The Political Importance of Provincial Newspapers, 1903-1945: The Rowntrees and the Liberal Press.

This article argues that the political importance of provincial newspapers run by the Rowntree family in the Liberal cause declined between 1903 and 1945. This decline is identified in changing attitudes to the funding of newspapers, and in the reasons for those changes. Before the Second World War the Rowntrees considered subsidies to provincial newspapers vital, to keep the press at the forefront of partisan campaigning, until at last it began to pay its way. Yet such newspapers' eventually strong finances contrasted with their political weakness, as they appeared helpless to prevent the Liberal Party's electoral decline. After 1945 the Rowntrees, in contrast to their earlier strategy, no longer considered the funding of newspapers a priority. Instead, they targeted money directly at the strengthening of the Liberal Party, both in Parliament and in the party organization, instead of at the press. This switch of strategy was the earliest example of a wider Liberal emphasis, from the 1940s, on improving parliamentary recruitment and party organization. The fading political importance of the Rowntrees' newspapers and of the wider Liberal press would lead to loss-making Liberal papers closing, while surviving ones ceased to support the Liberal Party. Instead, the Liberals came to depend on television and community politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]