Page 229 - Culture Society and the Media

CULTURE, SOCIETY AND THE MEDIA 219
political participation sustained by an increasingly independent commercial
press.
The 1760s were a watershed in another sense. The commercial press began for
the first time to challenge the legitimacy of the political system. Its critique was
cautious and indirect at first, taking the form of extensive coverage of American
criticism of British imperialism. But the slogan of ‘no taxation without
representation’ used to mobilize resistance in America to the stamp duty was
soon linked to the British context. Government was corrupt, incompetent and
oppressive, it was argued in the more radical commercial papers, because it was
unrepresentative. This led in turn to demands for extension of the franchise, and
the formation of an extraparliamentary pressure group for electoral reform which
gained extensive publicity in some commercial papers.
The commercial press expanded steadily during the late Georgian and early
Victorian period. Between 1781 and 1851 the number of newspapers increased
from about 76 to 563; their aggregate annual sales rose from 14 million in 1780
to 85 million in 1851 (Asquith, 1978). This expansion accelerated with the lifting
of press taxation between 1853 and 1861.
Commercial newspapers also became increasingly independent. The ability of
governments to control the press through the law was limited by two important
reforms. In 1792, the seditious libel law was weakened by Fox’s Libel Act which
made juries the judges of libel suits. Libel law was further modified by Lord
Campbell’s Libel Act of 1843, which made the statement of truth in the public
interest a legitimate defence against the charge of criminal libel. No less
important, there was a spectacular increase in advertising expenditure on the
press (reflected, for instance, in a five-fold increase in the advertising revenue of
the principal London dailies between 1780 and 1820) which profoundly
influenced the character of the commercial press. Increased advertising largely
financed the development of independent news-gathering resources that rendered
newspapers less dependent upon official information; it also made it possible for
more newspapers to employ full-time rather than freelance journalists, thereby
reducing the number of casually employed and frequently venal reporters; and,
above all, it encouraged a more independent attitude amongst proprietors by
making it more lucrative to maximize advertising through increasing circulation
than to appeal to government and opposition for political subsidies. The growth
of advertising thus provided a material base that encouraged greater
independence from aristocratic influence and patronage, whether mediated by
governments or by opposition factions in parliament (Aspinall, 1949; Christie,
1970; Asquith, 1975, 1976 and 1978; Cranfield, 1977 (17) .
A section of this expanding commercial press fostered a positive class identity
amongst its readers by characterizing ‘the middle classes’ as the economic and
moral backbone of England. ‘Never in any country beneath the sun’, declared the
Leeds Mercury in 1821, ‘was an order of men more estimable and valuable, more
praised and praiseworthy than the middle class of society in England’ (quoted in
Read, 1961, p. 119). The Mercury’s assessment was modest by comparison with