The Times it is a-changin’

Because the Times is, or was, a newspaper like no other, it has enjoyed the distinction of successive volumes of official history. The last, written by John Grigg, covered the years 1966 to 1981, when the Times was bought by Rupert Murdoch. Volume seven, entitled ‘The Murdoch Years’, takes us up almost to the present day.

Graham Stewart, a historian of the 1930s, should be congratulated on agreeing to undertake the task. For although earlier chroniclers have had to deal with controversial or painful passages in the newspaper’s history, such as its prewar embrace of appeasement or its postwar emollience towards the Soviet Union, none has been asked to wade into so perilous a minefield as was faced by Stewart. No one could deny that Murdoch raises many hackles across the political spectrum; or that the Times has changed more in the period covered by this volume than in any previous era.