The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 31

Pes Lynam limbers up for a long season, pl4 Sir Thomas Bingham backs a privacy law, pi 6 Garden mags: mystery blight slows growth, pis US gossip guru slams British hypocrisy, pi 7 Monday May 27 19 96 mmsMBBSnfliaM With circulations continuing to decline all over the globe, newspapers are facing a squeeze from the market-is-king forces. Roy Greenslade reports from the World Editors' Forum in Washington ALTHOUGHNlke's "badluck" in selecting soccer, stars focits Euro 96 poster campaign has attracted most attention, it Is not alonem picking absentees. Those abject rejects Messrs Cantonaand Baggjo also figured in ITV's early trailers. Several "experts" asked by Esquire to pick their England The vice of the people jHwfefflHBnBaBBBHHwfl biscuit is snatched by Fuji, whose Euro So promotion involves nyun UlggS long conaemnea, ax a WoTuTiman finenH nfimmer US A couch potato. Presumably Fuji marketing is run tromoapan.

IffcUMOUR suggests that Guy TO.Tenkin'8 next play, following the Michael Howard send-up A Very Open Prison, will centre on a Tory MP who defects to Labour, with John McArdle (Billy Cork-hill, the neighbour from hell in Brookslde) said to be pencilled tor the first TV portrayal of Tony Blair. Shooting is in July wnicn means it could be screened in tne autumn by which time Alan Howarth might even have found a seat. PURNING the compelling claims of Loaded editor James Brown, Associated have chosen stocky Independent teatures supremo Simon Kelner to edit the Mail On Sundays JNignt Ana uay. In a development carrying echoes of Animal Farm, Kelner's replacement at the Indy is David Robson, viewed by admirers as a magazine mastermind but declared a non- nerson under the Charlie Wilson ancimregime. "ABLY to welcome Sir Thomas Bineham's speech last week backing a privacy law (see p.17) was Andrew Neil, ex-editor of the Sunday Times.

Naturally obliged to pre-empt etiarges oi nypoensy over the paper's outing of Gerald Ashby MP "under my Neil conceded in nis ST column yesterday: "Mr Ashby was of such marginal importance. that I wonder in retrospect if the story contributed to the better govern ment of these Islands we were simply caught up in the feeding frenzy of the joy in heaven, etc, etc, nut repentance is not too hard once you've quit the hot seat. TOUGHluckfor Sheridan Mor-ley, whose Radio 2 lecture tonight lambaste the decline in arts broadcasting. Part of that falling away, it has emerged since his theme was announced, is the slashing of an hour from tne Sunday edition of his own Arts Programme on 2. Pure coincidence, of course.

CRIESof "spoilsports!" in ad-land have accompanied the acquisition by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO of Pattison Horswell Dur-den. Why? Because AMV plans to call the new ouuit Mew run, pa thetically wlmnlne out ol the re cord-breaking AMVBBDO PHD. JOURNALISTS At War, a research project, is launched on 7.30pm on Friday, May 31, at Cafe cybena, 39 wniweia at, London. Details on 0181-808-9228 or medlaeasynet.co.uk. Media Guardian is edited byJohnMulhoUsnd no time for journalists who maintain that their experience and professionalism places them in a unique position to decide on the right content.

"What gets me is the monumental arrogance of the. people who turn their backs on the importance of the market What right have dyed-in-the-wool editorial people got to bore their Or to use the newspaper thafpays their wages to peddle their own views?" Yet readers are not the only people satisfied in market-driven newspapers. "There has to be a return for the shareholders" having provided the necessary investment, "they need a Garner listed three British papers as "most closely in tune with their market the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Guardian. In their different ways, he said, each one satisfies its readers. This approach appalled some editors.

In the words of Marilo Ruiz de Elvira, editor of Spain's El Pais Digital, it was possible to "serve the market without kneeling before It" and allowing it to become a tyrant Bill Woo, editor of the St Louis Post-Dispatch, took it for granted that "newspapers that are not bought by their readers go out of existence" but that does not mean pandering to the whims of readers by calling to the marketing men. NEWSPAPERS are not just another product, he said. "There Is a social purpose behind journalism. People will lay down their lives for such a purpose and fight revolutions in its. name.

But no one I have ever heard of has died for a better toothpaste or soft drink or deodorant." For Woo, providing "a free flow of news and information and opinion" is the key role of.joumalism and editors. Yet this fundamental truth Is being obscured by publishers who put their faith in the market It manifests Itself by the budgetary squeeze on editorial departments. "Nothing is more labour intensive for capturing the market than the diligent coverage of local said Woo. "Yet far from confronting the reality of our task, we are busily perhaps even mer- w.m 1X7 l) 11 fitraAt'amranectve-- WHAT'S more important? Journalist or reader? Newspaper or audience? bB Messenger ur message! Shareholder or. consumer? Quality or quantity? Editorial or advertis- ing? Propaganda or profit? Information or entertainment? No poultry farmer has ever discussed chickens and eggs with such' solemnity.

as delegates at last week's Wdrld.Edl- tors' Forum in Washington. The seriousness of the debate for editors in Western countries stems from the continuing decline in sales. For those in the developing world, and in countries where a relatively new phenomenon, the cin- culation war is somewhat less worrying than the battle for survival, often in the face of official violence, as in China and With the notable exception of Japan, It seems people with a lengthy history of newspaper-reading are now careless of the tradition. Timothy Balding, director general of the International Federation of Newspaper Publishers, set the tone by announcing that 600,000 fewer Europeans read papers in 1995 than in the year before. The lost 800,000 readers in the same period.

In Britain, sales of all daily papers national and regional fell by 18.19 per cent between 1990 and 1995. Ireland suffered a 22.15 per cent fall. Even Scandinavian countries previously immune to decline have lost readers. We have grown used to such sad statistics. But the argument about how to counter the trend remains as volatile, if confusing, as ever.

The prevailing view is that too many newspapers have failed to adapt to the requirements of the audience's changing desires. This, broadly, is the standpoint of those who believe that the customer is always right and the market is king. "It's readers who count their views are paramount," said Stuart Garner, chief executive of Thomson Newspapers in Canada. He is horrified that idealism still has a grip on the imagination of young American journalists who believe in papers having a "social A public service role for papers is inimical to the need to turn a profit, he says. "Whether we like it or not, newspapers are a business.

They are not a charity No business can survive if it does not listen to its market and then serve the market" Garner has just a business? OAHHYWEASER nla- nne rinv readers noted a front page paragraph about a TV soap opera star injury, so, in iouowuig days, the paper provided more cover-ana niton on tha ftnitt naee. Yet the editors still tried to assure us that wna nHutmrv and made no difference to editorial decisionmak ing: it merely helped. McKlnsey's market-driven formula nnnnllnH mnnv editors. Eybol, president and chief editor of Denmark's Morgenavlsen Jyllands-- Posten, was particularly scathing. Me lOla now MS paper nau ureu ivauie ranifanehln and rolne into the red.

He set out to revitalise it by investing in editorial and creating a serious paper. Eyebrows were raised when no uM tnnmnllstlf. staffing was in creased from 225 to 365. The result was not immediate "We must haunnnilonro Kfllri Rvhfll but it hue omiffl Into Denmark's leading quality paper, renowned for being weu-uuormeo yet unsuiny. But the: marketeers were unirn- 'mlnrifi ArA made UD.

They are the future. As I was leaving a session in which several editors had been lauding their various ecu- far InlHathnw'n rieleeate said sarcas- ttrallv between crltted teeth: "Well let's just leave it up to the journalists then," Ana wny not? but are newspapers Daily, Record, called for a vote, most editors supported the market-is-king But they were much less certain after a lengthy presentation by management consultants McKinsey Company. Here was the logical outcome of embracing the', market. In the struggle against the electronic media for an audience, it'was essential for newspapers to appeal to the widest number of readers using an optimum number of journalists under the lead-ership of an editor who was' also a marketeer. (Incidentally, journalists who did not go along with this brave new world could be According, to the missionaries; the editorial function was defining' a customer base through market research and then appealing to Itlf a paper foundithat "89 per cent of its readers were young athletes per cent were then editorial should reflect that bias.

Inevitably, this led to Veatertalniiwnt'M taking prece dence-r1 in the.readers: wishes to "negative Though breathtakingly simplistic, this kind, of -approach is widely ad-: mired. The Brazilian paper Globo proudly told of its daily readers' panel, which is consulted every day about the paper's content An exam- dismantling the very resource that is crucial to accomplishing what we need to do." When Terry Quinn, editor of the.