Post-war press

According to Stephen Koss, the post-war period marked the final instalment of an unfolding story of progress. ‘By 1947’, Koss writes, ‘the party attachments of papers – as they had been understood to operate over the preceding hundred years – were effectively abandoned’. ¹ By detaching themselves from political parties, newspapers allegedly became autonomous from the orbit of government. And by being oriented towards what sold rather than what furthered a party interest, newspapers supposedly became the servants of the public. ‘The halting transition from official to popular control’ of the press over a period of nearly two centuries was, in his view, now complete. ²