In which the president of the National Press Club seeks to explain the mystery of why he was the recipient, among many others, of an email soliciting donations from the British publishing organisation which owns The Guardian and which has cash reserves of around $1 billion.
At first glance you believed that the begging letter from The Guardian was counterfeit?
It seemed to be a too perfect pastiche of The Guardian style. Also it seemed improbable to imagine that a newspaper that called it so utterly wrong for Brexit would then brazenly send out a letter soliciting donations so soon after. So I hedged by reporting that it was probably phony.
You then realised that it was genuine.
In hindsight the donation solicitation would have been set up prior to the referendum. It was beyond The Guardian to have imagined that the vote would have gone against Europe.
Why was that?
They live in a bubble in which they only talk to each other or people with a similar outlook. In their mind the wish had become the fact. The pervasive nature of this was demonstrated when the staff of their sister paper The Observer in the immediate aftermath of Brexit still touted the Boris Johnson/ Michael Gove leadership axis.
So they sent it out anyway?
You have to credit them for such semi divine self-belief. They are a secular priesthood. A democracy of the select.
A few hours after the referendum vote you came out on the MSC Newswire- National Press Club-EIN Presswire proclaiming that the Brexit result also very much represented a protest vote against what you described as The Guardian-BBC “syndrome?”
I should have added University to this. These are the three pillars that sustained the old pre-Brexit Britain. The BBC chieftains managed to keep a lid on their internal pro Europe sentiment until the actual vote. But then the lid blew off and became Project Fear.
Why are they all so excited by Europe?
When you use the term “Europe” here think France. Think just Paris. From their point of view it is so much more exciting politically than anything we have in the Westminster sphere. You have running around still between government and academia such characters as Che Guevara’s sidekick Regis Debray. You have the lightning rod of the Paris 1968 Maoist riots Daniel Cohn Bendit firmly installed as a Member of the European Parliament. And so on.
In regard to the soliciting letter from The Guardian and your original scepticism what was the element that made you particularly so wary?
The use of the word “interrogating” as a substitute for reporting, covering, or just writing about events. It was so deliciously strangulated in The Guardian manner in order to convey the impression of a higher calling. Of their dwelling on a superior plane to that of ordinary mortals, certainly mere reporters. I also thought it was odd that the imploring email came so temptingly my own way. I flattered myself that I was being fitted.
You subsequently discussed the curious situation in which an organisation with one billion NZD equivalent in reserves could send out a donation canvassing letter. Then do so over the name of a person with an annual income approaching one million NZD. Then send it out to people with a tiny fraction of these savings and this income.
The readership of their weekly edition in New Zealand has a strong public sector following notably among teachers of all varieties and those in the social sphere. In other words public servants. Some public servants in New Zealand do have an annual remuneration approaching the one million NZD mark, and I should have mentioned this.
Still, this is by New Zealand standards a favoured income group. Are there any lessons here for the two merging local newspaper chains?
The Guardian weekly edition has taken over from what remains of Time magazine and the vacuum of the defunct Newsweek. It has become New Zealand’s news magazine of reference. Until some 30 years ago these same chains used the Guardian re-print/ agency service. In recent years the local chains have swerved away from this serious feature approach toward the current celebrity contemporary culture version.
Have you had any personal encounters with The Guardian?
One recalls Patrick Ensor toiling away at the centre of the Wellington-based chain. I have to say that I wondered what he was doing here. Then he reappeared back at The Guardian as editor of the weekly international edition. It occurred to me then that he was in New Zealand to experience a reality check. I have a notion also that but for his untimely death The Guardian might have sidestepped its foppish eternal protestor aura characterised so vividly and so recently by its bizarre post Brexit appeal for funds.
Is there any particular observation of Ensor at work in Wellington that leads you to this conclusion?
He would use a term to describe this or that person or collective of them. It was that they were “self-regarding.” If you look at the begging letter wheeze you would have to describe it as such. One can be assured that all who had anything to do with its authorship and distribution remain quite in the dark of all its irony and unintentional humour
Anyone else?
Going back a bit I spent time with Malcolm and Kitty Muggeridge at Robertsbridge. It was the first time I ever encountered yoghurt, I recall. Malcolm, and I use his own words, described The Guardian for which he had worked pre-war as being “essentially fraudulent.” The Guardian had successfully blocked a book that Muggeridge (pictured) wrote about his experiences while working there, and continued to do so even after Muggeridge turned it onto a novel. So his view was necessarily jaundiced. Curiously, both Muggeridge and Ensor were National Press Club speakers. Muggeridge a foundation one.
