Choosing what the papers said BEST

A FAVOURITE occupation as the year bows itself out is looking back over what has happened since January 1. And what a year this has been!

So spare some thought for the task facing producer David Plowright and his What The Papers Say team as they get down to preparing their annual end-of-the-year awards list.

This time they won’t need a newspaper file to remind them of the big stories of the year. They really have been big.

Choosing the outstanding features of the year’s Press, David and his collaborators will be working while they eat … for a dinner has been arranged “somewhere in London”

“It is over the dinner table that we shall go through the list and make our decisions,” said David.

“We all have our nominations to put forward, and our task certainly isn’t going to be easy.”

Dining with David will be Brian Inglis, Bernard Levin, Michael Frayn and Harold Evans. They have all been prominent in the programme, and they will all have ideas on who or what merits an award.

None of them may be expected to give way to a rival claimant without a struggle. They are an argumentative lot, especially on their favourite subject, newspapers.

Over dinner they will be sorting out the best cartoon, columnist, scoop, news reporting, background story and the best newspaper.

“Yes, it has been an amazing year for news,” said David. “You have only to think back to the beginning of January, then let your mind run over what has happened since. At home the year, of course, has been dominated by one big story — the Profumo affair, with all its implications and ramifications.

“Linked with that, you have the shake-up on the political front, the departure of Mr. Harold Macmillan to make way for Sir Alec Douglas-Home, and the death of Mr. GaitskelL

“With so little time left before the year ends we have another staggering change in the international scene with the assassination of President Kennedy.

David added: “Most of the events which have been big news in the year have been shared by every newspaper and every other news medium, but there is always ample scope for individual talent to reveal itself and win an award.

“In the sports field there have been racing and football scandals and the lighter side of our national life has brought us the Beatles, a great source of news stories and likely to hold their place on the front page for a long time yet.”

Brian Inglis said that, for him, the West Indians role in leading a real revival of interesting cricket was perhaps one of the brightest features of the year.

“It is particularly cheering to look at the cricket field when so much else in the sporting world goes on under a cloud,” he said.

“I am thinking of racing and the doping scandals, and of football with its rowdiness and vandalism, and the effects on the game of increased gambling.

“For the New Year we are looking with interest to the constitution of the new Press Council and wondering if it is going to be more effective than the old one.”

Michael Frayn put his finger on a trend which has become more apparent as the months have gone by.

“In a year when the papers have been almost overwhelmed by the volume of news, they have found themselves being outstripped by rumour,” he said.

“That is what happened in the Profumo affair, in the crisis over the Conservative leadership. It even happened in the assassination of Kennedy.

“I ask you, how did you hear of the death of Kennedy? Through the papers? Through television? Or did somebody tell you? Many people I know say ‘Somebody told me’.”

Harold Evans barely repressed a shudder when I asked him to look back on the last 12 months. “Newspapers,” he said, “have never had a year like this. I hope they never have another.

“There has been high farce — a Great Train Robbery and a Tory leadership mumbo-jumbo.

“There have been successes — the nuclear test-ban treaty was one of them.

“But it has been a tragic year with the death of Kennedy and Gaitskell.

“And it has been a squalid year with Profumo, Keeler, and Vassall. A busy year.” He added: “Our eyes have been on the stars and our feet iIn the mud.”

Last year the What The Papers Say awards went to: Picture – Daily Mirror (taken by a reader, Jim Meeds of Hutfield, Herts.); columnist -Peter Simple, Daily Telegraph; scoop — Walter Terry, Daily Mail (Cabinet changes); behind the news — Roy Jenkins and The Observer (I.C.I. — Courtaulds story); news reporting — Clare Hollingworth, The Guardian (from Algiers); paper of the year – Sunday Times colour supplement; cartoon — no award.

This year’s awards will be announced by Brian Inglis in a special edition of What The Papers Say on Boxing Day.