Article
How Bill Deedes acted as a cover for the 'stinking' Barclays
I'm going to say something rather shocking: Bill Deedes was a coward. It now emerges that his lordship, as many of us suspected, was outraged by the way in which the Barclay brothers ran the Telegraph group. Yet he waited until his death to reveal his true feelings, thereby failing to offer leadership to a beleaguered staff and allowing the public to believe that he was supportive of the owners.
In a series of critical diary entries, and in a memo passed to his biographer "with instructions for disclosure only after his funeral", Deedes revealed the depth of his hostility to the Barclays. He even spoke of their regime as "a stinking mob". The revelation appears in Stephen Robinson's excellent biography, The Remarkable Lives of Bill Deedes, which will be published in two weeks' time.
We discover that Deedes came "to doubt whether the Telegraph and the Barclays were compatible". He was cast down by the change of culture under the chief executive, Murdoch MacLennan, who had been recruited from the Daily Mail group, heralding the hiring of several former Mail executives. Deedes wrote in his memo:
This was a newspaper they [the Barclays] were ready to pay £660m for, but it was being produced by an unsatisfactory staff. Not a word of encouragement or praise came the way of the journalists who produced this high-value newspaper, though reason suggested they must have had something to do with what the Barclays had paid.
It struck me that what the Barclays saw in the Telegraph was an asset that in the right hands could be turned into a more profitable business... The intention to change the nature of the Telegraph into something more profitable had to be shielded from readers who loved it most for its unprofitable qualities which they saw as a stand against the vulgarity of the red tops.
But this is the part that really shows Deedes's cowardice and, incidentally, his misreading of his own status. By refusing to speak out he bolstered nervous Telegraph readers (and an even more nervous staff) and therefore knew he was helping the Barclays, despite distrusting them:
I was called on to play a minor role, which I accepted. As a somewhat shabby Daily Telegraph mascot with an excessive number of years with the newspaper, I offered a certain reassurance to readers in doubt about the Telegraph's future intentions.
On the face of it, it was ridiculous to keep a 92-year-old man employed... But he served as part of the cover plan.
Exactly. That was the point of the Telegraph management keeping him on board. As Robinson records, MacLennan was desperate to keep Deedes on side, realising that any hostile public statement by the paper's beloved iconic former editor might lead to a stampede by readers. Instead, Deedes preferred to be "loyal". But loyal to whom? Loyal to himself through his continued employment?
Though he confided his real thoughts to friends he refused to go public, despite being offered a first-class opportunity by the British Journalism Review's editor, Bill Hagerty, who interviewed him as rumours emerged of his genuine feelings.
Hagerty did his level best to get Deedes to say what he felt. He refused to say anything even mildly critical. No wonder Hagerty wrote of Deedes's "admirable and largely successful display of stonewalling". The "loyal" Deedes preferred to strike out from beyond the grave instead.
Unsurprisingly, none of the Robinson chapter entitled "A stinking mob" appeared in the Daily Telegraph's serialisation of his book, a point noted by Richard Ingrams in his Independent column.
So the end result is that Deedes, by keeping his counsel, immeasurably helped the Barclays. His silence ensured that there was no rallying point for staff and readers who opposed the change of culture. Was that not cowardice?
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User Comments
RoyGreenslade
17 March 2008 10:15AM
Fair point, Gerbilator. But it strikes me that journalists are always urging others - particularly politicians - to say what they really think. They do all they can to expose hypocrisy. Yet, when it comes to their own business, they suddenly deny the value of freedom of expression. Anyway, in Deedes's case, consider the fact that the whole echelon of senior Telegraph journalists - not to mention many of the foot soldiers - were required to leave. Yet, as they went, Dear Bill was smiling away in public, talking airily of the need to engage with changing times while concealing his opposition. In such circumstances he had a duty to speak out. If he had, I suppose it's just possible that there would have been a readers' rebellion and, even more possibly, the imposition of further redundancies. But it would still have been a gesture of loyalty to his departed colleagues and, in my view, an act with a public interest justification.
Gerbilator
17 March 2008 11:25AM
When I got the boot from the Teleg after 10+ years when the Barclays took over, some colleagues complained, but most "did a Deedes" and kept their heads down. Do I blame them (or him ?). Not at all - because as we all know, the media is a very small world, and you can never tell when you might just bump into these schmucks again. (Sure enough, I now find myself working for an outfit where one ex-Barclays dolt has just taken over).
The question therefore remains: would Deedes speaking out have done anything constructive for the Telegraph, his former colleagues, or the public ? Unlikely, I think - since not even plunging circulation figures are enough to tell these dolts they've screwed up a great newspaper. Gestures and speaking out cut no ice with these guys, Roy. As far as they're concerned, you're either with 'em or against them. And I know where I stand on that one.
ErrorGorilla
17 March 2008 11:38AM
Two weeks eh? The official anthem of Stoke On Trent is 'Moving Forwards Together'. Perhaps they've moved forwards two weeks into the future because the Hanley branch of Waterstones had this book available for sale last Saturday.
singalongachris
17 March 2008 11:59AM
If I remember rightly, Bill never spoke out when a similar pack of arrivistes hijacked the Tory party 33 years ago. The speeding up of the demise of a paper already in its death throes after twenty years of neocon nonsense courtesy of Charles Moore is small beer, surely, when set against what Deedes and co allowed the Tories to do first to themselves and subsequently to you and me...
JemimaJanes
17 March 2008 1:45PM
I understand that a lot of the long-serving journalists at the Telegraph were disposed of by the incoming regime because they weren't very good at their jobs and didn't meet the standards required by the incoming executives who were shaped by their time at Associated. Now, it could of course be argued that the values/skills that the Associated crowd were looking for are/were the wrong ones but I think there is some value in the argument that the Telegraph had grown into a bit of a Gentleman's Club. A lovely place to work, no doubt, but, as it transpired, would that was never going to last indefinitely. Maybe Deedes recognised that he represented the Old Telegraph more than anyone else and that any protest he put up would be, as a result, largely worthless.
ryeats
17 March 2008 1:55PM
I echo other readers. Harsh roy but true nonetheless. Great and wonderful a man as he was Bill Deedes could have spoken out to great effect when he was alive. He chose not so to do. Why? Was it that he so enjoyed his new lease of life as the Telegraph's correspondent at large? Did he feel nothing good would come of a public protest against the Barclay Brothers? He has passed away so we do not know. Others might condemn you roy as self righteous and say you should be ashamed of yourself. not I. well do i remember reading stories of how you walked out of a senior position at the Sun in the 1980s in protest against that newspaper's jingoism. you refused to take part in campaigns of doubtful integrity as a leading light at the Sunday times. as editor of the daily Mirror you alone stood up to Robert Maxwell. As result you suffered financial loss and professional ridicule. You have earned your right to chastise the late Bill. By the by, roy did you ever get 'chased' by a pretty young woman reporter as the late Bill was? Is power the aphrodisac we are led to believe?
TheoArundel
17 March 2008 2:04PM
Gentle Folk, yes, Jemima. Club? No. The reason the Telegraph was profitable was that it was well run, unlike much of Fleet Street. Conrad Black's shenanigans aside, both journos and other staff worked extremely hard and produced a quality product. Black squeezed irt foe cash and under-invested (towards the end of his ownership).
The Barclays and their henchmen have simply squeezed the Group more (after an initial investment) - have demoralised the human capital that the Telegraph had retained - and are simply rude and obnoxious in their dealings with the staff who remain. As Gerbilator had it - you're either with them or against them . . . . they're not very rational.
A once great newspaper (regardless of its politics) is now a humbled dolt . . . . happy to parrot workaday platitudes rather than be seen to have an opinion - or a circulation for that matter!
RoyGreenslade
17 March 2008 3:04PM
JemimaJanes raises a matter I should have made clear. I remain agnostic on whether the Associated entryism to the Telegraph was a good or bad thing. I concede that it's perfectly reasonable to argue that the new is better than the old. My point is simply that BILL kept quiet despite regarding the evacuation of the old in favour of the new as a bad thing. I have had two emails arguing that, at his advanced age, Bill probably had no stomach for a fight. But I see it from the opposite perspective: at his age Bill had nothing to lose. Remember also that the Barclays' managers were terribly concerned at the possible effects of his speaking out (and I have that not only from Robinson's book but my own sources). In other words, they did fear the consequences of the paper's most famous journalist turning on them in public.
singalongachris
17 March 2008 3:06PM
JemimaJames has half a point when she suggests that a lot of the Torygraph hacks weren't up to the job. Indeed they were not. Alas, they were not the people cleared out by the Barclays and their pals from Associated: the initial - and biggest - redundancy programme was almost entirely voluntary. And we all know what happens in voluntary redundough programmes: the good people, the people who know they'll be all right, take the money and run. It is the talentless and lazy who hang on. Hence the Telegraph of today - a sinking ship in which only the rats are left on board.
colinrandall
17 March 2008 3:41PM
I do not especially care whether Jemimajanes regards me, or others fired by the new mob, as deserving of the treatment we received. As for the Telegraph, it seems to me to be vastly inferior now to the paper they bought, but that is necessarily a biased view. On Bill, however, as I mention in my own blog posting on this issue - http://www.francesalut.com/2008/03/deedes.html - it is beyond doubt that he genuinely disliked and disapproved of the incoming regime and its conduct. He told me so when we met for lunch in Paris in 2005 (when I was still happily employed). My own suspicion is that his reasons for acquiescence were complex and may well have included, as I write at Salut!, elements of "selfishness, his bond with readers [...and a...] fear that if he were to cause a fuss, the interests of his paper and colleagues would be damaged further". Cowardice I find more difficult to accept as one of his motivations.
harlan
17 March 2008 11:09PM
My Dad, now 78, has been a Telegraph reader for all of my lifetime (46 yrs.), despite a career in which he left it to work at Murdoch's new Sun (better pay) and stayed 'till Wapping. Yet now, he alternates it with the Mail and the Times, so disgusted is he with the rapid decline in quality. The paper still looks old fashioned, yet it seems to be trying desperately to reach a new, younger readership. If so, why does it cling to the likes of Heffer and Moore (or are they clinging to it?). As far as I can see, the Barclays have spelled disaster for every paper they've purloined, so god help the Telegraph. Bill Deedes? Let the man R.I.P. From what I can gather, it would simply not have been in his nature to stand up against the Barclays, as he sought to look for the positive in each successive regime at his beloved paper since he was replaced as editor by Black over 20 yrs. ago.
MorrisOx
18 March 2008 9:51AM
This is all very well, Roy, bit never mind all that nonsense about staff and quality - just look at the newsroom! If only the readers could see it!
soundsofsilence
19 March 2008 7:06PM
Dear Jemima Janes. How good are you at your job? If you can explain why class acts such as Caroline Davies, Alan Philps, Neil Darbyshire, Alec Russell, David Sapsted, Colin Randall, Stewart Payne and too many others to mention weren't good enough for the incoming Associated regime, I would like to hear it. The only problem the Associated regime had with the reporters and news staff it inherited was that they were far too independent, intelligent and honest for them. They believed in publishing the truth, sprinkling it with a little bit of elegance and flair, and trusting the intelligence of their readers.
Gerbilator
17 March 2008 9:21AM
Harsh words, Roy - though of course that doesn't mean they shouldn't be said if merited. But are they ? As you note, the logic behind attempts to keep Deedes on-side was to prevent a stampede by loyal readers. Do you think Deedes couldn't also see this ? So run through the potential consequences of his speaking out: he gets the boot, the stampede takes place, and his erstwhile colleagues get their arses kicked even more, before being fired and replaced by even more airheads. Deedes would doubtless have understood the meaning of a Pyrrhic victory, even if the arseholes who now run the Telegraph don't.