ABSTRACT
This chapter is an attempt to reinstate the 'popular' aspect of The Westminster, and explores the intricate relationship that existed between 'good journalism' and New Journalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: the distinctions between 'commercial' and 'serious' journalism. It seeks thus to add a new perspective to the historiography of New Journalism and the political press, and of contemporary British politics. The chapter serves to demonstrate the complex but interconnected nature of George Newnes's world view, and the adaptability of his entrepreneurial skills. Newnes's political Liberalism was neutralized, via a firmly informative style of reporting, to become a depoliticized form of liberalism more associated with the social ritual of entertaining. The Westminster, a new model of partisan political journalism was negotiated which revolved around the motif of journalistic propriety. Within this model, the image of the politically-affiliated proprietor reflected a balance between ideological control and financial investment.
