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Introduction
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| The Northern Echo building situated on the corner of Priestgate and Crown Street |
Why? As a southerner settling in the North-East of England and
forging a modest career on the Great Daily of the North with its
proud, almost fearsome, reputation of campaigning and caring for
its community, why? was a question that bothered me.
The Northern Echo was first printed on January 1, 1870, and the
accepted explanations for its existence involve railways and well-intentioned
Liberals.
But they alone can't fully answer the question why? because a local
weekly, perhaps with regional pretensions, would have been a sufficient
response to them.
The sudden advent of a giant of a regional morning with a voice
that could be heard attacking the devil all over the country - even
across the Continent - is just too much for those explanations to
bear.
For most of' its first 130 years, The Northern Echo has been unique
among newspapers: its circulation has been bigger than the population
of the town, Darlington, in which it is based.
And for all of its first 59 years, The Northern Echo seems not
to have made a halfpenny profit. The question why? elicits no more
than a shake of the head and the passing thought that the paper
really shouldn't exist at all... Until you delve deeper and discover
a frighteningly close shave with unthinkable embarrassment which
acted as an almighty kick up the bottom for the local Establishment.
That kick came from a marvellous maverick, who has become one of
my historic heroes, and it propelled The Northern Echo into existence.
But that only answers the beginning bit of' why? Once alive, The
Northern Echo quickly gathered a formidable reputation - a reputation
best summed up by W T Stead's phrase "attacking the devil"
- and around it grew a nationwide empire of newspapers.
More questions crowd in. How, not once but twice, did The Northern
Echo suddenly find new lease of life when it appeared to be a declining
relic from a bygone age. And finally, just as the dinosaurs were
hit by some unexplained calamity, what struck The Northern Echo
and made its circulation decline catastrophically ~ And why?, then,
does it still exist so successfully, still attacking the devil with
vigour after 130 years, at the dawn of the 21 st Century.
So the reason for this book is why?, and I believe that it answers
my original question and many more besides about the Great Daily
of the North.
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