Power Without
Responsibility (JN 500)
The Business of News
Case study: Wapping
Lecture Outline
 1. Political Economy of the Media
 2. Technology, business and journalism
 3. Advertising and journalism
 4. Case study: Wapping
1. Political Economy of the Media
 Political Economy focuses on the production,
distribution, exchange and consumption of wealth and
the consequences for the welfare of individuals and
society.
 Political Economy is the study of social relations,
particularly power relations, which mutually constitute
the production, distribution and consumption of
resources. As the term suggests, it examines the
connections between the political and the economic.
1. Political Economy of the Media
 What has that got to do with journalism and the media?
 “The mass media are first and foremost industrial and
commercial organizations which produce and distribute
commodities” (Golding and Murdock).
1. Political Economy of the Media
 Media and cultural industries are similar to and
different from other industries. They are similar
because they sell commodities – they write news
stories, make programmes that constitute a product
which they sell to us, the audience. However, and more
importantly, they also sell us, they sell audiences to
advertisers. Alternatively, they are also different from
other industries because their products have such
important democratic ramifications.
1. Political Economy of the Media
 “Of course, it almost goes without saying that the
world view of the large, highly diversified media
institutions and that of big business are sufficiently
equivalent that it is pointless to accuse the media of
bias towards business: they are business” (Turner 1994,
p. 29, author’s italics).
 Economic forces impact on journalism in two ways: 1.
the production of journalism is largely the business of
an industry; and 2. journalism is also a commodity
(McNair).
1. Political Economy of the Media
 Newspapers are material
commodities made out of raw
materials (paper and ink) using
technology and labour, and
distributed by a massive
transport operation (Bonney &
Wilson 1983, p. 96).
 News as commodity: the
practice of gathering and
packaging information as a
product for distribution to
readers and viewers, whose
attention (and patronage) is
then sold to advertisers for
profit (Bettig and Hall).
 News services are ‘branded’
entities.
2. Technology, business and journalism
 The business of journalism has always been linked to
use and exploitation of technologies: the printing press
was integral to the early capitalist economy and nationstates.
 19th C and early 20th C journalism influenced by
telegraph (timeliness, short and standardised, inverted
pyramid story structure) and photography (visual appeal
for emerging consumer/audience).
 Now, convergent journalism and globalization of world
economy linked to digitalisation.
2. Technology, business and journalism
 Introduction of commercial competition into television
in 1955 not only enabled realisation of the potential of
the medium of television but it also prompted
newspaper innovation to remain competitive – e.g.:
introduction of free colour magazines in broadsheet
Sunday newspapers in early 1960s. Although Picture Post
and national daily newspapers such as News Chronicle
and Daily Herald closed down partly because they were
unable to attract sufficient advertising.
2. Technology, business and journalism
 Contradictory influences of
technology in the news media
industry, uneven experiences at
workplace level:
 Technology has improved the
physical presentation of news –
e.g.: computer graphics.
 Technology also makes
redundant whole classes of
activities: e.g.: loss of
typesetters. New technologies
can also allow greater control of
management over newsroom
workforce and exploit
journalistic labour: e.g. multiskilling associated with
convergent journalism.
2. Technology, business and journalism
 Fairfax company in Australia recently announced it was
getting rid of its sub-editors and requiring journalists to
do sub-editors work:
 http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/oct/16/fairf
ax-media-to-get-rid-of-subeditors-and-photographersat-regional-papers
 In the United States: ‘daily papers cut their newsrooms
by 11% in 2008, the biggest one-year drop since 1978 …
[and] nearly 10,000 journalists were laid-off or took
buyouts in the first five months of 2009 alone’ (Kirchoff
2011, 32).
2. Technology, business and journalism
 NUJ Commission on multi-skilling found that 75% of
respondents felt that cross-media integration led to
increased workloads with 37% claiming that journalists
were now working longer hours. Less than 25% of NUJ
branches responded that their members had received
additional pay for integrated working (Freedman 2010,
p. 41).
 Greater levels of ‘churnalism’ – rapid repackaging of
unchecked material, largely from PR and news agency
sources.
2. Technology, business and journalism
 Influence of technology on labour and output is not to
advocate a position of technological determinism that
maintains a ‘straightforward link between technical
possibilities and their implementation’. Other factors
such as politics, institutional structures, cultural values,
etc. also determine influence of technology.
3. Advertising and journalism
 The news media derive
significant revenues from
advertising. Thus the sources
from which we gain much of our
knowledge about the world
around us are beholden to
companies with a vested
interest in how that world is (or
is not) represented (Bettig and
Hall).
 Advertisers determine the
structure of media industries
simply by choosing where to
spend their money. They support
media outlets that reach the
right demographic groups,
audiences that consumer the
most.
3. Advertising and journalism
 Advertisers exert direct (cancellation of contracts,
advertorials) and indirect (promotion of softer, lifestyle
news) influence over news media content.
 Most business reportage, while sometimes critical of
individual companies, is fundamentally ‘pro-business’.
3. Advertising and journalism
 2013 UK advertising expenditure:
 http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/jul/09/adve
rtising-spend-increase-2013-4bn
4. Case study: Wapping
 Pre Wapping:
 Post-war restrictions on paper continued until 1955 –
keeping printing and paper costs low and advertising
space at a premium. Journalism, as a labour intensive
industry, also had high production costs. Introduction of
new printing technologies and cuts in staffing levels was
initially held back by print unions (Conboy 2011, p 93).
 The daily print process meant printing trade unions had
a lot of power over management who were unwilling to
risk losing the sales and advertising revenue caused by
missing an edition (Temple 2008, p. 74).
4. Case study: Wapping
 In 1978 Thomson newspapers took on unions over
perceived overmanning, restrictive practices, and
refusal to accept introduction of new technologies.
Thomson suspended publication of The Times and
Sunday Times, but unionists held out and refused to
accept change. The papers were closed for 11 months at
a cost to the company of £40 million (Temple 2008,
p.74).
 This prompted Thomson to sell newspapers to Murdoch
in 1981.
4. Case study: Wapping
 Wapping move facilitated
by anti-trade union
political climate fostered
by Thatcher government –
1984 Trade Union Act
restricted picketing to own
place of work, limited
numbers, and no secondary
strikes allowed.
4. Case study: Wapping
 In January 1986 Murdoch moved production and
distribution operations for his newspapers from site off
Fleet Street to new purpose-built facility in Docklands
area of East London. Relocation occurred without
consultation with printers, journalists or unions. The
main union in the dispute was the Society of Graphic
and Allied Trades (SOGAT). Murdoch drafted in members
of the more moderate Electrical, Electronic,
Telecommunications and Plumbing Union (EEPTU) to
man the new presses. Most of Murdoch’s journalists
ignored the plea of the National Union of Journalists
(NUJ) not to relocate to Wapping.
4. Case study: Wapping
 The move to Wapping
prompted a protracted
strike involving thousands
of unionists. An average
1000 police officers were
on duty for each of the first
300 days of the picketing of
what became known as
“Fortress Wapping”
(Temple 2008, p. 78).
4. Case study: Wapping
 The strike ended in
February 1987 after strikers
endured a year without
work or pay.
4. Case study: Wapping
 Move allowed journalists to input copy directly onto a
computer screen and allow subeditors and page editors
to compose pages on screen (Conboy 2011, p. 93).
 “Computer-based typesetting replaced the linotype
production which had necessitated skilled and
experienced printers, and allowed for the immediate
dismissal of 5,000 of them, which lowered costs,
promised less interference in production, increased
profits and quickly led to a more supine workforce of
journalists on what were often referred to as
individually negotiated contracts” (Conboy 2011, p.94).
4. Case study: Wapping
 Wapping revolution paved way for extra pagination,
additional sections and inserts and easier incorporation
of colour printing.
 Combined with more buoyant advertising markets, it
also allowed for more lifestyle and consumer sections
and greater cross-fertilisation with entertainment
industries (e.g. sport, fashion and motoring) (Conboy
2011, p. 95).
4. Case study: Wapping
 End of era occurred in 2012 when News International
sold the Wapping site:
 http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/may/30/ne
ws-international-sells-wapping-site-150m
References

Bettig, R.V. and Hall, J.L 2003, Big Media, Big Money: Cultural Texts and Political Economics, Rowman & Littlefield,
Lanham.

Bonney, B & Wilson, H 1983, Australia’s Commercial Media, Macmillan, South Melbourne.

Conboy, M 2011, ‘Technology and Journalism’, Journalism in Britain: a historical introduction, Sage, Los Angeles.

Freedman, D 2010, ‘The Political Economy of the ‘New’ News Environment’, in N Fenton (ed.), New Media, Old News:
Journalism & Democracy in the Digital Age, Sage, London.

Golding, P. & Murdoch, G 1991, ‘Culture, Communications and Political Economy’ in Curran, J & Gurevitch, M (eds.) Mass
Media and Society, Edward Arnold, London.

Kirchoff, S. M. 2011, ‘The U.S. Newspaper Industry in Transition’, Journal of Current Issues in Media and
Telecommunications, vol. 2, issue 1, pp. 27-51.

McNair, B 1998, The Sociology of Journalism, Arnold, London.

Temple, M 1996, ‘New technology: Wapping and beyond’, The British Press, Open University Press, Maidenhead.

Turner, G. 1994, Making it National, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.