At least we still know how to laugh at ourselves

Everyone behaved pretty well at last week's annual British Press Awards, which used not to be the case. The editors and their lieutenants at the Grosvenor House event, organised by trade magazine Press Gazette, traded banter rather than blows. Newspaper of the Year went to The Observer. Its editor, Roger Alton, who is an emotional man, dabbed a tear and said he was "unbelievably flattered and thrilled".

But why is it that the premier awards in the British newspaper industry lack the status, style and seriousness of their counterparts in the US? Ordinarily, Americans regard with awe the British capacity for doing ceremony with style and taste, yet in this area we do not compare.

The British Press Awards have had a series of organisers, and been used to promote their sponsor's brand or to keep a magazine alive (like Press Gazette). They have seldom been secure, and nearly did not happen this year after Piers Morgan and Matthew Freud abandoned their short ownership of the Press Gazette. One by- product of this was that the Mail and Telegraph titles, which have antipathy to Freud and Morgan, stopped boycotting the awards. But another was that they nearly did not happen since nobody wanted to buy a loss-making magazine.

Fortunately, trade publisher Wilmington emerged, and the awards were run by the publisher of Cranes Today and World Wide Wood. Compare this with the American model, the Pulitzer Prizes, which will be announced in two weeks' time. Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian immigrant who became a leading American newspaper publisher in the 19th century, endowed the prizes through his will, and they have been awarded annually since 1917. They require no sponsorship - the Pulitzer endowment and a later one to top it up ensure the prizes are secure. There is no need to sell dinner tickets.

There is in fact no dinner. The Pulitizer organiser, Sig Gissler, stresses the absence of ceremonies and banquets. There is instead a "mellow luncheon" held in the Low Library of Columbia University, whose president presents the winners with their $10,000 cheques. As the founder said: "I am deeply interested in the progress and elevation of journalism, having spent my life in that profession, regarding it as a noble profession and one of unequalled importance for its influence upon the minds and morals of the people." I think one must concede a difference of tone to the press awards on each side of the Atlantic. This is not necessarily to decry our own. Without Press Gazette and Cranes Today, there might be no awards. And some of the journalism recognised in our awards is of the highest standard. It is perhaps more a question of attitude, of the differences between American and British journalism, and journalists.

"The American press takes itself so seriously," explains Rupert Cornwell, our man in Washington. He says the announcement of the annual Pulitzer winners is accompanied with great fanfare. "They are preppies," says Corn-well. "They wear business suits. They do not drink. They are matey with their sources."

British journalists do not take themselves so seriously, says Cornwell. Private Eye lampoons those who do, preferring to regard journalists as vermin, and the journalists rather like that. There are, though, similarities in the esteem in which they are held by the public. In Britain, journalists rank with politicians and estate agents as the least respected professionals. In America, after a series of scandals surrounding reporters, it is the same: politicians, lawyers and journalists are down there at the bottom of the esteem league. But the difference is, says Cornwell, that the American journalists are unaware of this, or don't believe it.

There is a different attitude to journalism, to journalism education and to journalism prizes in this country. Here it is less self-important, takes itself less seriously. It seeks to be cooler. Does that make it better?

Peter Cole is professor of journalism at the University of Sheffield

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