ABSTRACT
This chapter examines George Orwell’s involvement in the press – both as an activist journalist and as a media critic. It aims to explain that marginalisation, highlighting the ‘low’ status of journalism in the broader culture: significantly, Orwell also had a low opinion of his journalism describing it as ‘mere pamphleteering’. Journalism persisted as an activity for Orwell from the start of his writing career until ill-health forced him to stop in 1949 – while newspapers, censorship, freedom of speech, propaganda and language were subjects for constant study and critique. Orwell not only lambasts the corporate press but puts his principles into practice by devoting most of his journalistic energies to the small circulation/alternative/left press. Orwell’s most important involvement with the corporate press, however, follows his meeting in 1941 with fellow old-Etonian David Astor, whose family owns the Observer and who is to be its distinguished editor from 1948 to 1975.
