Fleet Street, the London thoroughfare synonymous with 300 years of journalism in Britain, bids farewell to its last international newsroom on Sunday.
Fleet Street, the London thoroughfare synonymous with 300 years of journalism in Britain, bids farewell to its last international newsroom on Sunday, when Agence France-Presse moves office.
AFP’s departure means that Scottish publishers DC Thomson’s London bureau is the last remaining newsroom in the industry’s spiritual home, now overtaken by investment banks and legal offices.
It is a far cry from 30 years ago, when Fleet Street, a narrow east-west road near Saint Paul’s Cathedral, was the bustling heart of the British newspaper industry.
National titles and international news agencies crammed into the street behind the decorous facades, with only a host of legendary pubs to separate them.
Despite the exodus, the term ‘Fleet Street’ is still used as a shorthand for British journalism, much as ‘Wall Street’ denotes banking and finance in the United States.
The newspaper exodus began in 1986, when media baron Rupert Murdoch defied the printer’s unions and controversially moved his titles The Times, The Sun, The Sunday Times and the News of the World to a purpose-built high-tech plant in Wapping, east London.
The other national papers soon followed, many driven to take on cheaper, newer headquarters further east which could better accommodate computer wiring and less labour-intensive technology. “Fleet Street represents the past in every way: the way we produce newspapers and the way we produce journalism,” said Roy Greenslade, professor of journalism at London’s City University.
Renowned in popular British parlance as the ‘Street of Shame’, Fleet Street began its association with publishing in 1500 when Wynkyn de Worde built London’s first printing press next to Saint Bride’s, still known as the ‘journalists’ church’.
The newspaper history of Fleet Street began in 1702 with the Daily Courant, a single page, two-column leaflet. The legend of Fleet Street was not all due to reporters’ pencils and printers’ ink. Architecture was even part of the press rivalry.
The street contains some impressive works, such as the Daily Express Building, a shiny, art deco affair dubbed the ‘Black Lubyanka’ after the KGB secret service headquarters in Moscow, and The Daily Telegraph’s art nouveau Peterborough Court office, now home to investment bank Goldman Sachs.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}