*THE TIMES is read by people who run the country; the Guardian by those who think they ought to run the coutly, ine Express Dy readers wild think the country ought to be run as it used to be run and, then, of course, there's the Sun • read by people who don't care who runs the country as long as they have big tits.' Glancing through the Rupert Murdoch's sleazy tabloid it is difficult to avoid some sympathy with Cyril Plant's analysis of newspaper at the 1976 TUC Congress It is difficult to believe that the Sun is all that remains of what was once tue grealest mass working Class paper this country has ever seen — the Daily Herald.
Particularly at the moment, when trade union leaders such as Hans. general sectary TGWU are calling daily land when Eyans at least committed in than saying that his contribute a minimum of £250,000 a year] it is instructive to consider the rise and fall of the old Daily Herald.
The Herald began life in 1911 as a strike sheet produced by compositors who were locked out of their London It was a time of dockers, builders, and miners extensive strike action.
groups nearly pages of the Sun anti-labour and taken shape.
Socialist
Moss The Herald's of the committedly for a workers' strike hard' words, would banner "The emancipation of women.
The Limit Publishing great upheaval in working class politics railway workers were all involved in There was a glaring need for means of communication between the struggle. The Daily Herald; launched as a daily the following year, consciously aimed to fill this gap and its early circulation of 300,000 copies daily showed it could do so. The era of mass working class newspapers had begun in 1896, Daily Mail, setting the pace for the anti-union mass media of today. By 1914 all the main many features of the present day press had politics socialist: "Strike and was its slogan on the industrial front, and Parliamentary proceedings were reported under the House of Pretence'. effort Pares were given over to the strugele of the Irish and the fight for the Despite its healthy circulation, the Herald soon hit financial difficulties.
Company which ran the paper [so called because David Lloyd-George had said of the Herald 'This is the limit'] consisted of a group of left-wing MPs and trade union leaders, and • was funded.
The paper had been launched with a working capital of just £300. In an early appeal for funds surpassing even the freneticism to be found on the back page of Socialist Challenge, Ben Tillett, the dockers' leader, headed his article At Once, At Once!' and on one occasion bailiffs were physically joyously welcomed], the Daily Herald shifted towards revolutionary defeatism. well the continuing editorship of Lansbury the went campaigning for the struggles of the workers' which had plagued the paper before Ine war relurned will a vengtance — and for the same reasons.
La pacifist position At the end of the war and under hack daily 1964. movement, But it was not the financial troubles complete newspaper and magazine conglomerate headed by millionaire shipowner Sir John Ellerman. In 1961 Odhams was bought out by Cecil King's Daily Mirror empire, which 'revitalised' the paper, changing its name to the Sun in All that was now needed to the transformation was Tory support in the paper's editorial- columns, "Dirty Digger' provided that soon enough