The Fourth Estate (28 page)

Frank Bailey
stormed into his office a few minutes later, but Townsend couldn’t see the
expression on his face; his head remained down as he pretended to be absorbed
in the back page. He circled a box, looked up at the editor and passed him a
piece of paper. “I want you to print this letter from Jervis, Smith &
Thomas on the front page tomorrow, Frank, and I’ll have three hundred words
ready for the leader within the hour.”

“But...” said
Frank.

“And dig out the
worst Picture you can find of Sir Colin Grant and put it alongside the letter.”

“But I’d planned
to lead on the Taylor trial tomorrow,” said the editor.

“He’s innocent,
and we’re known as a campaigning paper.”

“We’re also
known as a paper that’s losing money,” said Townsend. “In any case, the Taylor
trial was yesterday’s news. You can devote as much space to him as you like,
but tomorrow it won’t be on the front page.”

“Anything else?”
asked Frank sarcastically.

“Yes,” said
Townsend calmly. 1 expect to see the pageone layout on my desk before I leave
this evening. , Frank strode angrily out of the office, without uttering
another word.

“Next I want to
see the advertising manager,” Townsend told Bunty when she reappeared. He
opened the file Harris had delivered a day late, and stared down at the
carelessly compiled figures. That meeting turned out to be even shorter than
Frank’s, and while Harris was clearing his desk, Townsend called for the deputy
circulation manager, Mel Carter.

When the young
man entered the room, the look on his face indicated that he too was expecting
to be told that his desk should be cleared by the end of the morning.

“Have a seat,
Mel,” said Townsend. He looked down at his file. “I see you’ve recently joined
us on a threemonth trial. Let me make it clear from the outset that I’m only
interested in results: you’ve got ninety days, starting today, to prove
yourself as advertising manager.

The young man
looked surprised but relieved.

“So tell me,”
said Townsend, “if you could change one thing about the Gazette, what would it
be?”

“The back page,”
said Mel without hesitation. “I’d move the small ads to an inside page.”

“Why?” asked
Townsend. “It’s the page which generates our largest income: a little over
0,000 a day, if I remember correctly.”

“I realize
that,” said Mel. “But the Messenger has recently put sport on the back page and
taken another 10,000 readers away from us. They’ve worked out that you can put
the small ads on any page, because people are far more interested in circulation
figures than they are in positioning when they decide where to place an
advertisement. I could give you a more detailed breakdown of the figures by six
o’clock tonight if that would help convince you.”

“it certainly
would,” said Townsend. “And if you have any other bright ideas, Mel, don’t
hesitate to share them with me. You’ll find my door is always open.”

It was a change
for Townsend to see someone leaving his office with a smile on their face. He
checked his watch as Bunty walked in.

“Time for you to
be leaving for your lunch with the circulation manager of the Messenger.”

“I wonder if I
can afford it,” said Townsend, checking his watch.

“Oh yes,” she
said. “Your father always thought the Caxton Grill very reasonable. It’s
Pilligrini’s he considered extravagant, and he only ever took your mother
there.”

“It , s not the
price of the meal I’m worried about, Bunty.

It’s how much
he’ll demand if he agrees to leave the Mes senger and join us.”

Townsend waited
for a week before he called for Frank Bailey and told him that the small ads
would no longer be appearing on the back page.

“But the small
ads have been on the back page for over seventy years,” was the editor’s first
reaction.

“If that’s true,
I can’t think of a better argument for moving them,” said Townsend.

“But our readers
don’t like change.”

“And the
Messenqer~ do?” said Townsend. ‘That’s one of the many reasons they’re selling
far more copies than we are.

“Are you willing
to sacrifice our long tradition simply to gain a few more readers?”

“I can see
you’ve got the message at last,” said Townsend, not blinking.

“But your mother
assured me that .

“My mother is
not in charge of the day-to-day running of this paper. She gave me that
responsibility.” He didn’t add, but only for ninety days.

The editor held
his breath for a moment before he said calmly, “Are you hoping I’ll resign?”

“Certainly not,”
said Townsend firmly. “But I am hoping You’ll help me run a profitable
newspapen”

He was surprised
by the editoes next question.

“Can you hold
the decision off for another two weeks?”

“Why?” asked
Townsend.

“Because my
sports editor isn’t expected back from holiday until the end of the month.”

“A sports editor
who takes three weeks off in the middle of the cricket season probably Wouldn’t
even notice if his desk had been replaced when he came back,” snapped Townsend.

The sports
editor handed in his resignation on the day he returned, which deprived
Townsend of the pleasure of sacking him. Within hours he had appointed the
twentyfive-year-old cricket correspondent to take his place.

Frank Bailey
came charging up to Townsend’s room a few moments after he heard the news.
“It’s the editor’s job to make appointments,” he began, even before he had
closed the door to Townsend’s office, “not...”

“Not any longer
it isn’t,” said Townsend.

The two men
stared at each other for some time before Frank tried again.

“in any case,
he’s far too young to take on such a responsibility.”

“He’s three
years older than I am,” said Townsend.

Frank bit his
lip. “May I remind you,” he said, “that when you visited my office for the
first time only four weeks ago, you assured me, and I quote, that ‘I don’t
intend to be the sort of publisher who interferes with editorial decisions’?”

Townsend looked
up from his desk and reddened slightly~

“I’m sorry,
Frank,” he said. “I lied.”

Long before the
ninety days were up, the gap between the circulations of the Messenger and the
Gazette had begun to narrow, and Lady Townsend quite forgot she had ever put a
time limit on whether they should accept the Messenger’s offer of C 150,000.

After looking
over several apartments, Townsend eventually found one in an ideal location,
and signed the lease within hours. That evening he explained to his mother over
the phone that in future, because of the pressure of work, he wouldn’t be able
to visit her in Toorak every weekend. She didn’t seem at all surprised.

When Townsend
attended his third board meeting, he demanded that the directors make him chief
executive, so no one would be left in any doubt that he was not there simply as
the son of his father. By a narrow vote they turned him down. When he rang his
mother that night and asked why she thought they had done so, she told him that
the majority had considered that the title of publisher was quite enough for
anyone who had only just celebrated his twenty-third birthday.

The new
circulation manager reported-six months after he had left the Messenger to join
the Gazette-that the gap between the two papers had closed to 32,000. Townsend
was delighted by the news, and at the next board meeting he told the directors
that the time had come for them to make a takeover bid for the Messenger. One
or two of the older members only just managed to stop themselves laughing, but
then Townsend presented them with the figures, produced something he called
trend graphs, and was able to show that the bank had agreed to back him.

Once he had
persuaded the majority of his colleagues to go along with the bid, Townsend
dictated a letter to Sir Colin, making him an offer of 1750,000 for the
Messenger. Although he received no official acknowledgment of the bid,
Townsend’s lawyers informed him that Sir Colin had called an emergency board
meeting, which would take place the following afternoon.

The lights on
the executive floor of the Messenger burned late into the night. Townsend, who
had been refused entry to the building, paced up and down the pavement outside,
waiting to learn the board’s decision. After two hours he grabbed a hamburger
from a caf6 in the next street, and when he returned to his beat he found the
lights on the top floor were still burning. Had a passing policeman spotted
him, he might have been arrested for loitering with intent.

The lights on
the executive floor were finally switched off just after one, and the directors
of the Messenger began to stream out of the building. Townsend looked hopefully
at each one of them, but they walked straight past him without giving him so
much as a glance.

Townsend hung
around until he was certain that there was no one other than the cleaners left
in the building. He then walked slowly back to the (,azette and watched the
first edition come off the stone. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep that
night, so he joined the early-morning vans and helped to deliver the first
editions around the city. It gave him the chance to make sure the Gazetle was
put above the Messenger in the racks.

Two days later
Bunty placed a letter in the priority file:

Dear Mr.
Townsend, I have received your letter of the twenty-sixth inst.

In order not to
waste any more of your time, let me make it clear the Messenger is not for
sale, and never will be.

Yours
faithfully, Colin Grant Townsend smiled and dropped the letter in the
wastepaper basket.

Over the next
few months Townsend pushed his staff night and day in a relentless drive to
overtake his rival. He always made it clear to every one of his team that no
one’s job was safe-and that included the editor’s. Resignations from those who
were unable to keep up with the pace of the changes at the Gazette were
outnumbered by those who left the Messenger to join him once they realized it
was going to be “a battle to the death”-a phrase Townsend used whenever he
addressed the monthly staff meeting.

A year after
Townsend had returned from England, the two papers’ circulations were running
neck and neck, and he felt the time had come for him to make another call to
the chairman of the Messenger.

When Sir Colin
came on the line, Townsend didn’t bother with the normal courtesies. His
opening gambit was, “if £750,000 isn’t enough, Sir Colin, what do you consider
the paper’s actually worth?”

“Far more than
you can afford, young man. In any case,” he added, “as I’ve already explained,
the Messenger’s not for sale.”

“Well, not for
another six months,” said Townsend.

“Not ever!”
shouted Sir Colin down the line.

“Then I’ll just
have to run you off the streets,” said Townsend. “And then you’ll be only too
happy to take £50,000 for whatever remains of the bits and pieces.” He paused.
“Feel free to call me when You change your mind.”

It was Sir
Colin’s turn to slam the phone down.

On the day the
Gazette outsold the Messenger for the first time, Townsend held a celebration
party on the fourth floor, and announced the news in a banner headline above a
picture of Sir Colin taken the previous year at his wife’s funeral. As each
month passed, the gap between the two papers widened, and Townsend never missed
an opportunity to inform his readers of the latest circulation figures. He was
not surprised when Sir Colin rang and suggested that perhaps the time had come
for them to meet.

After weeks of
negotiations, it was agreed that the two papers should merge, but not before
Townsend had secured the only two concessions he really cared about. The new
paper would be printed on his presses, and called the Gazette Messenger When
the newly-designated board met for the first time, Sir Colin was appointed
chairman and Townsend chief executive.

Within six
months the word Messenger had disappeared from the masthead, and all major
decisions were being taken without any pretense of consulting the board or its
chairman. Few were shocked when Sir Colin offered his resignation, and no one
was surprised when Townsend accepted it.

When his mother
asked what had caused Sir Colin to resign, Townsend replied that it had been by
mutual agreement, because he felt the time had come to make way for a younger
man. Lady Townsend wasn’t altogether convinced.

DER TELEGPAIF

31 AUGUST 1947

B
erlin Food Shortages to Continue “IF
L-AuRER MADE a will, I need to get my hands on it.”

“Why is getting
hold of this will so important?” asked Sally.

“Because I want
to know who inherits his shares in Der Te leg raf. “