Another Voice | 20 December 2008

A splendid Spectator 180th anniversary issue was published this year. Along with many readers, I fell upon a treasury of previously published columns: a selection of examples through the magazine’s history of the wit, erudition and style of contributors since 1828. We found pieces by Graham Greene, John Buchan and Bernard Levin; letters from George Orwell, Winston Churchill and Nancy Mitford; and reviews from Kingsley Amis and Lord David Cecil. Hand poised above the tub, the reader could plunge into this lucky dip for a miscellany of prizes.

But there was a fair measure of sawdust awaiting him too. Not every column was as sparkling as the next. Not every ancient contribution surpassed the modern ones. Not every opinion was quite as clever, nor every insight quite as penetrating, as the generally cocky style of contributors down the decades seemed to promise.

And I ended a fireside evening with the past masters of British journalism tremendously cheered. The presiding spirit of Spectator commentary down the ages — that we’re all going to hell in a handcart — is wrong in at least this respect. British journalism in the first decade of the 21st century — commentary, report and review — is as good as it’s ever been. As good as 50 years ago; as good as 150 years ago. I’m even going to suggest it’s better.

Of course, good journalism is current. It has the wind of its times in its sails. The canvas is taut with an invisible force: the interest and excitement shared between writer and reader; the shared knowledge; shared background; shared hopes, fears, passions and irritations; shared immersion in the news of the day. Take away that unseen energy we call newsworthiness, the unspoken assumption that this is what everyone’s talking about, and the sails flap. However artfully framed, the mere words, sentences, even the arguments, lose energy because the subject is no longer of much account.