Direction of Britain's Daily Mirror Under Question p.

By: Robert O'Connor

In aftermath of Robert Maxwell's death, columnist resigns over
spiked column; board member leaves over policy differences
THE DIRECTION OF Britain's Daily Mirror is under question after the resignations of a left-wing columnist and a member of the board of directors who is a prominent supporter of the Labor Party.
Paul Foot, who had had a campaigning weekly column in the Mirror for 13 years, quit after a confrontation that began when Mirror editor David Banks spiked a column Foot had written criticizing the Mirror management. In the column, Foot had attacked the "victimizations, union-busting and general macho management" of the Daily Mirror. He also noted that dozens of journalists have left the newspaper, either voluntarily or through firing, in recent months. "All is gloom and fear," Foot wrote. "No one knows where next the ax will fall."
The second resignation was that of Lord Hollick, a businessman who had been a non-executive director of Mirror Group Newspapers.
"I have for several months voiced my concerns about a number of governance and policy matters which I believe to be important in the long-term commercial and editorial success of Mirror Group Newspapers," Hollick said in a statement. "Unfortunately it has not been possible to resolve these matters."
Hollick played a part in bringing in David Montgomery as Mirror Group chief executive last year. The appointment of Montgomery, a former editor with Rupert Murdoch's News International stable of tabloids, was resented by Mirror staff members, who feared that he would move the paper away from the newspaper's traditional support for the Labor Party.
Since his arrival, Montgomery has brought in many of his former colleagues from Murdoch's Today newspaper. Some former Mirror journalists have moved to Today.
The Mirror Group is the only source of tabloid support for the Labor Party. Mirror newspapers include the Daily Mirror, The People, a Sunday tabloid; the Sunday Mirror; and the Daily Record and the Sunday Mail in Scotland.
The turmoil at the Daily Mirror is another aftereffect of the death of its publisher, Robert Maxwell, who drowned in 1991.
After his death, it was found that Maxwell had looted the Mirror pension fund. The banks that had been Maxwell's creditors found they were the effective owners of the newspaper on the strength of stock that Maxwell had pledged as collateral for loans.
Montgomery was hired by a court-appointed administrator, with the support of the banks. The eventual aim is to improve the paper's financial performance and sell it. Analysts have predicted that this process will involve major cost cuttings, including large-scale job reductions.
Five people are facing criminal charges in connection with Maxwell's activities. They are Maxwell's sons Kevin and Ian; Larry Trachtenberg, a former Maxwell financial adviser; and Robert Bunn and Albert Fuller, who served as executives with Maxwell Communication Corp. The trials are not expected to begin until 1994.
Foot responded to the Mirror's refusal to publish his column by having it printed in Mirror format, with the headline "Look in the Mirror!" above a picture of Montgomery as the villain. Foot then handed the column to puzzled passers-by outside the Mirror building. Banks responded by offering Foot sick leave "so he can have a period of rest."
"We sincerely hope he seeks professional help during this time," Banks said in a statement, "and MGN [Mirror Group Newspapers] will continue to pay his ?55,000 [about $82,000] salary. All of us at the Mirror are very sympathetic toward Paul's condition."
Banks' statement, Foot responded, "is yet another example of the depths to which the Mirror management are prepared to sink when they are criticized. Rather than deal with the factual criticisms of their management in my unpublished column, they resort to the foulest possible personal libel." In deciding to resign, Foot said that his position had become "intolerable."
Foot, a member of the far-left Socialist Workers Party, used his column to campaign on behalf of ordinary people who found themselves on the wrong end of institutional power. In a BBC television interview, he said that it would have been hypocritical to continue in the changed atmosphere of the Mirror.
The issue for the paper, Foot argued, was not whether it continued to support the Labor Party during election campaigns. If the newspaper treats "trade unions with contempt, then that's the attitude [it] is going to have to organized labor outside the office, and that's more important than which party you happen to support at election time."
The Independent newspaper said Foot's column "was regarded as the hallmark of the newspaper's commitment to campaigning journalism." Roy Greenslade, a former editor of the Daily Mirror, said the column "stood for compassionate, campaigning, investigative journalism, and its passing marks the end of the Mirror as a decent newspaper."
There is also concern within the Labor Party about the direction of the Mirror. After the resignation of Mirror political editor Alastair Campbell, who felt he was being undermined by the management, 150 Labor MPs signed a House of Commons motion expressing "no confidence" in Montgomery.