The single nuttiest edition of any newspaper in modern times was the Daily Mail’s edition of 16 November 2012, which devoted 11 pages to the monstering of a quite harmless man named David Bell. Bell, who led a blameless life in retirement as a church warden and chair of various do-gooding bodies, was a former chairman of the Financial Times. But he had evidently got under the skin of the then Mail editor, Paul Dacre, after being appointed one of the Leveson Inquiry’s six lay assessors. A team of the Mail’s finest was ordered to destroy the man’s reputation – doubtless much to the bafflement of 99 per cent of the paper’s readers. Bell survived, his honour unblemished.
It was my turn recently when the Mail devoted four pages to the “SHAMING OF OXFORD”. I was accused of “PROSTITUTING” the university’s name by accepting a donation from the former F1 boss Max Mosley to support a scheme for under-represented students.
Unsavoury company
Dacre is known to have a low opinion of Mosley: the feeling was richly reciprocated. There is no doubt that Mosley’s father, Oswald, was a vile fascist and that a chunk of his fortune was passed down to Max, though the son also earned a decent whack running Formula 1. At Oxford, there is a committee that rules on such things. It gave Mosley’s charitable trust the green light and the university accepted many millions from Mosley.
If only the Mail had found even a sentence to mention its own love affair with Mosley – not to mention Hitler. It was the first Lord Rothermere who exclaimed “Hurrah for the Blackshirts!” in 1934 and who was a frequent visitor to, and correspondent with, the Nazi leader. Right up until 1938, the Mail was an instrument of Nazi propaganda. Rothermere dismissed claims of the persecution of Jews as “pure moonshine”. The horrors of the concentration camps were nonsense got up by “our Socialist Press”.
I’m not aware that either the Mail or the Rothermere family have ever denounced their predecessors and noble ancestors; though I’m happy to be corrected if I’m wrong. In any event, the Mail understandably doesn’t like to be reminded of its prolonged dalliance with Hitler. As a general rule, it rather disapproves of those who judge history through a modern lens. Except when it comes to Max Mosley. Who, judging by pagination alone, is apparently almost as evil as poor old David Bell.
Cruel intentions
The chief reporter at my first local newspaper, Fulton “Jock” Gillespie, died recently, aged 86. A Scottish coal miner’s son who left school at 14, he was a cigar-chomping, growling presence in the newsroom and had every reason to despise the steady trickle of effete graduates passing through (or so they hoped) on their journey to Fleet Street. Instead, he took us under his wing, knocked some common sense into us, often over cribbage and beers in the local pub. He would regale us with tales of cut-throat newspaper life in Glasgow in the 1950s. You would charm your way into a home (say, to interview a recently bereaved widow) and then viciously insult her on the way out. Why? So that the next reporter to arrive on the doorstep would be sent packing. His mantra when dealing with officialdom was: “They need us more than we need them.” Which may have been true then but is harder to argue now.
It’s a love story
My daughter Bella and her husband, Greg, went to a wedding last week. Yes, that wedding. You know, the wedding of the century. It was, by all accounts, a celebrity-crammed event, with more stars than the Milky Way. Guests had to surrender their mobile phones and, while they didn’t actually have to sign NDAs, have been tight-lipped about the festivities. “Can I mention your 20-minute conversation with [insert name of A+++-lister?],” I asked Bella. “Absolutely not,” she hissed. “Not even for the New Statesman?” Absolutely not. Reader, I have been gagged.
Hearing aids
I am a sucker for gadgets. Easily my best find in recent years has been Shokz bone-conducting headphones. You “listen” to sound via your cheekbones instead of your ears. It means you can tune in to a podcast while walking the dog or cycling through the streets of London – and also the external sounds around you. They even make a waterproof version so you can swim while listening to the Rest Is Politics. I have, to date, bought five different sets, and now feel naked if I leave home without them. I may need help.
Alan Rusbridger is former editor of the Guardian and Prospect magazine, and former principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. He co-presents the Media Confidential podcast
[Further reading: One man’s trash is another man’s Trash!]