About

The Wapping Post lies within the News International Dispute Archive of the Marx Memorial Library Printworkers Collection. Almost half a million copies of the Wapping Post were written, produced and distributed during and just after the dispute involving printworkers and journalists sacked by Rupert Murdoch’s News International (1986-7). It continued the tradition of printworkers producing their own strike sheet or newspaper. Financed by sections of the print unions and by sales to supporting workers in other sectors of industry, on picket lines, demonstrations and union meetings, the Wapping Post represents a unique optic on the dispute and an antithesis to News International’s own media outlets and the dominant press media of the time. Exposing media owners’ control of information and the formation of public opinion, the failure of accurate reporting of industrial disputes and the absence of material representing workers’ own experience and views, the Wapping Post exemplified the need for alternative models of media ownership and practices. This original research project reconstructs an important neglected dimension of the dispute. It speaks to our contemporary context where abuse of power (see the Levenson Inquiry 2011-12 and the emergence of Hacked Off), involving Murdoch’s newspaper titles once again, the future of public interest journalism (see the 2018 Cairncross review) and media concentration (see the work of the Media Reform Coalition) remain live issues. 

Key research questions will focus on 1) how the Wapping Post was produced and distributed, 2) what was distinctive about it as journalism, representation and textual artifact, 3) how it compared with the dominant press perspectives on the dispute as well as other labour movement publications and 4) how the Wapping Post articulated the broader issues around the role of the media within a democratic polity, associated with the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom.