The definitive history of modern newspaper journalism by the highly regarded Guardian columnist
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With newspapers and journalists themselves increasingly making news as well as reporting it, this is a timely history of modern newspaper journalism by a man well-placed to report it. Roy Greenslade has worked for all the main tabloid newspapers and is now media commentator of the Guardian as well as regularly popping up as a media talking head on TV and radio. His experience shows in this detailed, exhaustive account of how newspapers and those who toil for them have evolved. As you would expect from a Fleet Street man of his background, Greenslade leavens the necessarily weightier documentary stuff with a liberal amount of entertaining anecdotes and gossipy reminiscences. But this is far from a Lunchtime O'Booze memoir, offering much insight and comment on the press, its owners, its power and influence, and shortcomings.
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Book Description
Tracing the changing face of British newspapers, Roy Greenslade shows how the way we live has been shaped by what we read. With the insight one would expect from the media commentator for the Guardian, the newspaper world is brought to life, from its dominance as a news force in the 1940s to the salacious world of the gutter press in the 1980s. While analysing such dominant media figures as Rupert Murdoch, Robert Maxwell and Kelvin Mackenzie, Press Gang also examines the trends, the biases and the impact of the Press as we know it today. 'The best history of the British press since [Francis] Williams ... an essential set text for students of journalism and the media' The Times 'Formidably complete and perceptive record of British journalism over the last 60 years' Observer
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Roy Greenslade - journalist and academic - has produced what must be the definitive history of the British press over the last sixty years. His approach is quite simple; he divides the half-century up into five year chunks and in one chapter he covers the business and human issues - who was buying/sacking/occasionally bedding whom, who was working where, how the relationships between proprietors, editors and journalists worked; in the next he'll cover the news agenda and political background to it.
There are several key themes in the book:
- the reduction in diversity, as the number of papers diminished
- the increasing political control exerted over papers by their owners
- the decline in quality (and rise in circulation) of the bottom-end tabloids
- the increase in readership of the 'quality' press
- the battles in the marketplace between papers competing for the same market sector
- the legal and regulatory framework surrounding the press.
- the "odd characters" that jourmalism throws up.
There is a lot to read here - it's a dense and often closely-argued book, with a lot of first-hand insight and anecdotes from journalists Greenslade has worked with during his long career. Keeping track of who worked where and when is important (particualarly when you remember there's three Cudlipp brothers!) but Greenslade is equal to the task of telling the story in a straightforward fashion.
An excellent recent history of the British newspaper for the general reader.
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
How prescient of Mr Greenslade to use the coverage of the Royal Family as the spine that binds his book together. In the month when we have seen more revelations about the Monarchy from a man who was once a butler to the late Princess Diana Mr Greenslade's book is timely. He argues with elegance and intellect that the tittle tattle of the popular press is and will always be sustained per se by such entities as the Royal Family. The serious newspapers may hurrumph and disapprove and wish people were more interested in serious affairs but Mr Greenslade poo poohs this as sheer snobbery. He insists it was his task as Editor of the Daily Mirror to turn his back on news that was of no interest to his readers and to give them what they wanted which was gossip. Wrong perhaps in an ideal word he concedes but necessary for the survival of the newspaper. Having turned away from popular newspapers Mr Greenslade admits he has the luxury of distance. However he retains his affection for them. Anyone who has ever wondered what makes newspapers what they are should read this delightful and lightly written work. My only complaint is that it is a little heavy at 800 pages.
By Clive Power
Format:Paperback
Roy Greenslade's history of British newspapers from the end of WW2 to 2004 gives a useful broad overview of the trends and characters of this industry as it reached its circulation heights and then when it started on what appears to be its irreversible decline.
If you want to know who succeeded who in the editor's or owner's chair, how old they were when appointed and even what school they went to, then this may be the book for you.
But these short, or very short, portraits by Greenslade (often of people he knew) are often marked by unsupported one word summaries of his targets (more often than not dismissive) rather than attempting to analyse what he thinks they may have got wrong (and right).
This short-cut and personality-based approach, in a very long book, makes it unfortunately read like a long shaggy dog story, with an endless conveyer belt of characters and briefly addressed incidents that you forget as you turn the page, and which is incapable of reaching a conclusion or any deep insight into why these papers rose and now fall.
'Press Gang' would need lots more detail to make it a useful history - an analysis of contents in different papers at the same time or in individual titles over time; some graphs showing circulations; details of newspaper costs in real terms or other features to give it the depth that this former tabloid newspaper editor fails to deliver.
If you want to know who succeeded who in the editor's or owner's chair, how old they were when appointed and even what school they went to, then this may be the book for you.
But these short, or very short, portraits by Greenslade (often of people he knew) are often marked by unsupported one word summaries of his targets (more often than not dismissive) rather than attempting to analyse what he thinks they may have got wrong (and right).
This short-cut and personality-based approach, in a very long book, makes it unfortunately read like a long shaggy dog story, with an endless conveyer belt of characters and briefly addressed incidents that you forget as you turn the page, and which is incapable of reaching a conclusion or any deep insight into why these papers rose and now fall.
'Press Gang' would need lots more detail to make it a useful history - an analysis of contents in different papers at the same time or in individual titles over time; some graphs showing circulations; details of newspaper costs in real terms or other features to give it the depth that this former tabloid newspaper editor fails to deliver.
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