Fleet Street in its heyday

News-gathering doesn't seem to have changed much over the years if Evelyn Waugh's Scoop is anything to go by. Shenanigans described in the 1930s book are remarkably similar to some of the tactics portrayed in 90s British sitcom, Drop the Dead Donkey, or the numerous fake news headlines one finds online these days.

But let me return to Scoop, a satire that lampoons the English newspaper industry in the run up to WW2. It follows the misadventures of William Boot, who is very happy writing puff pieces about country life for The Daily Beast, until, to his consternation, he is suddenly sent to Ishmaelia to take the post of war correspondent.

Like Waugh's The Loved One, which I read a few years ago, I didn't appreciate the humour until I tried to explain it to someone else. There's a pithy, satirical description of the two opposing Ishmaelite ideologies, Communism and Fascism, very topical when the book was written. It is of its time of course. Indeed, one short, eye-popping paragraph uses language that would probably get Waugh cancelled today. There's also an in-joke for the careful reader who might spot the phrase "Up to a point" repeated throughout the text. It's used by the foreign editor, Mr. Salter, to obliquely signify that he thinks his boss, newspaper magnate Lord Copper, is wrong

Up to a point, then, Scoop is most likely a great read only for those who worked on Fleet Street in its heyday. Since the online media revolution, it's somewhat anachronistic.