CELEBRATIONS AT MAIL
Daily Mail editor David English was pictured hand in handwith his boss, Vere Harms-worth, cutting a cake to mark the third birthday of thenew-styleMail. No wonder they were smiling – sales were up 87,000.
PHOTOGRAPHERS ‘OUT OF CONTROL’
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Freelance photographers outside courts came under attack from Labour MP Frank Tomney, who claimed they had “no authority but that of Hitler”. He said in the Commons that the “photographic racket” was out of control and urged the Attorney General to act. “Cameras are stuck into the faces of people approaching or leaving court, mostly by freelance cameramen who are attached to no newspaper but rather to Hitler and the authority of Hitler.”
WATERHOUSE NAMED COLUMNIST OF YEAR
Daily Mirror columnist Keith Waterhouse was pictured on the front of Press Gazette receiving the columnist of the year award from Michael Foot, then Secretary of State for Employment. Foot told guests at the IPC National Press Awards the trouble with politicians was they knew nothing about newspapers. “They imagine that what was on the front page was deliberately designed to get there,” he said. “They even laughingly imagine that it was designed by the editor, and it causes them great strain when they wake up in the morning and see themselves there and imagine what is written is directed against them. But you and I know there is not a scrap of malice in it at all.”
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PAY AGREEMENT NEEDED BEFORE MOVE
Staff on The Times were warned that the paper faced closure if agreement was not reached on pay and redundancies ahead of a planned move to Gray’s Inn Road. The warning came from managing director Marmaduke Hussey, who later went on to be chairman of the BBC. Hussey warned that “the losses of The Times can no longer be sustained”.
MERCURY INVESTS IN L ATEST TECHNOLOGY
The Matlock Mercury, now famous for its campaign by editor Don Hale to free Steven Downing, was pictured in Press Gazette after switching to a web offset press. The Mercury was owned by freelance journalist John Uprichard, who had bought the title in 1971. Press Gazette reported that many of his friends had “raised their eyebrows” because the paper was printed on a
rickety rotary press dating back to 1898. He now wanted them to relax as the paper was printed on the latest technology.
COUNCIL BARS PRESS FROM MEETINGS
Lincolnshire County Council, now at the centre of a secrecy row over the way it is handling the future of its chief executive, was making news for similar reasons back in 1974. The council had decided the press should not be admitted to sub-committees.
JOB RESTRICTIONS CRITICISED
Tory MP John Cockcroft attacked restrictions in Fleet Street that meant journalists had to learn the ropes on local papers before being able to work on a national. “A brilliant graduate who has the opportunity to go to the Treasury or the Foreign Office will take one of those jobs rather than work for three years on The Wolverhampton Chronicle,” he said.
PRINTERS THROWN OUT
In New York, printers at the Daily News were thrown out after a union leader grabbed the first automated plate, bent it in half and threw it on the composing room floor.
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