Just what did the Daily Mirror reckon was the message of its plaintive “Think Again” campaign?
Were ex-readers supposed to Think Again about Britain’s once-favourite newspaper now that it preferred Pilger to all that red-top jazz? Were existing readers supposed to Think Again now that Labour’s old faithful was into Blair-baiting? Were non-readers supposed to Think Again about their perception that there’s more fun in The Sun?
Whatever, Mirror ABCs (despite the great remorganisation and a kamikaze price cut) moved the wrong way, along with Trinity Mirror shares. That Think Again message seemed to be heeded only by chief executive Philip Graf.
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As he announced that he would be jumping ship (no doubt with a handsome lifebelt) the Mirror crew wondered what fate would fling at them this time. Having survived too much misfortune in the 20th century, theyÊdeserved better in the 21st. But, once more, they found themselves decoding media and City columns for clues to their future.
In The Business, they read that Trinity Mirror might simply unload its burdensome nationals. In the Sunday Express, a leading American investor was calling for such a break-up. Elsewhere, there was speculation about a Piers Morgan-led buyout funded by Al Fayed. Imagine.
And while the Mirror smouldered, the Financial Times reported that Morgan spent an hour at Downing Street warning the PM not to take his support for granted over Iraq. Which signalled that Morgan dependants needed to Think Again about taking for granted Government support for resistance to any regime change that would replace him.
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Surely no newspaper would have turned down the Currie-Major bombshell. So how odd of The Mail on Sunday to belittle it as “breathlessly disclosed in the semi-official Times a mere 14 years after the event”.
What was the Mail’s own scoop of the week? Why, the Falkender-Wilson affair, breathlessly disclosed a mere 46 years after the event.
Times editor Robert Thomson is entitled to throw his hat in the air for the most sensational coup of its kind since the Parkinson-Keays story, also broken in The Times. And Ginny Dougary’s interview with Currie was quite the most revealing since Michael Portillo found himself confessing his gay past. Again, a Dougary masterpiece. Again, in The Times.
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