Mr Arthur Christiansen, former editor of the ╥Daily Express,╙ speaking on the BBC programme ╥Ten O╒Clock╙ last night said:
To all newspapermen it is tremendously exciting that ╥The Guardian╙ is about to achieve its long cherished ambition of printing in London. It is a shot in the arm at a time when the journalistic profession is bedevilled and depressed. To me it is as invigorating an achievement as the birth of a new national morning paper would have been. In fact, it will be a new morning newspaper to countless people in the South of England, who now know ╥The Guardian╙ only as a fabulous name in international journalism.
Crippling burden
I have been given the credit for asserting with some vigour that you cannot beat news for selling a newspaper. It has always seemed to me that this was a blinding glimpse of the obvious, and maybe it sank home only because I added that even if you wrote a paper with the pen of Shakespeare himself, it would be no substitute for an efficient news service. This, of course, is the reason for ╥The Guardian╙ going to the expense and the trouble of printing in London. Traditionally, the paper has depended on its character, rather than on its news, for its success, at any rate in the South of England.
╥The Guardian╙ has character all right, but what a handicap it has suffered from, even in the last few days, when the news of Khrushchev letting off his bombs has arrived as the London edition has gone to press in Manchester. It has been a crippling burden for any paper, let alone a paper of distinction, to labour under.
Yet, despite this, ╥The Guardian╙ is selling 235,000 copies a day. This is, of course, a long way below the ╥Daily Telegraph╙ which has a sale of one million and a quarter, but it is not so far behind the ╥Times,╙ its nearest competitor, which sells 260,000 copies a day.
My view is that neither the ╥Telegraph╙ nor the ╥Times╙ will suffer in sales when the ╥Guardian╙ will go ahead as what might be called a Third Force in quality journalism, and that its sales will reach 300,000 in due course, based purely on its curiously unique character, allied with its new news efficiency.
The Scott Trust
The cost of this operation? The ╥Guardian╙ people are very cagey. What would be a small sum for a mass newspaper like the ╥Express╙ is big money indeed for the ╥Guardian,╙ but I estimate that it cannot be much less than ú10,000 a week, including newsprint and staff. The money is administered by the Scott Trust, a non-profit distributing body, and it is an interesting commentary on the high purposes of the paper in coming to London that, if it doubles or trebles its profits, no one can make an extra penny piece. All that can be done is to plough the proceeds back into the paper itself.
I am told that Alastair Hetherington, the Editor of ╥The Guardian,╙ intends to continue editing the paper from Manchester. I have the idea that if he had taken a different decision, C. P. Scott himself would have risen from his grave, mounted his bicycle, and driven all the way to London to haul him back.
