'A Bit of News Which You May, or May Not, Care to Use': The Beaverbrook-Healy friendship and British newspapers 1922–1931. Issue 3 (2nd October 2018) - Payne, Elspeth
Abstract : As the formal Anglo-Irish union ended, Tim Healy, Irish nationalist politician turned Free State Governor-General, and Lord Beaverbrook, politician and press baron, entered their second decade of friendship. Whereas existing scholarship privileges the place of this Beaverbrook-Healy nexus in pre-independence high politics, this article uses correspondence preserved in the Beaverbrook papers to rectify neglect of the post-1922 era and reintegrate the relationship into Anglo-Irish and British media history. The article demonstrates how this enduring informal connection functioned as a vital forum for the exchange of material relating to British and Irish affairs and examines its influence on news content. Tracing the construction of individual stories and overall editorial lines, this case study also facilitates a broader re-evaluation of the process of content production and, by analysing feedback relayed in the letters, provides fresh insight into the place of the British press in the new Irish Free State.