Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1480
- 1499)
WEDNESDAY 16 JANUARY 2008
Ms Rebekah Wade
Q1480 Chairman:
So it is far too early to tell whether things have changed in
any relationships?
Ms Wade: Yes.
Q1481 Chairman:
You have known him before, presumably—James Murdoch?
Ms Wade: Yes.
Q1482 Lord Maxton:
We have been talking about all this in the British context, but
of course you have a separate Scottish edition in Scotland.
Ms Wade: Yes.
Q1483 Lord Maxton:
You do not edit that. You have a separate Scottish editor.
Ms Wade: The process for Scotland and Ireland—and
this is talking about our production values—what happens
is that we have a basic edition and then we have a Scottish editor
and an Irish editor who edit their own editions.
Q1484 Lord Maxton:
But the political line of the Scottish Sun is not necessarily
the same as the British Sun.
Ms Wade: It has been different. At the moment
it is the same.
Q1485 Chairman:
One last question on this. Have you ever been criticised by Mr
Murdoch for running a particular story, or told that the line
you have been taking is a wrong one?
Ms Wade: Like I said, in 12 years of working
very closely with Mr Murdoch we have had our disagreements. He
expects us to provide Sun readers with the highest of standards
and, on the very rare occasions that we have got something wrong,
obviously it is my responsibility.
Q1486 Chairman:
Can you define what you mean by "getting it wrong"?
Is it factually getting it wrong?
Ms Wade: It can be very simple but, yes, on
the rare occasions that we have got something wrong, it is my
responsibility; it is terrible; it is not what Mr Murdoch expects
from his newspaper and not what he expects for Sun readers,
who he values very much. So, yes, there have been disagreements.
Like any editor, you get praise and you get criticism from your
proprietor. That is the way it works.
Q1487 Chairman:
Can you give us some examples of where the disagreements have
come, thinking back?
Ms Wade: Not specific examples, really. Over
12 years, it is quite difficult to remember all the highs and
lows. Mr Murdoch is often dismayed by the amount of celebrity
coverage I put in my newspaper, particularly on "Big Brother"
for example. He cannot understand why I devote so many pages to
"Big Brother".
Q1488 Lord King of Bridgwater:
I am with him on that!
Ms Wade: You are probably all
with him on that, actually! You are all looking at me, thinking,
"Why isn't Mr Murdoch ... .?"! We disagree about that,
because I am a big "Big Brother" fan and he was very
surprised that I devoted four pages every day during the last
series.
Q1489 Chairman:
And there is nothing more political than "Big Brother"
that you have fallen out on?
Ms Wade: "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of
Here" often can cause problems too; whereas we absolutely
are in agreement on "Pop Idol", and he thinks that is
very good. You know, it is serious stuff here!
Q1490 Chairman:
Serious stuff and, if I dare say so, even on more serious stuff
no hint of disagreement has ever come?
Ms Wade: I am sorry?
Q1491 Chairman:
On even more serious stuff, like policy—
Ms Wade: I thought you were going to mention
"Strictly Come Dancing" then, when you said "more
serious stuff"!
Q1492 Chairman:
No, I am not going to mention "Strictly Come Dancing"!
I think that in fact you are devaluing the breadth of your coverage
because, as you mentioned—
Ms Wade: You asked me on a disagreement, and
he is often dismayed about the amount of celebrity coverage, not
just in The Sun but in general. I love our celebrity coverage
and I think my readers do.
Q1493 Baroness Scott of Needham Market:
Actually, I do not think any of us would mind celebrity coverage
if we knew who any of these people were.
Ms Wade: Have you been speaking to Mr Murdoch?
Q1494 Baroness Scott of Needham Market:
The term "celebrity" is an interesting one. Turning
to the big picture and the National Readership Survey figures,
they have shown a huge decline in the number of people reading
newspapers of any sort, from 58% of the population in 1992 to
44% in 2006. If you were to look 14 years ahead—you are
still quite young, you will probably still be working for Mr Murdoch
somewhere in 14 years—how do you think it is going to look
then? The newspaper industry generally.
Ms Wade: It is quite interesting. Yesterday,
I was visiting a newspaper company in Europe. We are all trying
to work out the integration issue and everyone is looking at what
everyone else is doing. With the integration of the newsroom,
some people have had great success and some people not. I was
reading something about worldwide newspaper circulation, which
surprised me. Worldwide newspaper circulation is up 13% and there
are now 10,000 publications—more publications than ever
before—which paints a very healthy picture worldwide. Most
of you know that that is probably India; but, if you take here
for example, I think that we have a very robust market. A lot
of editors who have sat before you have, not blamed, but explained
away declining circulations on the internet. That is not exactly
my view. I think the internet plays a part in that but, more interestingly,
the one thing that has led to my circulation decline or contributed
to my circulation decline are newspapers themselves—in the
form of free. If you had a graph in front of you, you would see
that we now have—and I can check this figure—about
2.2 or 2.3 million free newspapers every day in the UK. They are
being read by newspaper readers. They may not be paying for them
but they are still reading a newspaper. Metro International have
something like four million people under the age of 35 reading
their newspapers. I would say that free newspapers have had a
huge effect on paid-for newspapers; but if you take the whole
lot, and say you take the London area for example, there are more
people in London physically reading a newspaper than ever before.
We have Metro, London Lite, thelondonpaper.
I think that is quite a healthy view. It is not a healthy economic
model going forward, because the free model is completely reliant
on the advertising industry. As I said to you, it is no secret
that The Sun is very profitable; in fact, I think one of
the most profitable newspapers in the world. That profitability
enables me to have probably one of the biggest editorial budgets
to spend and invest in journalism and in the written word. Going
forward in your 14 years, that economic model has to remain to
maintain high-quality journalism, and that is across all newspapers.
What we have to do is look at the platforms that we put some content
onto, which at the moment is obviously the internet, and we have
just recently started a mobile edition. At the moment, the economic
model of the internet cannot replicate a newspaper, with cover
price revenue and advertising revenue coming in; so we have to
look at the internet and see how we can monetise that. As I say,
the most important thing is to keep reinvesting in journalism
and, again, we are very lucky at The Sun that Mr Murdoch
absolutely believes in investing in journalism. Personally, I
am actually quite upbeat about the future of newspapers.
Q1495 Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall:
Can I go back to the question about free sheets? Just to be clear,
are you saying that you think that the rise of the free sheet
newspapers, particularly, as you have mentioned, the London-based
ones, has had a particular impact on your circulation or are you
talking about the impact that they have had on newspapers in general?
Ms Wade: Certainly on newspapers in general,
but if you were to look at the type of newspaper these frees are—Metro,
London Lite, thelondonpaper—then I think you
yourself would come to the conclusion that The Sun and
the Daily Mail territory—
Q1496 Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall:
Would be most likely to suffer.
Ms Wade: ...would be most likely to suffer.
Q1497 Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall:
That would indeed be my view. I wanted to ask you this, therefore.
I think I am right in saying that at least one of those free sheets
that you mention comes out of the News International stable, does
it not?
Ms Wade: Yes, it does.
Q1498 Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall:
What is the relationship between those two publications? On the
face of it, it looks as though News International has promoted
a free sheet which is damaging its most valuable asset.
Ms Wade: That is not necessarily the thought
process. The fact is, they are another newspaper in the group
and we all have our very individual territory. I do not get involved
with thelondonpaper and thelondonpaper does not
get involved in The Sun. I edit The Sun. We do not
even share the same printing press. So it is a very separate organisation
and, as I said, the decision to launch thelondonpaper was
taken by Les Hinton.
Q1499 Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall:
I understand that; but given, as you have implied, it and its
competitors have modelled themselves quite noticeably on the kind
of journalism that you and the Daily Mail tend to go for,
in those circumstances what do you feel about the fact that News
International has launched a free sheet which is eating into your
circulation?
Ms Wade: I think that you have to be quite grown-up
about this really. There is a market out there for free sheets.
We launched a paper, so did Associated Newspapers. If it was not
us, it would have been them; it could have been the Express,
it could have been Trinity Mirror. There is a market there and
we produced a newspaper. Actually, thelondonpaper is very
different to The Sun but, as I say, there is a market there
for it.
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