Colourful newspaper from Wapping plant

Press, 4 February 1986, Page 22

Colourful newspaper from Wapping plant

NZPA staff correspondent Down the Thames from London at Wapping there are furious scenes as newspaper workers struggle against the forced march which is dragging them out of old Fleet Street and into a new technological age. Meanwhile humming away with space-age efficiency in London is the catalyst of the furor which has rocked Britain’s national newspaper industry. While thousands of newspaper jobs disappear elsewhere, and print unions fight Rupert Murdoch’s new Wapping plant, the launch is planned of a publication that takes a startling leap forward. Eddy Shah, a publisher, intends to sell the first copy of his colour newspaper “Today,” on March 4.

Mr Shah, aged 42, a provincial newspaper group owner from Manchester, has forced Fleet Street to start shedding jobs and costs and move towards the technology he is using to print trial issues. Journalists who have been kept away from computers by print unions in Fleet Street enthuse about their new jobs as they write articles and lay out pages on computer terminal screens. Mr Shah has the latest in equipment, including adapted video machines

which capture and enhance pictures from television to produce remarkably good colour newspaper prints. Colour will be the key to his success and he plans to have up to 32 pages of it in each edition. After his relatively small team lay out whole pages on their screens the finished product is transmitted by microwave to a Heathrow plant which uses lasers to bum the image straight on to a printing plate. While the use of colour, the technology and a new deal with the unions are keys to Mr Shah’s bold venture, his plans will change the face of Britain’s press in other ways too. The executive editor, Mr Jonathan Holborow, said that unlike the Fleet Street papers, “Today” will separate news and comment. It will not slant its new to further any political stance and in fact will be politically independent. Mr Holborow said: “People are fed up with the way newspapers take a line. They would like a chance to be given the facts and make up their own minds.” His boss, the editor, Brian MacArthur, says that “Today” will deal with each issue on its merits and adopt a separate but strong editorial opinion. Mr McArthur said: “On the night before the next General Election we will have to decide which way to go. “We’re not going to be a Tory paper, we’re not going to be a Labour paper, we’re not going to be an Alliance paper. “We will reflect that people have a whole jumble of political ideas.”

It is new stuff for Fleet Street, which makes its political views plain in the way it presents front page But will it make money? Mr MacArthur, aged 45, a former deputy editor to Harold Evans on the “Sunday Times” and “The Times,” says that because the costs of “Today” will be much less than those of competitors, making money will at least be easier. . He claims production costs are 80 per cent lower at “Today.” “The Express group has 6800 jobs to produce three newspapers. We have 500.” Mr Shah will print 1.5 million copies and if he sells that many “we’ll make a profit even if there is no advertising at all,” Mr MacArthur said. The editor said that the paper would make a profit if it sold between 500,000 and 600,000 copies and had 35 per cent advertising. Mr Shah’s master stroke was getting an agreement with the electricians’ union for it to be sole bargaining union for

nun-juuruuuoi workers. The electricians have signed the outline of an agreement which includes a no-strike deal. That is seen as the key to stopping the buildup of cushy 5 high-paid jobs and restric- ; tive practices which » overwhelmed Fleet Street. Mr MacArthur said that negotiations were continuing for an agreement with journalists. The people who work at the paper — among them 125 journalists — will get a package which includes — share options, and an - equal share of the profits - made above targets. Mr Shah said: “We want to create a democratic, modern environment, and it is important that any agreements with . the unions are legally binding on both parties.”