Abstract
From the satire, The Man Who Knows, by Mark Lawson, BBC Radio 4, week commencing April 9. Set in 1968; the scene is the Savoy Grill
Gordon Bannoch, editor of the Morning News, giving lunch to his gossip columnist Dominic Bold: “Dominic, I'm a very happy editor. These stories you're getting are turning our rivals 57 varieties of green. And, you know, I'd never ask where they're coming from.”
Bold: “Good.”
Bannoch: “But listen. You do what you need to do, but I can never know you're doing it. Dominic, good honest bribes to people who know people I can cope with. They can go down in the books as research. But if it gets beyond that — crooks, cops, phone taps — you're on your own when the cows come home. Mrs Bannoch only tolerates my almost permanent absences at work, or interviewing the next generation of women's page editors, because she expects to be Lady Bannoch when my circulation finally lets me down. Screw up my knighthood and I'll make sure you couldn't get a job as a revise sub on the classified page of the Auchtermuchty Evening Courier…“
A man approaches and introduces himself: “Rupert Murdoch… Good to meet you.”
Bold: “Oh right, yes of course. This is Gordon Bannoch, editor of the Morning News.
Murdoch: “Yes, a good paper. If I get the News of the World I'd like to do something along those lines, although tabloid — I don't get this Brit thing with broadsheets in a mass market.”
Bold: “Can you give us any steer on the sale?”
Murdoch: “I'm confident. In Fleet Street if you don't get drunk at lunchtime you're a genius.”
Bannoch: “Word is that Sir William [Carr] is deciding today whether to sell his stake to Maxwell…”
Murdoch: “Did you read that leader in the News of the World last Sunday? ‘This newspaper is as English as roast beef and must remain so.’ I assume that was aimed at me. I think England needs an enema.” (Departs)
Bannoch: “D'you know, I think that man may be just the breath of fresh air British journalism needs.”