• SubScribe commentary
  • The schedule
    • Celebrities >
      • Robin Williams and suicide reporting
      • George Clooney v Daily Mail, round 3
      • Are we playing fair with celebrities?
      • L'Wren Scott's death and Mick Jagger's grief
      • Jill Dando
      • Alain de Botton and Philip Seymour Hoffman
      • Wendi Deng and Rebekah Wade love letters
      • Elizabeth Hurley
      • Gwyneth Paltrow
      • William Roache
    • Crime >
      • The release of Harry Roberts
      • Alan Henning and Alice Gross
      • Dave Lee Travis and Operation Yewtree
      • Rotherham child sex exploitation
      • Operation Tuleta
      • Rolf Harris and Andy Coulson sentencing
      • Maxine Carr's wedding
      • Ann Maguire stabbing
      • Stephen Lawrence and police corruption: time to sit up and take notice
      • The Mirror and Jill Dando
      • William Roache acquitted
      • Rape cases never have a happy ending
      • Lee Rigby and the law of contempt
      • Michael Le Vell: don't shoot the messenger
      • Madeleine McCann: missing an opportunity
      • Maria the 'Greek Madeleine'
    • Foreign Affairs >
      • David Haines and Isis propaganda
      • The murder of Steven Sotloff
      • James Foley murdered
      • Nigeria's abducted girls and massacre
      • Kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls
      • Al Jazeera on trial: why should we care about journalists?
      • Al Jazeera on trial: the final session
      • Al Jazeera on trial: Abdullah Elshamy
      • Al Jazeera on trial: Peter Greste
      • Al Jazeera on trial: the court hearings
      • Peter Greste sent back to jail as Al-Jazeera journalists' trial is adjourned
      • Al-Jazeera journalists refused bail in Egypt
      • Frontline reporting
      • Putin, the Man of Destiny, and dreams of a Eurasian empire
      • Putin wants more than Crimea, he wants half of Ukraine
      • Ukraine revolution and the threat to the West
      • Obama's selfie
      • Typhoon Haiyan
    • Gender Issues >
      • It takes all sorts to make a family
      • This is what a flawed feminist campaign looks like
      • A level results day: bring on the token boys
      • Kellie Maloney faces the world
      • Cheerleading
      • Pregnant soldiers
      • Women in trouble for getting ahead
      • Doris Lessing, Helen Mirren and silly sexist tokenism
      • Bank notes campaign
    • Health and Beauty >
      • Ebola
      • Ashya King and the force of authority
      • Robin Williams and suicide reporting
      • Sun boobs with page 3 breast cancer campaign
      • Stephen's story: did the Press help his cause or take over his life?
      • Anorexia, bulimia and high-achieving students
      • Colchester cancer scandal
      • New year diets
      • Food for thought: will red meat kill you?
    • Obituary >
      • Robin Williams and suicide reporting
      • Chapman Pincher
      • Rik Mayall and the trouble with death
      • Tony Benn: why we shouldn't speak ill of the dead
      • Thatcher and Crow: speaking ill of the dead
      • Bob Crow wins last media battle
      • Fred Sanger
      • Nelson Mandela
      • Doris Lessing
    • Politics >
      • Poppymania
      • Cameron's tax cut promise
      • Brooks Newmark sting
      • Scottish referendum >
        • Scottish referendum: the final editions
        • Scottish referendum miscellany
        • The Queen speaks
      • Politicians need their holidays too
      • Cameron's reshuffle: bring on the women
      • Food banks
      • The European elections audit >
        • Election audit: the last wordle
        • Election audit: Daily Mail
        • Election audit: The Times
        • Election audit: Daily Express
        • Election audit: Daily Mirror
        • Election audit: The Independent
        • Election audit: Guardian
        • Election audit: Daily Telegraph
        • Election audit: The Sun
      • Maria Miller
      • The blue-rinse bingo Budget
      • Harman, Hewitt and the paedophiles
      • Hewitt apologises and the Sun picks up the cudgels
      • Mail v Labour trio, day 6: Harman capitulates and the bully wins
      • David Miranda detention matters to us all
      • Education >
        • A level results day: bring on the token boys
      • Immigration >
        • A year of xenophobia
        • The Express and immigration
      • The Royal Family >
        • Prince Charles and the floods
        • Prince George
      • Sport >
        • Cheerleading
        • Kelly Gallagher beats the world
        • Why is football more important than all the news?
        • Jenny Jones struggles against Kate and ManU
      • The weather >
        • Smog
  • Journalists in court
  • Phone hacking
  • The Brooks-Coulson trial
    • Hacking trial: sentences
    • Hacking trial: commentary
    • Hacking trial: background
    • Hacking trial: reportage and comment
    • Hacking trial: press coverage
    • Hacking trial: verdict and reaction
    • Hacking trial: sentencing hearing
    • Hacking trial: mitigation
    • Hacking trial: Rebekah speaks
    • Hacking trial: mainstream Press
    • Hacking trial: periodicals
    • Hacking trial: Guardian
    • Hacking trial: Independent
    • Hacking trial: The Times
    • Hacking trial: Daily Telegraph
    • Hacking trial: The whitetops
    • Hacking trial: The redtops
    • Hacking trial: evidence
  • Nationals
    • Express
    • Guardian
    • Independent
    • The i
    • Mail
    • Mirror
    • Daily Star
    • Sun
    • Telegraph
    • Times
  • OpEd
    • OpEd: UK politics 24-12-14
    • OpEd: 23-12-14 Christmas
    • OpEd: 22-12-14 UK politics
    • OpEd: 19-12-14 North Korea
    • OpEd: 18-12-14 British politics
    • OpEd: 17-12-14 UK politics
    • OpEd: 16-12-14 UK politics
    • OpEd: CIA torture 15-12-14
    • OpEd: UK politics 12-12-14
    • OpEd: CIA torture 11-12-14
    • OpEd: CIA torture 10-12-14
    • OpEd: British politics 09-12-14
    • OpEd: British politics 08-12-14
    • OpEd: Autumn Statement 05-12-14
    • OpEd: Autumn Statement 04-12-14
    • OpEd: Autumn Statement 03-12-14
    • OpEd: Gordon Brown 02-12-14
    • OpEd: Black Friday 01-12-14
    • OpEd: Scottish finance 28-11-14
    • OpEd: European politics 27-11-14
    • OpEd: David Mellor 26-11-14
    • OpEd: Lewis Hamilton 25-11-14
    • OpEd: British politics 24-11-14
    • OpEd: British politics 21-11-14
    • OpEd: British politics 20-11-14
    • OpEd: British politics 19-11-14
    • OpEd: British politics 18-11-14
    • OpEd: British politics 17-11-14
    • OpEd: Labour 14-11-14
    • OpEd: forex scandal 13-11-14
    • OpEd: British politics 12-11-14
    • OpEd: the Labour Party 11-11-14
    • OpEd: Ed Miliband 10-11-14
    • OpEd: British politics 07-11-14
    • OpEd: British politics 06-11-14
    • OpEd: British politics 05-11-14
    • OpEd: British politics 04-11-14
    • OpEd: space tourism 03-11-14
    • OpEd: British politics 31-10-14
    • OpEd: immigration 30-10-14
    • OpEd: immigration 29-10-14
    • OpEd: British politics 28-10-14
    • OpEd: British politics 27-10-14
    • OpEd: NHS 24-10-14
    • OpEd: British politics 23-10-14
    • OpEd: Ukip 22-10-14
    • OpEd: Britain and EU 21-10-14
    • OpEd: British politics 20-10-14
    • OpEd: Lord Freud 17-10-14
    • OpEd: British politics 16-10-14
    • OpEd: British politics 15-10-14
    • OpEd: British politics 14-10-14
    • OpEd: British politics 13-10-14
    • OpEd: Isis and UK politics 10-10-14
    • OpEd: British politics 09-10-14
    • OpEd: British politics 08-09-14
    • OpEd: LibDem conference 07-10-14
    • OpEd: British politics 06-10-14
    • OpEd: party conferences 03-10-14
    • OpEd: Cameron's speech 02-10-14
    • OpEd: Conservative conference 01-10-14
    • OpEd: Conservative conference 30-09-14
    • OpEd: Conservative conference 29-09-14
    • OpEd: War on Isis 26-09-14
    • OpEd: Labour conference 25-09-14
    • OpEd: Miliband's speech 24-09-14
    • OpEd: Labour conference 23-09-14
    • OpEd: Referendum fallout 22-09-14
    • OpEd: Scottish referendum 19-09-14
    • OpEd: Scottish referendum 18-09-14
    • OpEd: Scottish referendum 17-09-14
    • OpEd: Scottish referendum 16-09-14
    • OpEd: Scottish referendum 15-09-14
    • OpEd: Scottish referendum 12-09-14
    • OpEd: Scottish referendum 11-09-14
    • OpEd: Scottish referendum 10-09-14
    • OpEd: Scottish referendum 09-09-14
    • OpEd: Scottish referendum 08-09-14
    • OpEd: Scottish referendum 05-09-14
    • OpEd: Nato and Isis threat 04-09-14
    • OpEd: Scottish independence 03-09-14
    • OpEd: Nude photographs 02-09-14
    • OpEd: British politics 01-09-14
    • OpEd: Ukip defection 29-08-14
    • OpEd: Rotherham sex abuse 28-08-14
    • OpEd: Islamic militants 27-08-14
    • OpEd: Middle East 26-08-14
    • OpEd: James Foley 22-08-14
    • OpEd: James Foley 21-08-14
    • OpEd: British politics 20-08-14
    • OpEd: Iraq 19-08-14
    • OpEd: Iraq 18-08-14
    • OpEd: A levels 15-08-14
    • OpEd: Iraq 14-08-14
    • OpEd: Robin Williams 13-08-14
    • OpEdL Iraq 12-08-14
    • OpEd: Iraq 11-08-14
    • OpEd: Boris Johnson 08-08-14
    • OpEd: Boris Johnson 07-08-14
    • OpEd: Warsi resignation 06-08-14
    • OpEd: First World War centenary 05-08-14
    • OpEd: Gaza 04-08-14
    • OpEd: British politics 01-08-14
    • OpEd: Gaza 31-07-14
    • OpEd: British politics 30-07-14
    • OpEd: British politics 29-07-14
    • OpEd: Gaza 28-07-14
    • OpEd: Gaza 25-07-14
    • OpEd: EU and Russia 24-07-14
    • OpEd: Flight MH17 23-07-14
    • OpEd: Flight MH17 22-07-14
    • OpEd: Flight MH17 21-07-14
    • oped: Gaza 18-07-14
    • OpEd: Cameron's reshuffle 17-07-14
    • OpEd: Cameron's reshuffle 16-07-14
    • OpEd: Cameron's reshuffle 15-07-14
    • OpEd: British politics 14-07-2014
    • OpEd: public sector strikes 11-07-14
    • OpEd: public sector strikes 10-07-14
    • OpEd: sex abuse 09-07-14
    • OpEd Sex abuse 08-07-14
    • OpEd: Westminster child abuse 07-07-2014
    • OpEd: Middle East 04-07-14
    • OpEd: Ed Miliband 03-07-14
    • OpEd British politics: 02-07-14
    • OpEd: edeucation 01-07-14
    • OpEd: Britain and Europe 30-06-14
    • OpEd: Britain and Europe 27-06-14
    • OpEd: Luis Suárez 26-06-14
    • OpEd: Iraq 25-06-14
    • OpEd: British politics 24-06-14
    • OpEd: Iraq 23-06-14
    • OpEd: Iraq 20-06-14
    • OpEd: British politics, 19-06-14
    • OpEd: British politics, 18-06-2014
    • OpEd: Iraq 17-06-14
    • OpEd: Tony Blair 16-06-14
    • OpEd: Iraq 13-06-14
    • OpEd: Oxfam, baby buggies, World Cup 12-06-14
    • OpEd: education and British values 11-06-14
    • OpEd: extremist education 10-06-14
    • OpEd: May v Gove 09-06-14
  • The columnists
  • Regionals
    • Regional Press Awards 2013
    • Local newspaper week
    • Local papers matter
    • Reading Chronicle and football hooliganism
    • Time for change
    • Monty's vision
    • The Full Monty: the Local World vision put into practice
    • The Pirates of Parkham
    • Colchester cancer scandal
  • Backnumbers
    • Weekend papers Dec 27-28
    • Front pages Dec 22-26, 2014
    • Weekend papers Dec 20-21
    • Front pages Dec 15-19
    • Weekend front pages Dec 13-14
    • Front pages Dec 8-12
    • Weekend papers Dec 6-7
    • Front pages Dec 1-5
    • Weekend papers Nov 29-30
    • Front pages Nov 24-28
    • Weekend papers Nov 22-23
    • Front pages Nov 17-21
    • Weekend papers Nov 15-16
    • Front pages Nov 10-14
    • Weekend papers Nov 8-9
    • Front pages Nov 3-7
    • Weekend papers Nov 1-2
    • Front pages Oct 27-31
    • Weekend papers Oct 25-26, 2014
    • Front pages Oct 20-24
    • Weekend papers Oct 18-19, 2014
    • Front pages Oct 12-17
    • Front pages Oct 5-11
    • Front pages Sept 28-Oct 4
    • front pages Sept 21-27
    • Front pages Sept 14-20
    • front pages Sept 7-13 2014
    • front pages Aug 31-Sep 6
    • Front pages Aug 24-30, 2014
    • Front pages August 17-23, 2014
    • Front pages, Aug 10-16, 2014
    • Front pages, Aug 3-9, 2014
    • Front pages July 27-August2, 2014
    • Front pages July 20-26, 2014
    • front pages July 13-19, 2014
    • Front pages: July 6-12, 2014
    • Front pages June 29-July 5, 2014
    • Front pages June 22-28, 2014
    • Front pages June 15-21
    • Front pages June 8-14, 2014
    • Front pages June 1-7, 2014
    • Nationals May 25-31
    • Front pages May 18-24 >
      • Press review: 24-05-14
      • Press review: 21-05-14
      • Press review: 20-05-14
    • Front pages May 11-17 >
      • Press review 15-05-14
      • Press review 14-05-14
      • Press review 13-05-14
      • Press review 12-05-14
    • front pages May 4-10, 2014 >
      • The review 09-05-14
      • The review 08-05-2014
      • The review 07-05-14
    • Front pages April 27-May 3 2014
    • Front pages April 20-26, 2014
    • Front pages April 13-19
    • Front pages April 6-12, 2014
    • The front pages March 30-April 5
    • The front pages March 23-29, 2014
    • front pages march 16-22
    • front pages March 9-15, 2014
    • front pages March 2-8, 2014
    • front pages Feb 23-Mar 1 2014
    • front pages Feb 16-22, 2014
    • The front pages Feb 9-15 2014
    • The front pages Feb 3-8, 2014
    • The front pages January 2014
  • You have to laugh
  • Blog archive
  • About SubScribe
  • Join the SubScribers
  • Contact us
  • Cookie policy


Why we should worry about Tesco

Tesco share price
Tuesday 23 September, 2014 
Business is boring. It's run by middle-aged white men in suits who think only of money. 
Business news is boring.  It's written in a strange language full of initials and acronyms and league-rankings that is deliberately unappetising to keep outsiders beyond the fence. 
Like sport?
Well, yes. Except sport is interesting, it's soap opera. People talk about it down the pub. People don't talk about takeovers and hedge funds and derivatives down the pub. We're all experts on rugby during the World Cup, cricket during the Ashes, and, this week, on golf for the Ryder Cup. But we don't want to rap over phosphate prices or supply chains - until we have to pay more for our groceries.
This mentality is not confined to the pub. It can be seen on newsdesks and back benches every day - which some might say shows how much they are in tune with public thinking. They swoop when a good story breaks off their usual patch (ie, when the much-hated BBC starts reporting it) and demand that experts from the outer reaches of sport or biz provide copy.

The men (for it is overwhelmingly men) who run and write for the business and sport sections hate it when this happens. This is for a number of reasons:
  • The story may not be quite as the BBC, ITN or Twitter may have it;
  • Sport/biz may have been running the story - and talking to it at conference for weeks - without anyone taking any notice until Pesto or Aggers piped up;
  • News will ask for 500 words and then run only 200, leaving new readers baffled and the specialist audience that is really interested badly served.
  • News doesn't understand the story, the nuances and the background. Its insistence on removing all technical terms makes the author look as though he (usually) doesn't know his subject.

News editors hate it too. For a number of different reasons:
  • Sport/biz don't recognise the real story. Don't they look at the television news bulletins? 
  • Sport/biz have been burying the story for weeks, they may say they've had it on their sked, but who can stay awake long enough to listen to them in conference?
  • Sport/biz don't understand that more important stories may come along at the last minute - a new Strictly contestant perhaps or the Dave Lee Travis verdict - that means their story isn't getting the slot it was promised. They're just being inflexible saying their pages have gone off stone and they can't take it back now;
  • Why do they always write in jargon? Don't they understand they should be writing for the general audience, not their contacts.

SubScribe knows this to be true, having employed every one of those eight arguments at one time or another. These negotiations are conducted in an atmosphere of friendly deference, each side silently acknowledging its lack of understanding of the other. But the trouble is that the stories that give rise to these conversations are by their very nature the ones that have broken free of the bounds of their "home" pages and are demanding wider attention. That probably means they matter.

This morning the Independent, Guardian and Daily Mail splashed on Tesco, which has admitted that its profit prediction was £250m out - that is by 25%. That is a heck of a lot of money and a huge margin of error. It is not clear yet whether this was deliberate misaccounting or incompetence, whether staff under pressure to produce improved results took to massaging the figures or whether they were unduly optimistic about future sales and started spending the lottery win before they bought the ticket.  
Either way, it matters. 

The Sun recognised as much and gave it a top single slot on its "Breaking Bad" page 1. The Telegraph and Times found no room for it on their front pages. The Times had three serious stories plus a static picture of a woman at a film premiere and puffs on spiders and friendly universities. It compensated by making Tesco the page 2 lead with extensive coverage in business. 
The Telegraph had six stories, including a short one based on a Radio Times interview with Alan Bennett about his television viewing habits. There was no Tesco coverage in the news section. Instead it led the business supplement, with further reports on page 3 and a commentary in the lefthand slot on page 2. 
Telegraph biz front
Telegraph biz 2-3
The Telegraph's approach is to speculate on the future of Tesco chairman Rick Broadbent and to focus on trading aspects of the story - the supply deal, the executives under attack, the impact on other supermarket shares, a rather pointless sidebar about big "mistakes" by other corporations. Allister Heath's commentary on page 2 raises questions he says investors should ask.  None of this would interest the casual general reader or enlighten anyone who seriously follows City matters. It is hard not to draw the conclusion that no one at the Telegraph had a clue about how big a story this was and is. Even the word "woes" in the page 3 heading suggests that this is a lot of fuss about something minor, an everyday accounting failure.
Independent front page
Independent 4-5
Compare that with the Independent, which splashes on the story - with a super heading - bolstered by a 4-5 spread that includes a plain English run-through for the lay reader and a second lead on the Phil Clarke, who was the company's chief executive from 2011 until recently. There's also very simple panel on how things may have gone wrong, another on the four suspended executives, and an excellent little sidebar on product placement. 
Independent business pages
For the business reader there is more, including a splash on the fear of further horrors down the road and even the possibility that the supermarket could become a takeover target. This turns to the next page, where the text includes a look at how  the invincible Warren Buffett has caught a cold from his dalliance with Tesco (though he isn't a £112m loser as the head says - that would be the case only if he'd sold all his shares today). The package is completed by a commentary from Steve Dresser which, to be fair, is pretty much a repetition of the material in the news section. 

Why do we care about any of this? The hard cash reason is that it directly affects all of us, our pensions, endowments, investments, savings. Every pension fund will have a stake in Tesco. And the value of that stake has fallen by just under half in the past 12 months. 
At the end of 2010, when Sir Terry Leahy was still in charge, Tesco was the 15th biggest company in the FTSE-100; its shares were worth £4.30, giving it a market capitalisation of £3.4bn. By the end of last year it had dropped to 22nd in the league table, its shares were down to £3.30 and market cap had fallen to £2.7bn. Three weeks ago it was 28th, shares were £2.30 and market cap £1.9bn. Today the decline has accelerated with shares trading at £1.95, making the market cap £1.7bn, which in turn means that it has probably dropped another couple of slots in the FTSE league.
That's some decline.

But there's more to this than financials. Tesco has a huge influence on our society - as we can see from the "Not in our town" protests when it wants to open a store where it's not welcome. It buys land speculatively and if it doesn't feel like developing it, it leaves it to fall into dereliction. 
There seems to be no lawn on which it won't park its tanks: legal services, pet insurance, opticians, convenience stores - forget Tesco Express, did you know that One Stop shops were owned by Tesco? This is the free market in action; other supermarkets venture into the same areas. But what happens when one as big as Tesco comes a cropper? What happens to the communities where local businesses have been driven to the wall by the big boys if the big boy decides to pull out?

Apart from sneering at provincial nimbys, newspapers tend not to write too many stories that show Tesco in a negative light. This may or may not have anything to do with the fact that  the company is a reliable source of advertising revenue. It may be because people feel affection for the place where they do their weekly shop - as they did for Woolworths and still do for HMV. But there has been little news from the business over the past four years that hasn't been bad news - and maybe that very fact led some to think last night that this was just another drip from the tap.

This may be a case of an old business struggling in the face of upstart competition; it may be that staff being pushed to deliver results have been driven beyond cutting corners to dodgy practices - think NHS scandals, think phone hacking - or  it may be that Tesco is showing symptoms of a malaise that affects the whole sector.
Whichever is the case, we need to keep our eyes on this: the story is too important to be pushed back behind the features, obits and toenail clipper ads without so much as a cross-ref brief up front. It is also too important to be brought forward to news only to be chopped to six pars to make space for another bit of Downton or Strictly.
And if anyone is in any doubt about this, just remember what happened last time we thought a business was too big to fail.

Picture
rescued dog
Manchester paper raises £1m for fire-hit kennel and teaches Fleet Street a lesson


Sportlobster
Press Box:
Sponsors pay
the piper - and call the tune 



A second opinion
Picture
It may be an overstatement to describe Tesco as retailing's Royal Bank of Scotland. Despite everything it remains profitable, if less so than investors had at first been told. But, like that fallen giant of banking, Tesco seems to have fatally over-reached itself while adopting a profoundly dysfunctional corporate culture
- Independent leader

Breaking Bad logo
Why the Sun would have been better off going for series one
Pictures and spreads


Farage
Miliband
Tense times, 
but where there's
a will there's
a way to get it right

Picture
The British Journalism Awards
Entries are invited for the Press Gazette awards, which recognise public interest journalism that makes a difference
Click here
for details


Gameoldgirl
Follow @gameoldgirl


comments powered by Disqus

Please sign up for SubScribe updates  
(no spam, no more than one every week or two)

I'd like to become a SubScriber

* indicates required
Quick links

Picture
Main sections:
The industry
Press freedom
Press regulation
The schedule
Phone hacking
News judgment
Regionals
Picture
About SubScribe
Send an email
Blogs:
Pictures and spreads
Editor's blog
Press Box
Style Counsel
You have to laugh
OpEd
Front page reviews
Picture
The old blog