Where did all the millions go
that the Wapping Revolution saved?
don berry thinks he knows |
 |
Boris 'loveable rogue' Johnson has long entertained us with his journalistic outpourings. Now he has provided me with an extra service: he has helped answer a Fleet Street mystery that has been a puzzle ever since the Wapping revolution of 20-odd years ago.
My question was: what happened to all the millions of pounds that newspaper companies saved by getting rid of all those lavishly paid printers and ending all those debilitating strikes?
You might have expected newspapers to become booming businesses and to hire more of the one group of employees that seemed vital to their operations - the 'journos', as Rupert Murdoch affectionately (or something) called them.
Instead, over the past two decades, more and more newspaper companies have run |
|
 |
 |
|
| ‘Loveable rogue’ Boris Johnson MP was paid £245,000 by the Daily Telegraph |
|
|
into financial difficulties prompting them to sack more and more staff journalists, to rely more and more on individuals hired by the week or day, and, in the case of the provincial press, to pay wages that might well protect staff from ever having to repay their student loans.
How come? Well, we now have at least part of the answer to the whereabouts of those saved millions. It is provided by the latest register of MPs' outside interests.
This shows, among other things, the following: in the past year, the Daily Express (which seems set on eliminating 'journos' altogether) paid Ann Widdecombe MP £35,000 to £40,000 for a weekly column; the Daily Telegraph (which has slashed its journalistic staff to the bone) paid loveable Boris Johnson MP £245,000 for his weekly column. Crikey! as the maestro might exclaim.
The MPs' register shows several more - David Blunkett, Diane Abbott, George Galloway, for instance - cashing in on newspapers' generosity. And it's not just MPs who benefit from a bit of writing on the  |
