Through the abbey-like halls of the London Times, in the spring of 1908, ran a tremor of genteel horror. The "gentlemen scholars" who were used to running the Times as if it were a hereditary and self-perpetuating priesthood heard shocking news: the paper's control had been bought by Lord Northcliffe,* first lord of Britain's yellow press. "Ye Black Friars," as Northcliffe called them, feared the worst, and it soon came. The Times, said the new chief proprietor, might be what the "monks" called an institution, but it was not a newspaper.
northcliffe, whose own screaming,...
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