I don’t want to come across like a company man, but I feel the need to recommend a rather special service provided by The Guardian to employees and the public alike. The Guardian Newsroom is a publicly accessible exhibition centre and archive situated directly opposite the Guardian’s offcies in Farringdon.
In their own words, the newsroom “…preserves and promotes the histories and values of the Guardian and the Observer newspapers…”, and it is truly a remarkable resource for anyone even remotely interested in the production, provision or contents of the news.
Currently showing in the exhibition space is a retrospective of the irascible and scathing Martin Rowson’s cartoons during “The Blair Years”. Tracing the downward arc of Blair’s premiership, strongly tied to his special relationship with George W Bush and the war in Iraq, these cartoons articulate Rowson’s deep loathing of our highly compromised erstwhile leader. Blair is repeatedly drawn as a diminutive, twitching, duplicitous green goblin, hanging from Bush’s monkey tail and, towards the end, lurking in the looming shadow of the imposing chancellor Gordon Brown.
These pictures are shocking and visceral, and the “wall of shame”, where Rowson comments on various politician’s ands readers’ angry responses to them shows how far they went in provoking and needling the government at the time. At one point Blair had to be restrained by Alisdair Campbell from writing a letter of complaint, with the wise words “they’ll think you’re a nutter”.
Rowson has presented some of the works here alongside chalk drawings directly on the walls of the room, and these, together with seeing the original, painted cartoons in all their Tippex-ed glory, make this exhibition very rewarding indeed.
Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm
Saturday 12pm to 4pm
Free admission.
Martin Rowson’s cartoon are available online here
The Newsroom also provides education facilities
There is also an online archive of the Newsroom