This kind of facade on a few buildings is all that is left of the legendary newspaper industry history of Fleet Street, one of the most famous streets in London. So many newspapers have had their offices on this street over the years that the name is still used to describe the journalism industry as a whole.
Nowadays, there are only a handful of companies in the Fleet Street area that still have anything to do with journalism. All of the big national daily newspapers have moved away, as well as the printing presses and news agencies such as Reuters.
The nationals are still in London, but they are no longer congregated in one area:
The Daily Mail and Evening Standard are now in Kensington.
The Times and The Sun moved to Wapping in the 1980s.
The Financial Times is over the river in Southwark.
The Guardian has just moved to King’s Cross from Farringdon.
The Daily Telegraph is in Victoria.
The Independent and The Daily Mirror are both at Canary Wharf.
The Daily Express and Daily Star are the closest to Fleet Street nowadays, a mile or so away near Monument station.
Fleet Street’s bars and restaurants were legendary for being hosts to liquid lunches for many in the business, with all manner of libellous and scurrilous gossip shared across the tables. That era seems to have died a death, replaced by what Nick Davies (in his book Flat Earth News) calls “churnalism”, with journalists tethered to their desks, re-writing press releases and researching using only Wikipedia.
3 years ago • 5 notes
