with confidence if there The aim of the Fasr End News is to provide a is unity. bright local newspaper that will act as a The East End News with its democratic focus for a! of the progressive forces in the Structure and community-based policies will East End area, For that reason the paper is be a local newspaper East Enders can use to owned and controled as a co-operative, make their united front stick.
Write to: East End News, 17 Victoria Park Square, London E2.
Joining CARM TO find out about the Campaign Against Racism in the Media write to: CARM PO Box 50 London N1. ‘It Ain't Half Racist, Mum’ is a CARM exposé of television's racism originally shown by BBC TV as an ‘Open Door' proamme. It can be hired in 16mm and video from: The Other inema, 12/13 Little Newport Street, London WC2. Tel 01-734 8508/9.
Britain: limonthe £12.50; Gmenths 2.5) Nem —$—$>$ $e Abroad: = 12 months — Surface Mail £12.50 £18.00 Address =
Multi-reader institutions: Double the above rate 9 Chews. POs St er Ot Cube: it Gener Sie ike Ii
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Campaign for Press Freedom STATEMENT OF AIMS
1 To challenge the myth that only 5. To, ates pe ibe ener) pipers * private ownership of the newspaper in the Minority Report of industry provides genuine freedom, the eval Go sel apy on the Press, diversity or access, and to generate public including for a National Printing Shen we alternative forms of democratic Corporation to a competitive public ownership and control. sector in the printing industry and a launch - To carry out research into altererg Man 7 hich for a reformed and np ng aoe age pe eee ent trusts or co-operatives, w To cam a control or domination by major business basic standards of fairness and access to the conglomerates press on behalf of the public. 3 To encourage the creation of alternative newspapers of all kinds 7 To work for a reduction in legal including a newspaper or newspapers . sympathetic to the Labour movement. and increased access to official sources of through To encourage the development of Secrets Act and similar restrictive legislation * industrial democracy in the news- and the introduction of a Freedom of paper, broadcasting and television industries. Information Bill. Join the Campaign for Press Freedom. Write to: John Jennings, 274-288 London Road, Hadleigh, Essex. Tel 0702 553131. WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT THIS PAMPHLET...
‘Despite the deplorable national coverage of the TUC's Day of Action many people in this country still fail to understand the common interests between the Tory government and the capitalist-run. media, and continue to be taken in by the much publicised myth of a free press. ‘Appropriately drawing on the experience of 14 May, this pamphlet succinctly analyses this relationship and also outlines the ways workers can gain a voice. Its firm call for . national labour daily will add to the controversy that already surrounds this proposal."
KATE HOLMAN, NUJ Equality Working Party and chairperson of the East End News
"This pamphiet is a welcome addition to the growing literature exposing the truce monopoly nature of our so-called free press. We must now step up the fight to maintain and extend the existing left media, build new local and national alternatives, and win the night of reply.’
MIKE POWER, NGA activist, Daily Mail THIS pamphlet is produced by the Media Fraction of the International Marxist Group. If you would like to discuss any of the ideas in the pamphlet, or other issues concerning the media, please contact: Media Fraction, 328 Upper St, London N1. Tel 359 8180/9. If you can make a donation towards the cost of pamphlets such as this, it would be very welcome.
A Socialist Challenge pamphlet