Tim Luckhurst







A sovereign editor: Arthur Mann's Yorkshire Post and its crusade against appeasement, 1938-1939

During Britain's appeasement of Nazi Germany, the British press was reluctant to criticise government policy and it came under pressure not to do so. The most powerful national titles were determined to support Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's efforts to appease Hitler. One regional Conservative title, the Yorkshire Post stood out against the consensus. This bold stance was the creation of its editor, Arthur Mann. This paper examines the Yorkshire Post's editorial opposition to appeasement between the Anschluss of March 1938 and the entry of German forces into Prague in March 1939. It explores how Mann resisted pressure from his Conservative proprietors to abandon his stance and examines his understanding of his duty as editor

Keywords: Arthur Mann, Yorkshire Post, appeasement, proprietorial pressures


References

  1. Adamthwaite, Anthony (1983) The British government and the media, 1937-1938, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 18, No.2 pp 281-297
  2. Avon, The Rt Hon. The Earl of Avon (1962) The Eden memoirs: Facing the dictators, London, Cassell & Co
  3. Bingham, Adrian (2004) Gender, modernity and the popular press, Oxford, Clarendon Press
  4. Boyce, George (1978) The Fourth Estate: The reappraisal of a concept, Boyce, George, Curran, James and Wingate, Pauline (eds) Newspaper history from the 17th Century to the present day, London, Constable & Co. pp 19-40
  5. 'Cato' (1940) Guilty men, London, Victor Gollancz
  6. Christiansen, Arthur (1961) Headlines all my life, London, Heinemann
  7. Churchill, Winston (1948) The Second World War, Vol. 1, London, Cassell & Co.
  8. Cockett, Richard (1989) Twilight of truth: Chamberlain, appeasement and the manipulation of the press, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson
  9. Conboy, Martin (2011) Journalism in Britain: A historical introduction, London, Sage Publications
  10. Cornfield, Stanley (1964) Lord Runciman and the Sudeten Germans: A study in appeasement. Thesis submitted to the Department of History, University of Arizona. Available online at http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/handle/10150/318970, accessed on 1 February 2016
  11. Crowson, Nicholas (ed.) (1998) Fleet Street, press barons and politics: The journals of Collin Brooks, 1932-1940, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
  12. Curran, James and Seaton, Jean (2010) Power without responsibility: Press, broadcasting and the internet in Britain, London, Routledge, seventh edition
  13. Daily Herald (1938) Leader, 11 April p. 10
  14. Daily Mail (1933) Youth triumphant by Lord Rothermere, 10 July p. 10
  15. Daily Telegraph (1938) Leader [first item], 2 August p. 8
  16. Gannon, Franklin Reid (1971) The British press and Germany 1936-1939, Oxford, Oxford University Press
  17. Gibb, Mildred and Beckwith, Frank (1954) The Yorkshire Post: Two centuries, Leeds, Yorkshire Conservative Newspaper Company Ltd.
  18. Goldfarb Marquis, Alice (1978) Words as weapons: Propaganda in Britain and Germany during the First World War, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 13 pp 467-498
  19. Hampton, Mark (2009) Renewing the Liberal tradition: The press and public discussion in twentieth century Britain, Baily, Michael (ed.) Narrating media history, Oxford, Routledge pp 26-35
  20. Harcup, Tony (2004) Journalism: Principles and practice, London, Sage Publications
  21. Henderson, Sir Nevile (1940) Failure of a mission: Berlin 1937-39, London, Hodder & Stoughton
  22. Hodgson, Guy (2007) Sir Nevile Henderson, appeasement and the press, Journalism Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2 pp 320-334
  23. Hucker, Daniel (2011) Public opinion and the end of appeasement in Britain and France, Farnham, Surrey, Ashgate Publishing
  24. Koss, Stephen (1990) The rise and fall of the political press in Britain, London, Fontana Press
  25. Manchester Guardian (1939) The Yorkshire Post, 28 November p. 6
  26. Mann Papers (1938) Ms.Eng. c.3274, Fol. 8: Mann to Pearson, 23 March
  27. Margach, James (1978) The abuse of power, London, W. H. Allen
  28. McEwen, J. M. (1983) 'Brass-hats' and the British press during the First World War, Canadian Journal of History, Vol. 18 pp 43-67
  29. Meznar, Michael (2005) The British government, the newspapers and the German problem 1937-39. Thesis submitted to the University of Durham. Available online at http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1783/, accessed on 1 February 2016
  30. Middlemas, Keith (1972) The strategy of appeasement: The British government and Germany 1937-39, Chicago, Quadrangle Books
  31. Namier, Lewis (1948) Diplomatic prelude, 1938-1939, London, Macmillan
  32. Parker, Robert A. C. (1993) Chamberlain and appeasement: British policy and the coming of the Second World War, London, Palgrave Macmillan
  33. Rose, Norman (1982) The resignation of Anthony Eden, The Historical Journal, Vol. 25, No. 4 pp 911-931
  34. Stedman, Andrew (2015) Alternatives to appeasement: Neville Chamberlain and Hitler's Germany, London, I. B. Tauris
  35. Stevenson, Nick (2002) Understanding media cultures, London, Sage Publications
  36. The Observer. (1972) Obituary of Arthur Henry Mann, 30 July p. 10
  37. The Times (1938a) Anxious Moments, 23 May p. 15
  38. The Times (1938b) The Prime Minister's answer, 18 March p. 12
  39. The Times (1972) Obituary: Mr Arthur Mann, an outstanding editor of the Yorkshire Post, 28 July p. 18
  40. Tunstall, Jeremy (1996) Newspaper power: The new national press in Britain, Oxford, Oxford University Press
  41. Wheeler-Bennett, John (1948) Munich: Prologue to tragedy, London, Macmillan
  42. Williamson, Philip (1999) Stanley Baldwin: Conservative leadership and national values, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
  43. Yorkshire Post (1866) 2 July
  44. Yorkshire Post (1938a) There is no other way, 16 March p. 8
  45. Yorkshire Post (1938b) A vital decision, 21 March p. 8
  46. Yorkshire Post (1938c) Hitler's invisible critics, 11 April p. 8
  47. Yorkshire Post (1938d) The lighter side of Nazi Berlin, 3 May p. 8
  48. Yorkshire Post (1938e) The policy of squeeze, 20 May p. 10
  49. Yorkshire Post (1938f) Japan's war burden, 24 June p. 10
  50. Yorkshire Post (1938g) The price of peace: Review by John Dundas of Winston Churchill's Arms and the covenant, 24 June p. 10
  51. Yorkshire Post (1938h) Europe and the dictators, 13 July p. 10
  52. Yorkshire Post (1938i) A great French welcome, 21 July p. 10
  53. Yorkshire Post (1938j) The state of Europe, 26 July p. 10
  54. Yorkshire Post (1938k) British government's foreign policy restated, 27 July p. 8
  55. Yorkshire Post (1938l) Foreign affairs debate, 27 July p. 10
  56. Yorkshire Post (1938m) Viscount Runciman's mission, 2 August p. 9
  57. Yorkshire Post (1938n) British aims in Czechoslovakia, 29 August p. 7
  58. Yorkshire Post (1938o) The Czech crisis, 29 August p.8
  59. Yorkshire Post (1938p) The need for national unity, 6 September p.8
  60. Yorkshire Post (1938q) Negotiations under threat, 13 September p. 8
  61. Yorkshire Post (1938r) Background to Berchtesgaden, 16 September p. 8
  62. Yorkshire Post (1938s) Face the facts, 19 September p. 8
  63. Yorkshire Post (1938t) Official correspondence on the Czechoslovak crisis, 29 September p. 6
  64. Yorkshire Post (1938u) A momentous debate, 4 October p. 10
  65. Yorkshire Post (1938v) Making up the public's mind, 4 October p. 10
  66. Yorkshire Post (1938w) London notes and comment, 4 October p. 10
  67. Yorkshire Post (1938x) After the debate, 7 October p. 10
  68. Yorkshire Post (1938y) British foreign policy, 8 November p. 10
  69. Yorkshire Post (1938z) Twenty years after, 11 November p. 10
  70. Yorkshire Post (1938a1) Outlook for Britain, 12 November p. 10
  71. Yorkshire Post (1938b1) Call for all-party consultation, 16 November p. 8
  72. Yorkshire Post. (1938c1) Five by-elections, 19 November p. 10
  73. Yorkshire Post (1938d1) Encouragement of aggression, 8 December p. 8
  74. Yorkshire Post (1938e) The Yorkshire Post and foreign policy - A reply to Conservative critics, 8 December p. 8
  75. Yorkshire Post (1939a) A newspaper's first duty, 3 January p. 6
  76. Yorkshire Post (1939b) Government and people, 29 March p. 8
  77. Yorkshire Post (1939c) Essays in over-optimism, 29 March p. 8
  78. Young, G.M. (1952) Stanley Baldwin, London, Rupert Hart-Davis

Note on the contributor

Tim Luckhurst is Professor of Journalism at the University of Kent and founding head of the University's Centre for Journalism. He is a former editor of the Scotsman and has worked as a producer and editor for the BBC. His research focuses on the history of journalism and has been published in Contemporary British History; Journalism Studies; British Journalism Review and 1914-1918 Online, The International Encyclopedia of the First World War. He is the author of This is Today: A biography of the Today Programme (Aurum Press) and Responsibility without power: Lord Justice Leveson's constitutional dilemma (Abramis Academic).