An electrical fire, which broke out at around 3 o’clock this morning, has gutted the Morning Star newsroom and had a knock-on effect on the
paper’s administration, circulation, advertising and finance departments.
It is vital that the labour and progressive movements offer their continued support for the Morning Star at this difficult time, and we do all we can to keep the paper coming out.
Tuesday’s edition, which has been produced from the front rooms of Morning Star staff in east London will be just eight pages, but it
has been achieved solely through the determination and sacrifice of editor and staff staff.
We don’t know how long the current crisis will last, but staff of the Star will endeavour to continue to publish the paper on daily basis, because, given the non-event at Warwick, the need for an alternative daily voice of the left has never been more pressing.
Below is tomorrow’s Morning Star editorial.
Star still coming out
APOLOGIES to all our readers for the truncated size of today’s
Morning Star, which is the result of an electrical fire at our east
London offices.The fire, which broke out early yesterday morning, gutted about one-
third of our news room and caused smoke and water damage to both
floors of our offices.Power has been cut off to the whole of William Rust House,
necessitating an emergency transfer of operations to private
accommodation in the area.The response of Morning Star staff has been magnificent, turning up
before their shifts were due to start, salvaging essential equipment
and transferring to their temporary digs with good humour.New journalists at our paper are always told that one of the joys of
the job is that no two days are the same.However, as much as we all like variety, we could have done without
this latest addition to the spice of life.It is a sad irony that, less than two days before the blaze, our
paper’s deputy editor and head of production Bill Benfield delivered
an upbeat technology report to the management committee of the
People’s Press Printing Society, the co-operative that owns the
Morning Star.He told the committee that consistent investment in computer hardware
and software in recent years had resulted in our paper enjoying a
technological level on a par with the rest of the national print media.It is too soon to say for sure how much of this has been destroyed or
damaged beyond repair.We are, of course, insured for replacement of machinery, but these
things take time and we are not even sure when we will be able to
return to William Rust House.Our offices will need drying out, repair, cleaning and refurbishment
before we can install replacement equipment and restart normal
operations.This interruption of Morning Star business is not simply a problem of
producing the paper. Our telephone communications are down, making it
impossible for people to phone in with news stories, advertising,
circulation requests and vital donations to our monthly £16,000
Fighting Fund.However, we are still reachable by post and we can contact you
through the pages of our Morning Star, so please don’t let up on your
support for our efforts.Today’s paper has just eight pages, which recalls a period that we
felt confident of having left permanently behind us a decade ago.The history of that decade has been of expansion, with more pages and
greater use of colour, providing a unique service to the labour
movement and all progressive campaigns. Earlier this year, we were
able to restore distribution on the day of publication to Scotland
northern England.Our paper has, over the generations, faced many challenges to its
existence, including a wholesalers’ boycott, a government ban and
nazi bombing raids.We are determined to overcome this latest setback and to get back on
the road to bigger and better things.As always, we will depend on our readers for moral and material
support. Please write to the editor John Haylett to let us know that
you are with us during these trying times.
Tags: fire, morning star
