Press Baron always had the power and control with ruthlessness. They combined terror with generosity. The memoirs of some journalist are full of anecdotes about the unexpectedly gifts, holidays and salary increase to all the staff. All this stories are named like brave underling obtains his reward. They usually took form of a plucky journalist looking in the face of the baron’s anger. They were clearly want to made an improvement, the first the baron, that had in his judgments a discriminating and fundamentally right-minded, and second the journalist, that they want to showed his independence by his courage and brave. But, with all that things the only thing that they were really demonstrated to the audience was a continuous process of humiliation.
The baron’s unusually were influenced to select the news stories, thereby helping to shape the news values of the national press.
This era has shape our perception of newspaper ownership; The contemporaries of Northcliffe named them or referred as “Northoleon”. In the campaigns he runs in his newspapers can show his eccentricities form, like the one that persuade everyone to grow sweet peas. By the other way Beaverbrook to cure his insomnia tried a Wellington bomber to fly around at night, alleging this will help him sleep. With this anecdotes confirm the half-crazed image and the obsessed individuals that they were.
In many ways the press barons of the interwar years were more interventionist, and cooperative than their processors. They start running the newspaper with a new style, exercising more control everyday in the operation of his own newspapers. The owners before the press barons had intervened in the running of the newspapers too, but Northcliffe revolution blurred the division between the editorial and the business aspects of this industry.
With all this we can say that the press baron where no different from their predecessor in getting involved themselves in the editorial conduct of their own papers. The thing that made them innovator, to some degree, is that they were extremely involved in the business side of the newspaper.
Power
The power of press baron brought commercial interests and values firmly into the day to day editorial decision-making process.
This unexpected change in the style of running newspapers, increased power of individual owner to the fore, led to be concern about power and the political influence of the barons. The press baron saw the ownership of the newspapers as a means to make them understand what was the importance of their views on politicians and political parties; as shaping the press issues of the day Northcliffe was clear to having political power and influence.
These men had obtained an important amount of power, which was direct hindered the development of democracy.
“Every extension of the franchise renders more powerful the newspaper and less powerful the politician” (quote in Boyce 1978:142) by the way Beaverbrook declared purpose for becoming involved in the industry was to “set up a propaganda paper” (Murdock and Golding, 1978: 142.) In some ways their motives were no different from newspaper and editors. Hetherington through his radical newspapers sought to create a political movement of the working classes while Delane and Barnes sought to influence the conduct of government policy.
Where the press baron differed from their predecessors was in their claim to represent the public. They claimed to be representative of their readers in the same way as politicians represented their voters. The owners of mass circulation newspapers could compete for the right to speak for British public opinion on an equal footing as the politicians. They represented and spoke their readers.
Stanley Baldwin Prime Minister of Britain once said that the London press was doing unaccountable and dangerous by saying “exercising the prerogative of the harlot through the ages: power with responsibility.” Rather than playing a role in building an educated democracy, they used their newspaper for their own personal crusades. He accused them of running their newspapers as engines of propaganda for their constantly changing policies, desires personal wishes, personal likes and dislikes.
The press sullied the conduct of politics by making them respond to what the people wanted rather than what they thought was best for the nation. Throughout the development of the British press politicians and political groups and factions have sought to influence the press directly or indirectly. Much of that era saw newspapers being owned or receiving subsidies and loans from parties, political faction and individual political figures.
To assess the power of the press barons in terms of their ability to persuade people to vote for new parties or candidates or to buy new products or take up new causes is to misunderstand their influence. Rather this lay in the way in which the newspapers “provided cumulative support for conservative values and reinforced opposition, particularly among the middle class, to progressive change” (Curran James and Seaton Jean 2006: 61) In other words the power of the press in this sense was to provide support for the status quo and the dominant culture, selecting certain issues for discussion while marginalising or ignoring others and in particular those voices calling for progressive change. The political influence of the press barons is not to be measured by their direct impact on political events but their indirect influence in helping to shape the whole environment in which politics was deducted.
With this Norman Angell’s concern that “What England thinks is largely controlled by a very few men, not by virtue of the direct expression of any opinion of their own but by controlling the distribution of emphasis in the telling of facts: so stressing one group of them and keeping another group in the background as to make a given conclusion inevitable”. (Norman Angell 1922: 26)
As a sum up, in era of press baron were four important features the first one was the big increase of circulation other was the ownership, it was a kind of monopoly in this industry.
With this they get a extremely control of their newspapers and use to influenced to all his readers in a politic and personal way also they were not fair with his employees they use to gave rise in holidays, gifts and pay and also if they don’t like, they sacked without excused. They always want to had all in control and the way they like, don’t mind if it is right or wrong.
The last feature is that they got a lot of power in politics, they star to received subsidies and loans from the politics parties and the advertising, the papers some times get to be complete sponsor by this.
The barons runs their newspapers as engines of propaganda because of the lot of changes of the policies, desires personal wishes, personal likes and dislikes.
Finally we can say they shape the way of life in this era, and they abused of the power and control.
Bibliography
1 Curran James, Seaton Jean, POWER WITHOUT RESPONSIBILITY: The History of Press and Broadcasting, London, Routeledge, 1991
2 Elridge John, Kitzinger Jenny, Williams Kevin, THE MASS MEDIAS AND THE POWER IN MODERN BRITAIN, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997
3 William Kevin, GET ME A MURDER A DAY! A History of Mass Communication in Britain, London Arnold, 1998
4 National Vanguard (10/01/2004), “JEWISH TERROR: THE STORY OF LORD NORTHCLIFFE”, Strom Kevin Alfred,
5 British Journalism Review Vol.14, No.3, 2003, “THE MYTH IN THE MIRROR”, Wright Jeff,
6 Answers.com, “MEDIA PROPRIETOR”,
