Frenzy in the British Press

The first public hint of the impending birth of a British test-tube baby came last spring not from London's Fleet Street but from, Manhattan's South Street, in the New York Post-After getting a tip that Britain's Dr. Patrick Steptoe was on the verge of success with an in vitro fertilization technique, Post Reporter Sharon Churcher placed an overseas call to Steptoe. He let it slip that a test-tube baby might soon be born, and Churcher broke the news on April 19.

Churcher's carefully worded story was scarcely noticed by the public. But a similar report a day later by Britain's Oldharn Evening Chronicle caught the attention of the sensation-seeking National Enquirer. Within 24 hours, half a dozen reporters left the Enquirer's Lantana, Fla., headquarters and arrived on Steptoe's doorstep to buy worldwide rights to the story of the test-tube baby. When Steptoe hesitated, the Floridians looked to other sources. According to London's Sunday Times, the Enquirer team tried to buy details from nurses at Oldham and District General Hospital and offered $97,500 to the administrator of a research trust for Steptoe.

The great press circus was on. The Oldham News was out with a major story the next day; London's Daily Mail is said to have offered $190 to an Oldham reporter for the parents' names, and journalists began pouring into town from around the world. At least one posed as a friend of a patient to gain admittance to the hospital. Three Japanese photographers began shooting pictures of every pregnant woman in sight. Said a hospital spokesman: "It seems if you move anything, there is a reporter behind it."

On the advice of Steptoe, the still anonymous Lesley and John Brown then hired an attorney to solicit bids for their story, insisting that bidders keep the details--including the parents' identity --quiet until the baby was bom. A number of British and American publications submitted bids, among them the Enquirer and a representative of Publisher Rupert Murdoch (the New York Post, the Star and the London Sun). The three U.S. commercial television networks were asked to bid on North American broadcasting rights, but all declined. Finally, on July 9, the Browns accepted a high bid of nearly $600,000 for world print rights from Associated Newspapers, owner of the Daily Mail, which quickly retailed North American print rights to the Enquirer.

All that did not sit well with the Mail's principal tabloid rival in Britain, the Express, which had dropped out of the bidding at $190,000. Express reporters claim they had learned that the yet unidentified father was driving three hours each way to visit his wife. So they staked out the hospital parking lot, jotted down license numbers of male motorists who looked as if they might be expectant fathers and traced them through Britain's motor licensing bureau. How? "By subterfuge, even bribery!" speculated an angry civil servant. The Express soon narrowed the search to Brown, and a cheek with neighbors confirmed that his wife was pregnant. EXCLUSIVE, the Express screamed on July 11, BABY OF THE CENTURY. The paper did not name the parents of the century, but most other details were there. Gloats Express Editor Derek Jameson: "There were Murdoch, the Mail, the National Enquirer putting in bids of -L- 300,000, and there we were--out getting the story by old-style journalism."

The Mail recovered next day with a WORLD EXCLUSIVE, identifying the Browns and quoting Lesley Brown under the headline OUR MIRACLE BABY. Yet Murdoch's Sun that day also identified the Browns and quoted John Brown extensively, under the label SUN EXCLUSIVE. The Mail tried next day to regain the initiative by printing the first "exclusive" photo of Lesley Brown--but the Sun and the Express both pictured her that day as well. To protect its fast depreciating investment, the Mail quickly stationed a guard outside Lesley Brown's room and persuaded Oldham Hospital officials to refer all inquiries about the birth to the Mail. When a TIME correspondent called the paper to confirm Lesley's age, a spokesman obliged but added: "That's free. The next one will cost you."

As EXCLUSIVE followed EXCLUSIVE, Britain's more serious dailies were beginning to find the affair distasteful. The Times fretted that if the orgy of publicity continued, it might be traumatic for the child. The Guardian denounced "chequebook journalism" and thrashed Oldham health officials for allowing the Mail to control news from the hospital. Embarrassed, regional health authorities ordered that any bulletins be given to all comers. Sniffed Guardian Editor Peter Preston: "The research, the doctors, the hospital--all were funded by the taxpayer. It's as if the Prime Minister said, 'For 350 quid I'll give you a private briefing.'"

At the Mail last week, plans were presumably still afoot to print the Browns' EXCLUSIVE story once the baby was born, though editors there were uncommonly uncommunicative. The Enquirer this week will print its version of the story, though Murdoch's Sun somehow got hold of a few Enquirer morsels last week in London. Murdoch's Star, a Manhattan-based competitor of the Enquirer, will be out this week with some color snapshots, obtained from friends and neighbors of the Browns, and a 3,500-word article.

At the triumphant Express, Editor Jameson denounced the Mail for trying to be so piggy. Said Jameson: "This story is bigger than man conquering the moon. For the Mail to insist they had the exclusive--that's like buying up Louis Pasteur and then saying you can only buy antiseptics through the Daily Mail syndication department!" As The Birth approached and the Mail's costly "exclusive" gradually eroded, it looked as if the critics of checkbook journalism had made their point.

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