Abstract
Say what you like about Rupert Murdoch – and who hasn't, over the past 40 years? – but surely we have to admire a man who loves newspapers enough to move his own titles to the kind of smart new building that only the new-media barons of Silicon Valley were meant to be able to afford.
For the past 15 years, all the swagger has come from Facebook, Google and Twitter, celebrating world domination from ostentatious real estate on the West Coast. But in the new offices of News UK – the British end of the Murdoch newspaper empire, rechristened after News International died of shame – we see a statement of intent that tells us there is life yet in print.
It's not so much the building, a new glass tower rendered unremarkable by the Shard that towers above it, close to London Bridge, as the zeal that goes with it. For reasons that they brought on themselves, the Murdoch boys and girls have had a rough three years, losing the News of the World and seeing The Sun diminished by stories of illegal behaviour. Now they are back and, in a manner that should warm the heart of anyone who has ever walked into a newspaper office, they want the world to know it.
When did we last see newspapers shouting the odds? By the time I arrived on Fleet Street in 1981, the great architectural statements of early 20th century press power – the Telegraph, Express and Mail buildings – were magnificent only from the outside. The foyers were already given over to sorry piles of archive copies and classified ad sales. And when the exodus began, later that decade, most titles retreated into shared blocks or – the Murdoch papers – behind the fortified fences of Wapping. The Mail maintained more front than most, mounting busts of its great men in a grand atrium and, more recently, celebrating its heritage with portraits of former editors and moments from its history. What a shame that shoppers on Ken High stroll by unaware of the editorial power pulsating above Whole Foods. Elsewhere, only The Guardian has made much effort to say hello, giving over the ground floor of its newish premises in Kings Cross to creative exhibitions that suggest something more romantic than a financial services company.
Which is not to say that you can just walk in to News UK. Even those reporters – and at least one editor – used occasionally to vault the security gates installed in the 1980s acknowledge now that they are necessary. The attack in Paris has made all journalists more cautious. But at least a large, airy foyer speaks of a certain confidence, as does a 30 year lease. Above the reception desk a mighty banner proclaims the glory of the media in an uppercase style that would never be seen on a newspaper page. Here it is in full. Now don't laugh:
“TELLING THE STORIES THAT MATTER, SEEDING IDEAS AND STIRRING EMOTION. CAPTURING MOMENTS, MEANING AND MAGIC. MAKING SENSE OF THE WORLD. ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS, IN THE THICK OF IT, BEHIND THE SCENES AND FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT. LONG-FORM AND RAPID-FIRE, PRAGMATIC AND POETIC, COMICAL AND CRITICAL. BEING AT THE BIGGEST EVENTS WITH THE BIGGEST NAMES. NOTICING THE SMALLEST DETAILS AND STICKING UP FOR THE LITTLE GUY. INCREDIBLE STORIES, EXTRAORDINARY EXPERIENCES AND EVERYDAY LIFE. ENLIGHTENMENT AND ENTERTAINMENT. CLARITY AND CONNECTIONS. DELIVERING THE RIGHT CONTENT IN THE RIGHT WAY. WHETHER LEAN BACK OR LEAN IN, PRINT OR PIXEL, SNACKING OR SUBSCRIPTION. IN REAL TIME, DOWN TIME OR EXTRA TIME. LOOKING BACKWARDS ONLY WHEN IT HELPS TO MAKE SENSE OF WHAT'S IN FRONT OF YOU. BECAUSE THE TIME IS NOW TO SEE THINGS DIFFERENTLY AND TO DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY. TO RECONNECT WITH OUR PAST IN ORDER TO REDEFINE OUR FUTURE. TO RETHINK CONTINUOUSLY THE BUSINESS OF STORY TELLING.”
Yes, yes, it could have done with some serious subbing, and a cull of cliché, but it's trying – trying harder than anyone (except The Guardian, at its premises) to explain that there is something important going on in this building.
And the organisation is offering a more open face. I've been to three events there already, which is three times more than I had been to at other offces. The other day News UK lent a floor to the National Council for the Training of Journalists, for a conference of students. The following week it was holding an evening for its News Academy, a scheme to get school leavers interested in journalism. Have a look at the website: it actually tells you what a media company does and makes you want to be a part of it.
The cynics will say this was the only option for an organisation fallen so low. And they will ask – after its adolescent jokes over page three – whether it is sincere. But I met some journalists who said they went to work with a new pride, who looked forward to meeting students and readers and who wondered why their employer had done so little before to show a thoughtful, friendly face to the world. Perhaps I was just there on a sunny day, with light flooding the floors from all sides and the wonder of London stretched out before us, 17 floors below. But I reckon this new mood might just catch on.