Cut costs, sack hacks

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By Revel Barker
Our American cousins are currently going through the sort of cost-cutting experience that we endured a quarter of a century ago, and they, more noisily than we did – but with no more apparent effect – are kicking up about it.

Cost-cutting in bean-counting-speak means job-cutting, mainly of older and more experienced (and therefore usually more expensive) staff; if you want to increase profits you look at where the money is haemorrhaging and the easy answer is to identify editorial as the culprit. The green-eyed accountant looks at the high wages, the lavish expenses, the cost of air fares to places that he couldn’t afford even on a once in a lifetime holiday, the level of entertaining… and the number of journalists who seem to spend most of their shifts either sitting around idly or – worse – decamping to the pub.

If that’s your yardstick, cutting costs is simple.

Editorial spend rarely relates directly to profit. If circulation increases, the circulation department gets the credit; if advertising income goes up, the space salesmen get the plaudits. If either of these revenue streams reduces, they all blame a poor ‘editorial product’.

We can’t argue that we were overmanned. We had writers who never wrote a word, because they were bone idle, and subs who were never asked to sub a story because they weren’t up to the task.

It was a problem by no means restricted to editorial, though. If all the inkies rostered for a shift had actually turned up on any one night, there wouldn’t have been standing room for them, which is why some comps were officially working a 26-week year (at least one of them did only 22 weeks, because it took in holiday time).

But all eyes turned naturally towards editorial where the inkies protested to management that there was something called ‘evening dress allowance’, which they believed meant a special payment for working after dark.

The first pronouncement of Clive Thornton when he arrived as chairman was that the Daily Mirror had more journalists in Holborn than the Sun employed world-wide. In fact the paper had more journalists in Manchester than the Sun had worldwide, and there were so many subs in Withy Grove on some nights that if one of them went to the lavatory he would return to find that somebody had nicked his chair.

But in those days the Sun and the Mirror were – this was our excuse – different papers. One had a deadline around lunchtime each day and the other had editions running through most of the night; at the weekend or on night matches there were different editions for almost every first division football club area (not altogether a brilliant scheme, if readers in Liverpool couldn’t get a full account of what was happening in Manchester, or Leeds didn’t know what was happening in Sunderland, before meeting them at Wembley).

I remember one night when the Sunday Mirror did 35 different changes, which may not have been a record.

So Thornton asked for, and got, non-automatic replacement and Maxwell demanded the same deal.

Montgomery had a totally different idea; he seemed to enjoy sacking people anyway, believing that two 20-year-olds on ₤20grand each were obviously twice as useful as one guy of 40+ on 40grand-plus.

But there’s a reason for paying old farts more than tyros. And perhaps there’s no better proof than the Daily Mirror’s cock-up over the faked pictures of ‘British soldiers torturing prisoners in Iraq’.

When the paper announced its scoop by putting the photos on TV, Eddie Rawlinson did a screen grab at home and – before the paper even hit the streets – was telling his email cronies that he suspected there was a rabbit off, somewhere.

Eddie had been on the streets of Belfast and elsewhere and he knew what soldiers were supposed to look like.

The lacing on a soldier’s boots was WRONG, he said. The rifle held by one of them was the WRONG type.
The vehicle in the picture was the WRONG vehicle for Iraq.
The fastening on a soldier’s webbing was WRONG.
The trousers, at the ankle, were WRONG. The flow of urination (the soldiers were supposed to be peeing on the prisoner) was WRONG.

If Eddie had still been running a picture desk those photos would never have got across it.

The editor, Piers Morgan, would not have been fired. The paper – once the most highly rated and respected by soldiery of all ranks – would not have been brought into shocking disrepute.

But in the old-fart clear-out schedule, people like Eddie had been too expensive to keep. How do you put a value on experience? Does it matter that you have a newsroom staffed almost entirely by people who have never actually seen a soldier in uniform? How much are proprietors prepared to pay out in legal costs, rather than paying far less money in salaries to people who can save the company bacon?

And wherever the Mirror went, the rest of Fleet Street inevitably followed. It had been the same with pay deals; the Mirror always went in first, and upped the money, and the others all made their claims on the back of that, with no other justification or negotiating tactic than that the Mirror had got it.

So when the Mirror reduced staff, everybody else did the same.

Before Maxwell, a typical cost-cutting exercise asked on-the-road reporters to forgo the second round of vintage port and of Havana cigars at the end of lunch.

The point that they missed upstairs, however, was that the apparently indulgent lifestyle meant that reporters (this would apply to about half of them, I’d guess) would actually go out of the office and make and meet contacts – and would spend the money, and often come back with stories that were several hundred times cheaper than those that were bought-in, and rewritten by their colleagues who just pocketed the same level of exes and never ventured further from the newsroom than the office pub.

Dan Ferrari, in contemplative mood, once told me that if each of the hundred or so on-the-road men (this was early 70s) ‘went out of the office and spent their expenses and returned with only two exclusives each - every year - they would be far more use than sitting at their desks rewriting PA, and we would have a better paper.’

Far better to have a deserted newsroom, with staff out on the road, than have a roomful of people hanging about in case a Boeing crashed on Buckingham Palace.

But in the States, when a bridge collapsed in Minneapolis this month, the local paper sent 75 reporters, writers and photographers off the editorial floor and out to cover it. This was a paper that had reduced its editorial staff by – coincidentally – 75 earlier in the year, and everybody had moaned about it.

Whether the people who were standing idly by were any good, or had any experience in covering instant news, is difficult to judge from this distance.

But I somehow suspect that there won’t be too much sympathy among London editors for the tribulations currently being experienced by their opposite numbers across the pond.
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Pictures: Edward Rawlinson

Pubs and Publishing

By Edward Rawlinson
Many have sat back and thought how nice it would be to run their own pub, others have day-dreamed about going into publishing.
Without a thought of the pitfalls of running a pub or dreaming what it would be like to publish a paper I plunged into both at the same time: I went into a pub and established a small publishing business.
After moving from the editorial department into the publicity department of the Daily Express, Manchester, and becoming northern publicity manager I realised management certainly didn’t work like editorial. They had a different attitude to my previous way of life with the clock an important piece of office furniture and having a warm meal at home around 6.00pm was part of everyday life.
I should imagine it would have been a similar experience had I worked in some local council office.
After a second successful year in publicity, although suffering with a few scars to my back, I decided to take up an offer from the managing director of a brewery and be landlord of one of their better pubs. With a family to feed it needed some serious thought but the management job hadn't worked out and I wanted a move. My wife and three small children could still enjoy living in a similar tree-lined environment to the one they would have to leave.
I would then be able to plan what had always been my life long ambition, to go into print and publish a successful free motoring paper. In 1965 it would be a first as no publication was concentrating on people who were investing in a motor car for the first time.
There were the well established paid for and expensive glossy magazines but something was needed to advertise affordable wheels for the working man. A free paper distributed in petrol stations, car showrooms and of course my favourite distribution point, the pub.
I had already formulated my plans when at the Daily Express while coping with fashion shows, contents bills, grocer's exhibitions, advertising layouts and general promotions and a staff of eight. I said my farewell with a memorable send off, not by management, but from my old mates in editorial
When finally in the pub I soon realised that having to organise beer, wines and spirits, lunchtime catering, three full time staff with another fifteen part timers at the weekend and all the unseen extras I was dragging my feet.
The main plan of going into print was well behind schedule. After a year my free motoring weekly paper was launched and I remember the gathering with our printer, our advertising man - who was a retired motor trader and knew all the garage owners - the manager of the Odeon cinema who was to arrange circulation, and myself with four of the pub part time staff helping out in distribution. What a team.
Three thousand copies was our first print run and the distribution went well although I did find copies being used as wrapping paper in of all places the chip shop opposite my pub. The manager of the Odeon, our acting circulation manager, was the suspect as he had reneged on his promise to give out papers when the audience left his cinema. He had dropped off some copies into shops that were open after the cinema closed and it was an error of judgment he confessed later in a ‘after time’ editorial conference.
Our advertising manager (the ex-motor trader) was doing well through his contacts and I think it helped him by being a freemason. Business was booming, except the accounts and payment for advertising did not equal out.
The pub had a very good clientele, it was in a posh part of Rochdale and one of the customers was our bank manager. He sorted out the accounting side of the business by recruiting a retired employee from his bank and everything was then on a straight run. Money wasn’t rolling in but it started to trickle through the front door and we were in profit.
During the day my wife looked after running the catering side and we had a nanny for the three children, our daughter the youngest was eighteen months old. She had only just learned to go down stairs from our living quarters and with an open door being a big temptation she sneaked out and ran towards the busy main road.
When about to cross the road fortunately she was caught by a motorist when he saw her standing at the road side. Neither my wife nor the staff had any idea she was out until the driver returned with her to the pub. The culprit was a cleaner who had left the safety door wide open.
That was it. Following what could have been a fatal accident the pub was of no interest and with my wife becoming more worried about the safety of our children, despite having a nanny we decided to quit. One thing we learnt in those two years was you can’t run a pub and care for your children. Motoring Gazette was doing well and by quitting the pub we would have to look for some place in which to live so I decided to run the paper and work as a freelance photographer.
Ron Ashurst, an old friend, offered me work at the Daily Mirror and a customer who owned the Rochdale Advertiser came out of the blue and made a very good offer for Motoring Gazette. It had run for more than a year and as there was a house to buy his money would come in handy for me to ‘go private’ as they say in the pub trade. The money offered by the Daily Mirror to work for them as a freelance was far greater than I had expected. Of course I regret getting rid of Motoring Gazette and with many free motoring magazines about now, more glossy with much larger circulation figures, forty two years ago it was a first in its field .
Twenty years on I was then Picture Editor of the northern Daily Mirror and my son Peter had become a journalist. After three years working for a local paper he started a national freelance news agency we took over a successful print shop with further ideas of producing a free paper. The first edition was in its embryo stages when he asked me would I mind if he took a job offered to him on a motoring magazine. It was quite a shock as I was about to live again those earlier years and my ideas of becoming a mini press baron went out the door with the staff and printing machinery.
His move South worked out well and instead of collecting adverts from Bury, Rochdale, Bolton and Burnley and keeping northerners, now wearing their baseball caps back to front, informed about expensive wheels he is doing it worldwide.
Maybe I did the right thing by saying to hell with pubs and publishing.
I had only one memorable Front Page. Two girls who were regulars in the pub posed on the bonnet of my MG. One had dark hair and she was a beauty; the other, a blonde, had the most beautiful legs and I wasn't to know at the time she would go on to be a famous TV actress – landlady of her own pub in Coronation Street.




















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His nibs

By Edward Rawlinson
I suppose because I failed my 11 plus I was destined to be a Lens, rather than a Nib. Nibs often went to grammar school and either went on to university or spent those same formative years as a junior reporter on some suburban weekly, then on an evening newspaper before joining the officer ranks of a national daily.

A Lens moved up the ranks after being allowed out of a darkened room and promoted to the rank of Snapper. The dark room was his training ground where he learnt the skills of photography. I can recall many Nibs who had been to university but not a single Lens other than the two bigger Lenses I will mention later.

The great advantage a Lens had over a Nib was that he had the chance to see how Nibs worked and was able to compare them with other scribblers. He learnt a lot from that experience and was able to guide young inexperienced Nibs when they went out together on assignments. A Lens always seemed older than a Nib somehow; it could have had something to do with early developing.

One lesson many young nibs learnt in early scribbling was never, no not never, call a Lens ‘my photographer’. Trilby and notebook have gone flying at such words and a Nib’s only transport back to his office been seen departing in a cloud of blue smoke and screeching tyres… leaving him interviewing a very confused person.

An advantage a Nib had over a Lens was when the going might have been getting tough he had no need to be at the scene of any violence; he could get the words at a later stage from his - oops sorry: from a - Lens. The worst Nib to work with was one who had a vivid imagination, producing words unable to be portrayed truthfully with light. I have seen many encounters between Lens and Nib staged on the sawdust strewn floor of Yates’ Wine Lodge after such complication.

Nibs - Lens, Scribbler – Snapper, Reporter - Photographer, name them what you like but when working together as a team they were invariably a formidable force, much like Starsky and Hutch but occasionally (can’t deny it) more like Laurel and Hardy and very rarely even a bit like Tom and Jerry; but like Morecambe and Wise the truth was that they were best as a double act, and were generally less effective as a solo turn.

Don’t want to take sides, of course. But could I just mention the words, ‘by Royal Appointment’? Yes, we had Tony Armstrong Jones and Lord Lichfield, one the Queen’s brother-in-law, the other her cousin. Beat that, His Nibs.
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The Old Devils

By Edward Rawlinson
Printer’s Devil survives today as no more than a name for a pub, before it gets re-christened as something ‘trendy’ like The Slug in Sandwich. But it used to be a real job.
The first print shops astonished the world by producing bibles that were all perfectly identical, and monastery clerics reckoned this was the work of Satan (not least because they were being put out of their jobs, spending about a year to produce a single copy) and the apprentices were usually stained from head to toe in black ink so, the story goes, they became the Devils. And type that became confused in its cases, or was dropped on the floor – usually by the harassed assistant - was said to have been devilled, or pied: a printer’s pie was a mix-up of type, long before it was adopted as yet another pub name.
Among the old devils whose names you may be familiar with are Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Lyndon Johnson, Harry Guy Bartholomew, Ian Skidmore… and your humble correspondent.
Three months into the craft I was about to sign a seven-year apprenticeship as a young devil at a local printers. I’d already recognised the boredom spent putting type back into cases so that one day I would be able to call myself a compositor. After I’d put every individual letter of used type into its proper place my initials were chalked on the case to show I had done the job correctly. Anyone knowing single 6pt type fonts will understand just how hard it could be to recognise the difference between individual loose letters like b, d, q or p and it often resulted in my getting a clout from the foreman. Printer’s pie was no meal for a 14 year old apprentice. In those three months I learnt quite a lot about type and attended night school for typography three times a week, continuing my studies for another two years when not working nights.
I hadn’t yet signed my apprentice indentures when the opportunity came for me to join the bi-weekly Burnley Express as an apprentice engraver and photographer so I went off into what became a lifetime of enjoyment.
The war had taken most of the young men and I had to learn fast about block making and photography and within six months I was out and about taking photographs and then turning them into zinc printing blocks. There was only me to help the boss take pictures and produce blocks because the others had left the department and gone off to the war. The boss, Fred Simcock, was in his mid sixties – that seemed old, then - and sometimes would miss work through illness and I’d be left on my own.
Only a few photographers will be around today who have wound up a spring to fire a flint, to make a flash, to take a picture. Flash powder was used in those days after your rationed quota of flash bulbs had been used up. When using powder you soon learnt to make a quick exit from a room before a cloud of dust started to descend on the people you’d just been photographing.
One of the jobs that took me closer to the war, as a boy, was having to go to the homes of servicemen and collect photographs if they had been killed in action, were missing or taken prisoner of war.
It was a task as hard as that of the telegram boy who pedalled his red bike delivering the sad news to the families. I never received any resentment when I knocked on a door to ask for a photograph; in their grief everyone seemed to be proud that their next of kin had served his country. My constant fear was that one day I would have to copy a photograph of my brother who was in the Navy. I had already made a block from a photograph of my cousin who was lost at sea.
Having taken, or copied, a photograph, developed and printed it, sized it up and coated a glass plate with collodian and silver nitrate, I’d re-photograph my picture and make it into a metal image. After etching the blocks I had to stick the thin metal zinc plates on to the rotary press. It was a worrying time when the huge Crabtree machine started to go into top gear, waiting to see whether any of the blocks would go flying across the press room. Fortunately that never happened to me.
Nowadays, so I hear, you just press a key on a computer.
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Eddy Rawlinson also worked on the Manchester Evening News, then the Daily Express. In 1964 he bought a pub and started his own free sheet, Motoring Gazette, running it from behind the bar. He sold it to the Rochdale Advertiser and joined the Daily Mirror as a photographer, eventually becoming northern picture editor.