I suppose one positive aspect to my Tuesday posting about the fate of The People has been the level of response, suggesting that more people are passionate about the paper than I might have imagined. I didn't expect my criticisms of the departing editor, Mark Thomas, and his marginal paper to elicit quite so much interest.
So I'm posting again because I want to take up some of the public comments and to give them a wider airing. (I'm grateful to the private emailers too, and will respect their confidentiality). I'm not going to deal with much of the ad hominem stuff (though I do mention one right at the end).
I'm also ignoring the comments aimed at Trinity Mirror's corporate relations supremo, Nick Fullagar (though I can assure you that his comment did not come from someone pretending to be him). He has been answered well enough but, in his defence, what else would you expect a company PR to say when his employers are attacked?
Anyway, the overwhelming majority of commenters clearly felt that The People has had its day, which was my major point. I note that among those who advanced somewhat similar views to mine were intelligent commenters (who often disagree with me), such as Waltroon and RichardX. (And no, RichardX, I have no especial animus against Thomas, who may well be a decent cove. To borrow a line from The Godfather, it wasn't personal, it was just business).
I'm also obliged to OldReporter for his continuing support, so trenchantly expressed. I am fairly sure he is an old Daily Mirror hand who, like so many Holborn Circus veterans, grows ever more depressed at the decline of a newspaper outfit that once published three national titles with a combined circulation of 15,988,782 copies. In 1966, mind you. (For the record, last month the trio together sold 3,614,752).
Now let's look at Thomas's defenders. billywilliamson94 called for "compassion in this brutal and heartless industry." This reminds me of the old tale about the whingeing hack in El Vino's who asked where he could find sympathy in Fleet Street. Reply from the other end of the bar: "Try the dictionary, somewhere between shit and syphilis."
nokidding, like others, thinks Thomas, "a decent bloke and a bloody good journalist" but that's not the issue. Indeed, his/her addition "whether he was editor material is open to debate" tends to suggest my judgement was correct. But he made a terrific point about Neil Wallis's poor sales record that I had failed to take on board.
And tuftymac was also right to remind us that Thomas had to compete with the Daily Star Sunday. However, if The People did lose readers to the DSS, then it was all the more reason to carve out a separate niche - and risk losing readers who want only the dross served up by the second worst Sunday red-top in living memory (after the Sunday Sport).
TAlexander suggested that Thomas was the best editor The People has ever had. That shows a lamentable grasp - well, no grasp at all - of the paper's history. There were several brilliant editors in the past - including Sam Campbell, Bob Edwards and Richard Stott - and others who were far superior to Thomas, such as Geoff Pinnington, Ernie Burrington, Nick Lloyd and Bill Hagerty.
Of course, both TAlexander and mac54, were right to say that Thomas had little management support and little money to spend, as I said in my original posting. But I agree with RahRah that it is wrong to then refer to the paper's staff as "crap, lazy, uncreative journalists." That is grossly unfair and inaccurate.
Finally, mac54 suggested: "Let Roy put himself up as editor & see how he gets on." As I said, my posting was not a job application. And here's another bit of history not many people know about.
In 1985, while I was assistant editor of The Sun and certainly anxious to get away from there, I was asked to become editor of The People. I turned down the offer because, even then, I could not see any future for the paper, especially under Robert Maxwell's ownership. Months later I was asked to become deputy editor of a soon-to-be-launched paper, the London Daily News, and also turned that down because I couldn't face working for Maxwell. Towards the end of 1986, I was approached once more about The People editorship and rejected it again.
Needless to say, I've never stopped asking myself why, in 1989, I finally succumbed to Maxwell's offer to become editor of the Daily Mirror and, as everyone knows, proved I had been right all along to avoid any contact with the man.
I mention this because I realise that many moves made by journalists are not logical. Very often, instinct plays a greater part in our decision-making than we care to admit. And that has a relevance for The People.
If it's to have any chance of a future, it requires an editor with instinct. Not a "safe pair of hands" willing to manage decline as elegantly as possible. Not a person who thinks winning readers back from the Daily Star Sunday is a good idea. Not a management lackey.
There must be someone out there who can make one final effort to save the title. And there must be a willingness on Trinity Mirror's part to give that person their head, to give them adequate resources and support. Oh dear, I knew there was a flaw in my argument.
