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.::. City University London: 'How Wapping Changed British Newspapers in the 1980s'
Published April 12 2008

This essay will look closely at how the move of News International from Fleet Street to Wapping in 1986 changed British newspapers. Taking into account the events leading up to the move and the consequences of it, this is an overview of one of the most controversial events in the history of the British press. In order to present the facts and factors of the question aforementioned, reference will be taken from respectively two books related to the Wapping move – Suellen M. Littleton’s The Wapping Dispute (1992, Athenaeum Press Ltd) and Brian McNair’s News and Journalism in the UK (1999, Routledge).

The Run-up

It is of significant importance to establish what happened in 1986 before determining how British newspapers changed after it. It was the late 1960s that saw the arrival of Rupert Murdoch and the company News International. In 1968 he bought the paper News of the World, before taking control of The Sun in 1969. While at first both of the papers were loss-making titles when taken over by Murdoch, they went on to dominate the British tabloid market in the 1970s and then moved into profit. Subsequently, Murdoch bought The Times and Sunday Times in 1981, and then took control of the Today newspaper in 1987. (McNair, 1999)

Key Events

The move to Wapping first started as early as in 1977, when Murdoch and News International purchased an eleven acre site in London Docklands, with construction beginning two years later. Murdoch’s intention at first was to keep the editorial base of News International at Fleet Street, which was the base of most of the printed press in the UK at this point, and to create a new facility to print The Sun and the News of the World at Wapping (Littleton, 1992). After acquiring The Times and Sunday Times in 1981, Murdoch and the company began to discuss the proposed site with its employees.

The Wapping plant was completed in early 1984. By this point, the Sunday Times officials had been informed that when The Sun and the News of The World transferred to Wapping, the company hoped to move the production of the Sunday Times to their old facility at Bouverie Street in London, stating that such a move was important to accommodate an increase in the size of the paper (Littleton, 1992, p. 59). The move would involve the introduction of new technology with a significant reduction in the size of staff, which the newspaper unions naturally were not too keen on. After several years of negotiations, no significant agreement had been reached between officials, newspaper unions and News International concerning the comprehensive operations at Wapping. What was essentially going to be a big and bold move for The Sun and the News of The World from old facilities to new, larger ones with better and more modern equipment, turned into be a big dispute between newspaper unions and News International. “In the unions’ view, Murdoch had already decided on a course of action and had no intention of negotiating a compromise agreement” (McNair, 1999, p. 154). In January 1986, after a meeting with Murdoch which resulted in no particular agreement, Fleet Street printers announced strike action to close down the News International titles. The same evening, journalists and support staff at the two City plants were told to turn up for work the next day at Wapping, with failure to do so treated as resignation. The production lines at Wapping began to run on Saturday, January 25, and as what was said by Linda Melvern, ‘two hundred years of Fleet Street history were over’. Despite Wapping becoming the scene of violent protests, with over 5,000 print workers ending up being sacked when the new technology was introduced, the move was inevitable and Murdoch was unstoppable. (McNair, 1999)

Changes To The Industry

The move to Wapping changed British newspapers in more ways than anyone had imagined at first. Not only did the move lead to all national newspapers relocating at lower cost - with the geographical make-up of the industry changing dramatically - investments and transitions to direct input systems and new press equipment made significant reductions in their workforces. The new plant contributed to the growth of the printing and publishing sector of the London Stock Market, which grew to ten times its former size in just over half a decade (Littleton, 1992). Most significantly though, was perhaps the change for the journalists and the managers working for News International: “The most refreshing aspect of life after Wapping was the new sense of cooperation, the achievement of greater flexibility within the production staff, the blur of traditional demarcation barriers and, most notably, the conspicuous absence of disruptions” (Littleton, 1992, p. 168). With a new, more or less hassle-free production environment, the focus could now be laid on improving editorial content. This new attitude flowing in the national press paralleling with the higher profit worked in some cases to elevate editorial projects, and one could be led to think anything was possible now in this new climate – even a move towards high-quality journalism. Additionally, many publishers now separated administrative, advertising and editorial operations from their actual printing centres. A new configuration in the national press led to one site for administrative, editorial, advertising and origination-related departments – with the former sub-centre of national press editorial and origination activity, Manchester, now being eliminated. (Littleton, 1992, p. 169)

New Technology

Naturally, the new technology improved the printed press drastically. Colour became a predominant feature in the national newspapers, with the overall quality of reproduction being improved by the introduction of web offset technology. Readers were now benefiting from expanded editions of the papers, containing a greater number of pages, new affiliated magazines and specialised sections, with these improvements allowing the increase and diversification of both editorial and advertising content. In addition, the introduction of regionalized editions came to life with the investment in new postpress inserting equipment. Special sections targeted to specific geographical areas were inserted, offering advertisers a new opportunity to target certain geographical areas. (Littleton, 1992, p. 171)

Distribution

The move to Wapping also initiated a change in how the national papers reached their readers, with a drastic consequence to follow. News International switched from the rail distribution system and turned to TNT road haulage. Now distributing newspapers nationwide by lorry, News International made the once profitable British Rail service a money-losing business, as News International accounted for as many as 30 per cent of the British Rail service’s £30 million annual earn. (Littleton, 1992, p. 171)

Profits & Cuts

The move to Wapping wasn’t all about positive and profitable changes, though. The number of people employed in the industry shrank with the new technology introduced – while there were approximately 30,000 people employed in the national press in 1985, five years later the amount was half of that (Littleton, 1992, p. 172). This loss of jobs contributed to what was described as a colossal amount of labour swimming around in London. However, the introduction of new technology and on-the-run colour into national titles created a demand for highly skilled production workers in positions that had not previously existed at all in the national press. The working environments were also improved after the move from Fleet Street, with a National Graphical Association official claiming that “the working environment, despite what people may tell you, is one hundred per cent better. It is lighter, it is airier, it is safer” (Littleton, 1992, p. 173).

Rupert Murdoch

While there were significant changes to most of the British newspapers after the move to Wapping, one could argue that what has been the most revitalised as a result of Wapping are the finances of Rupert Murdoch. After Wapping, his company’s wage bill was cut to £45 million per annum, with pre-tax profits increasing as a result – from £39.1 million in 1985 to as much as £165 million in 1988 (McNair, 1999, p. 162). As Lord Goodman said, “Today the industry is more dominated by giant companies than at any previous period.” The effect, of course, is to increase the risks attaching to any modest size publication, with the giants’ daily increasing wealth waiting for any opportunity to wolf a straggler from the pack” (McNair, 1999, pp. 162-163). Essentially, new under-resourced newspapers simply couldn’t compete with the rest of the pack in the national press after Wapping: it seemed that real wealth was needed in order to have a new popular paper surviving in what was referred to as ‘the new market’ – post-Fleet Street.

Benefits

Looking at each of the major newspapers in Britain after the move to Wapping, it’s easy to determine that it was of benefit to most of them. The Guardian became the first Fleet Street paper to successfully negotiate the acceptance of direct input for editorial and advertising copy. Despite a 20 percent reduction in staff, The Guardian got new printworks producing southern editions of the paper at Wapping. The Telegraph group saw its two titles, The Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph merging staff and selling stakes in its Docklands site. By the end of the 1980s, the company was operating at a profit, for the first time in years. The Mirror Group Newspapers enjoyed a change in its production facilities with new technology introduced, doubling its profits to £166 million. While Littleton argues that the concentration of power in the national press remains in the hands of a select group of large publishers, News International is the largest component controlling over one-third of the industry’s output. (Littleton, 1992, pp. 176-194)

Conclusion

The move from Fleet Street to Wapping in London’s Docklands in 1986 was of a significant positive outcome for most of the British newspapers at the time, with increased profit, more editorial control, better quality in terms of print and content and also what ended up being a centralised production area for the printed press in the country’s capital. While the labour market suffered as a result, and a significant amount of jobs were lost, it was the move to Wapping that turned the British press into what it is today. Murdoch’s successful move to Wapping was a key to what is seen today as a dramatic shift in power from the trade unions to management, which led to the most significant and dramatic reform in the history of the national press in Britain. The changes that took place at Wapping brought new prosperity to the newspaper industry, resulting in a thriving atmosphere that essentially, in the end, worked for its best for the readers of the national press in Britain.


Sources
• McNair, B. (1999) News and Journalism in the UK (pp. 143 – 165), 3rd edition, London: Routledge
• Littleton, S. M. (1992) The Wapping Dispute, London: Andrew Darkers Limited


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