MEDIA: When The Guardian was honest
More summer filler
Once upon a time — July 1954 to be precise — the Manchester Guardian was that bit more honest about itself than it is today. The following is the complete copy of the Guardian’s advertisement on the back cover of issue number 9 of Encounter. Even liberalism was better in the past.
Why do we do it?It may puzzle some readers of these advertisements to know why — since mass circulation is not the aim of the Manchester Guardian — we advertise at all.
Truly, we do not seek the millions — not they us. The Manchester Guardian is for the relatively few, the influential ‘thinking minority’. But not all of that minority is yet fully aware of the Manchester Guardian and of how much it offers them.
We believe that there is still a considerable number of men and women who would really appreciate the Manchester Guardian but who — because habit is so hard to break — continue with a newspaper which does not really satisfy them. These are the new readers whom we should like to enlist.
To gain such extra readers would be an obvious help to the Manchester Guardian. Equally the Manchester Guardian would be a help to these readers. Here then is a marriage of mutual interests which your newsagent will be happy to arrange.
Of course, this was the Guardian performing it’s cherished role in a world where the BBC still observed the 14-day rule (and so didn’t attempt to engage in matters of partisan controversy). More than ever it is clear that, in terms of moral centrality, and liberal posturing, yesterday’s Manchester Guardian is today’s BBC.
The same edition of Encounter contains an excellent, early epating of the pretensions of Indian nationalism by Nirad C. Chaudhuri, and reminds us yet again that the pieties we still fight today never truly went uncontested. To men like Chaudhuri Toryism owes an unpayable debt.
4th Estate, August 11, 2003 12:31 AM