[Imc-bristol] Evening Post: Bristol Opinion Monopolised

[Ecovillage Network UK]

Brought this background piece up to date today

Hacks at Bristle chopped it down a lot for the latest edition ;-(
If you have any info you think could add to this article please let me 
know......
at this temporary email addres for the time being

Here's the complete version - with full references
It's on the web at  http://www.bilderberg.org/censored.htm#evening - with 
pictures

Tony Gosling Tel: Bristol 446219
www.videonetwork.org et al.
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Bristol Evening Post: Whatever Happened to the People's Paper?
Tony Gosling - 08 October 2001

Until the early 20th century Bristol had a healthy tradition of varied,
locally owned newspapers. A diversity essential to share local information
and to substantiate and debunk gossip, a counter to any interest
group or ideology that might stifle cultural life.

Bristol's first ever newspaper, the Bristol Postboy, began in 1702. The 91st
issue of this, published in August 1704, is one of the earliest surviving
copies of a provincial newspaper in the world. It was produced weekly
as a single sheet.

By the late 1920’s there were three locally owned daily newspapers: The
Bristol Evening News; The Bristol Times and Mirror and a morning
paper the Western Daily Press. But by 1932 the first two papers found
themselves in dire straits due to fierce competition from a heavyweight 
newcomer,
the 1st Viscount Rothermere’s Evening World.

The World was a loss-leader in the newspaper war and fairly soon The Bristol
Evening News collapsed through lack of sales. But Times and Mirror
readers refused to let their paper die, paying over the odds to support what
they saw as the only true local voice. Not to be thwarted Rothermere bought
up the shares... and closed it down. After hundreds of redundancies the Bristol
market was clear for the Evening World.

The World had been launched, complete with a new headquarters
'Northcliffe House' next to St Mary in the Quay church, as a regional
arm of Rothermere's Associated Newspapers. To this day each night's
priority print runs are for Wales and West copies of The Daily Mail.
Local papers such as the Western Daily Press have to wait.

According to Bristolians who can remember it, the Evening World didn't
feel like a Bristol paper. And many of Bristol’s citizens didn’t like the
tactics employed in restructuring what they felt was almost a sacred part
of Bristol life. An attachment to the old Times and Mirror emerged
that Rothermere, for all his cash, couldn’t quash.

There was zealous organising by impassioned Bristolians as well as sacked
Times and Mirror employees. An appeal was launched, with the Bishop
of Malmesbury at the helm, to form a rival to the Evening World. Local
business interests too joined the movement, and contributed to a campaign
fund for a new paper for Bristol. This popular out-cry was entirely unexpected
for Lord Rothermere. He had taken over regional newspaper markets in other
parts of the country virtually unhindered.
Enough money was soon raised and many sacked staff from the Times and
Mirror hired. The first edition of the Bristol Evening Post on
Monday April 18th 1932 carried the fitting sub-title “The Paper all Bristol
asked for and helped to create”.

As the first bundles were carried out for distribution on that bright Monday
afternoon, an impromptu crowd cheered. In the streets alongside the hastily
refitted factory, men flung their hats in the air with delight. Rounds of
applause could be heard streets away.

The old leather factory on the corner of Silver Street and Broadmead was
to be home to the Post for 42 years. The paper was printed in its early days
on unreliable second-hand presses and conditions were anything but comfortable.
Staff put up with sub-standard facilities including a leaking roof.

The news desk had to call in a supply of umbrellas one day to stop water
pouring over that morning’s typed stories. Mice nested in the piles of old
newspapers stacked up in the newsroom.

According to those that worked there in the nineteen thirties and forties
the day began with the odour of frying onions from the Seven Seas Chinese
restaurant next door, the aroma ‘pouring in through the fan above the crime
reporter’s desk’.

There was a genuine flair for independent reporting. Refusing to cow-tow
to any one interest group, big business, police or government, it maintained
an authoritative independence putting the interests of the people of Bristol
first and commanding popular respect as a result.

Circulation rivalry between the Post and the World became heated as it became
clear the Evening World was still a real contender. There were battles
of words, price cutting, gimmicks, and scoop wars as the Bristol Evening
Post took on the far better financed World and beat it, blow by
blow.

Those who had rallied to the Bishop’s call had more reason to celebrate than
they might have known back in 1932. As the decade progressed Rothermere 
proved to be a shameless supporter of Hitler and the emerging Nazi regime 
in Germany.
Rothermere explained how only Hitler and Mussolini could save Europe and
Britain from the Red Russian peril.

Perhaps the most famous of the many pieces published by the Daily Mailin 
praise of Hitler was the leader article entitled "Youth Triumphant"
written by Rothermere himself in July 1933. The editorial praised the Nazi
regime "...for its internal accomplishments, both spiritual and material".
If it were true that there had been "...minor misdeeds of individual Nazis",
Rothermere added, these would be "submerged by the immense benefits the regime
is already bestowing upon Germany". The article was so complimentary it was
circulated by the Nazis as propaganda.

Even as the first bombs were being lined up to drop on the British mainland
Rothermere received a personal invite to attend the first dinner party Hitler
gave at his official residence in Berlin. Among the other guests were Goebbels,
Goering and von Ribbentrop. The two continued to correspond, Rothermere even
taking the time to send the Fuhrer a birthday note: "may I join the myriads
of those who, on your birthday, will be wishing you long life to crown your
efforts to achieve good government, liberty and peace".

In the 1940's and 1950's the Post established itself as a rival to
the London owned World that was here to stay.

Shares Bought Up

The previously independent Western Daily Press, founded in 1858
by Scotsman Peter Steward Macliver, merged with the Evening Post in 1960.
The two newspapers have been printed on the same presses ever since.

In 1962 the Evening World brought out its final edition. Most staff
joined the Bristol Evening Post and the Western Daily Press
to form Bristol United Press (BUP).

Northcliffe group, the Daily Mail’s regional newspaper company, cut
a deal that provided a new headquarters and printing works. Rothermere now
had a sizeable stake in the people’s paper set up to provide a permanent
alternative to his Bristol operation. In 1974 both remaining daily papers 
moved with the Daily Mail presses
into today’s purpose-built premises, at the junction of Temple Way and Old
Market.

During the 1980's the Observer series was added to BUP's range of
titles.

By the early nineties Northcliffe had set up The Daily Mail and General Trust
to manage the entire group, one of the UK’s six media giants. As well as
the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday the DM&GT owns the
London Evening Standard, Metro group, Teletext and has
a 30% stake in Bristol’s GWR Radio Station.

With a higher auction bid for the licence than the local competition could
muster, Northcliffe added Eagle radio to their portfolio in 1999.
Eagle follows a great tradition of licensed Bristol radio stations
that fail to do justice to what is one of the cutting edge music producing
cities in the world.

In 1998 Daily Mail and General Trust extended its shareholding to take a
controlling interest in Bristol United Press. The paper Bristol fought so
hard to put in place, to break the Northcliffe monopoly, had itself become
a wholly owned Northcliffe paper.

In the summer of 2000 BUP also bought up Bristol and Bath’s news and listings
paper Venue, one of the only two independent publications with news
content in the region. Soon after, BUP brought out a new free listings 
magazine,
ThisIsBristol, to compete with it. A strange move which would seem
to indicate Venue may be closed down.

The Big Issue SouthWest is now the only outlet with a reasonable
circulation in Bristol able to print this a critical history of the Post
today.

The Northcliffe group of regional newspapers have been dragging their feet
across the country over Labour’s new union recognition laws. They have singled
out unionised journalists for intimidation. Northcliffe is the first newspaper
group in the UK to force the National Union of Journalists to consider legal
action which would force them to allow a union recognition ballot in their
newsrooms.

In what was possibly an unwitting acknowledgement that the paper was now
controlled from London the new owners decided to drop Bristol from
the paper's name, it became simply The Evening Post.

The Post’s official commemoration of its sixtieth year in 1992, 'Hold
The Front Page' by James Belsey, tells the story of the rivalry of the thirties
– only it doesn’t mention once who the proprietor of the Evening
World was. A piece of self-serving myopia that attempts to turn local
newspaper history on its head.

The lessons at the Post are an uncomfortable reminder of how news
can be controlled in an antidemocratic feudalistic fashion that flies in
the face of popular opinion and essentials of a free press.

Changes of ownership notwithstanding “The paper all Bristol asked for and
helped to create” remained under the title on the papers front page until
recently. It can still be found at the top of the Post’s daily editorial
column. Is it an oversight... or a habitual printer's error?

It should read: “The paper now controlled by the monopolist it was set up
to stop”

Ownership of the Evening Post:
Associated Newspapers/Daily Mail and General Trust owns...
Northcliffe Newspapers (regional newspaper arm) owns...
Bristol United Press owns...
Evening Post, Western Daily Press...

References:
'A Brief History' - pub. 2000 - Section from BUP handbook given to all new 
staff.

Hold The Front Page, 60 Years Of Great Stories From The Evening Post - 
James Belsey, 1992 - Redcliffe Press - ISBN 1 872971 42 3 (thanks to a 
contact on the Evening Post staff who took home the last remaining copies 
of this book - saving them from being pulped by managers)

All the News that's Fit to Print, A short History of Bristol's Newspapers 
since 1702, John Penny, Bristol Branch of the Historical Association, 2001, 
ISSN 1362 7759, £3.00

Daily Express - 21Feb01 - "One Believed That Hitler Had The Right Policies 
For Britain, His Grandson Thought So Much Of His Family That He Kept A 
Mistress For 15 Years And Drove His Lonely Wife To Drink."

Daily Express - 22Feb01 - "He Preaches About Single Parents, So Why Does 
His Own Illegitimate Son Have To Live With His Mother On The Other Side Of 
The World"