As I recently flipped through an exhibition copy of Ladybird’s ‘The Story of Newspapers’ from 1969, an amusing passage caught my attention. It wasn’t the overt sexism or classism, more obvious than it should be. Nor was it the image of men puffing pipes while fawning over the single woman present. Even the hidden Playboy magazine on the children’s book’s cover took me some time to notice. What truly tickled me wasn’t the introduction appreciating the seemingly effortless conveyance of daily news by numerous individuals with high technical prowess.
The humor was instead found in an excerpt titled “failures and new ventures”. The passage illustrated the challenges newspapers face in turning a profit amidst rising competition from commercial television for advertising revenue. If only today’s news sector could swap their economic troubles with that of 1969.
The narrative moved forward by recognising the escalating costs of newspapers and outlined the increased difficulty in making them profitable – to the extent of rendering the endeavour unachievable in some cases. It referenced the collapse of News Chronicle in 1960. Formed by the union of Daily News and the Daily Chronicle three decades earlier, it marked the end of an epoch in British journalism, as did the cease of the Daily Herald in 1964.
In stark contrast to the bleak picture it painted, the book ended on a positive note, suggesting that despite the inherent troubles in maintaining profitability, new pursuits are continually set in motion, highlighting the inception of The Sun and The Sunday Telegraph. While I found the phrase, “it is difficult to operate newspapers profitably”, amusing, I found myself gazing at this forewarning from the past for an inordinate amount of time as other attendees continued to meander through the exhibition, engrossing themselves in less daunting masterpieces like Little Red Riding Hood and The Story of the Spider.
The friendly lady who was inspecting my ticket at the Bath art gallery had no clue about my habit of transforming my leisurely holiday experiences into work-related studies. She was certain I would enjoy my visit, and indeed I did. Not only was the history surrounding Ladybird’s publishing success during the mid-20th century interesting, but a brief revisit of ‘We Have Fun’, also known as ‘Ladybird Key Words 2a’, suggested that this timeless Peter and Jane classic had elements of an art-house psychological thriller.
The issues they didn’t need to concern themselves with back in 1969 were plentiful, from the tedious struggle for awareness on social media platforms to inboxes bursting at the seams with irrelevant spam emails about topics like water wipes and Princess Anne’s potential burnout.
Simultaneously, ‘The Story of Newspapers’, a component of the educational series from the 1960s, ‘Ladybird Achievements’, demonstrated two facts. First, the industry has always faced “challenges”, but the difficulties of the past were less complex and not as profoundly threatening as they are in the present day.
Deadlines were discussed with no mention of the detrimental impact they have on journalists’ already poor eating habits. The relentless need for complimentary content was highlighted with the phrase “sometimes a person who has no paper tries to read over the shoulder of someone else”.
Certainly, some aspects remain constant over the years. For instance, the section discussing the daily morning editorial conferences confidently declares that everyone is clear about their role for the day upon their conclusion. Although I don’t attend these meetings, I understand this remains completely accurate to this day.
Interestingly enough, the book was published the same year Rupert Murdoch purchased the Sun, a then struggling broadsheet. This implies that one element of the news industry may be regarded as a thing of the past: meddlesome proprietors.
“The Story of Newspapers,” rendered in illustration by Ron Embleton, offers an intriguing glimpse into a now near-extinct world of antiquated scenes of daily life. Among the depictions, a packed train carriage bustling with broadsheets, street furniture littered with evening newspaper posters against a dimming city backdrop, and a couple sharing Sunday supplements in their backyard all echo a time now passed.
This book, which coincidentally hit the shelves the same year Rupert Murdoch took ownership of the struggling Sun newspaper, seems to imply that there’s a relic from the news industry that belongs to yesteryears – meddling newspaper owners.
Accompanying a depiction of Chapelizod’s own Lord Northcliffe, Ladybird educates its juvenile readership that these media moguls significantly ‘propelled the evolution of newspapers’, while maintainig that ‘not all’ agreed with such powerful sway they possessed.
The narrative reveals that currently, newspaper policy is decided by the owner or board of directors, then entrusted to the editor for execution. This differs from the pre-1939 era where the press barons not only dictated policy but held significant financial control and showed immense interest in content.
Contrary to the Picture of Northcliffe, Ladybird informed its younger audience that these newspaper titans ‘considerably advanced the history of newspapers’, yet not all were in agreement that they should have such sway.
In light of Westminster’s recent decision to deny a joint venture between American private equity investors and an Abu Dhabi company backed by Mansour, the deputy prime minister of UAE and owner of Manchester City FC, from acquiring the Telegraph and the Spectator, the debate on newspaper ownership and the influence it brings is far from over.
Despite the stark contrast with the cigarette-infused, computer-lacking newsrooms of ‘The Story of Newspapers’, these apprehensions persist today, hand in hand with enduring characters like Murdoch, the dangers of stiff competition, and the stark reality that newspaper profits are a lot more elusive than they were half a century ago.
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