Forget boozy Fleet St image - newspapers turned lean long ago

I admit that I was prey to such prejudice, which is why I set out to compare staff sizes 20 years ago, 10 years ago and now, expecting a very different result. The task was also largely fruitless. Newspapers, even those that boast of being papers of record, are poor at retaining in-house archives. Few have any records going back a decade, let alone further, and most were reticent about providing statistics, viewing them as commercially sensitive. It was also impossible to match like with like.

Aside from the ballooning size of papers, with extra pagination, supplements and magazines, the major problem is that website recruitment has distorted the figures, and they are rarely broken down.

One paper that was candid enough to provide data, the Financial Times, revealed that in 1988 it had about 150 editorial staff, in 1998 about 300 and, wait for it, today it has 550. The Guardian's staffing has also risen noticeably, though it was only able to go back to 2002, when its newsprint editorial staff totalled 448. Now it is 503. Meanwhile, over the past six years, its website staff has risen from 117 to 176.

There are cases where staffs have declined considerably, notably at the Daily Express, which boasted a staff of 320 in 1986. That fell to 230 by 1995 and it stands now at 215. That will go down further once it dispenses with 36 sub-editors next month. A Daily Mirror spokesman also confirmed that its total has fallen, though no hard figures are available.

The Daily Telegraph did have about 600 staff at one point in the last decade, under its previous ownership. But it is now integrated with its Sunday stablemate and its combined total is said to be approximately 550 (though the union disputes this, claiming it is closer to 480).

The Independent's newsroom staff had already decreased since the early 1990s even before yesterday's announcement of 60 redundancies - which will leave it with a team of 200.

The figures are very interesting but they tend to conceal the fact that the wages of many new online recruits are lower in real terms than starting salaries 20 years ago. Most importantly, the figures do not reveal that most journalists work harder than we veterans ever did in our Fleet Street days. They are more focused and more industrious.

However, this needs to be placed in context. Given the much smaller size of newspapers during the pre-computerised, pre-digital era, editorial staffing was disproportionately higher.

I'd lay odds that, the staff-per-page ratio is much lower now than before Fleet Street's post-1986 decline. There were broadsheets with no more than 24 pages, often fewer. Popular tabloids were hardly ever more than 28 pages. Scores, if not hundreds, of national newspaper journalists got away with doing very little. Some reporters rarely did more than one story a day and it was not unknown for some of them to make only one phone call on a shift. Some sub-editors touched only a couple of stories a night. Some papers had feature writers on their staffs who went months without getting a piece into the paper.

Reminiscences of such capers, along with expenses fiddles and heroic drinking exploits, are still retold with relish on a website, gentlemenranters.com, that proudly calls itself "the last pub in Fleet Street". Though the stories are undeniably fun to read they do contribute to the general misconception about the old days.

It means that there are now two contradictory types of nostalgic Fleet Street narrative. One is wholly positive and concentrates on the relaxed regimes, the bonhomie, the expense account lifestyles and celebrates the culture of drinking. The other, wholly negative, concentrates on over-manning, laziness, profligacy and decries the culture of drinking.

They are both right, but only up to a point, Lord Copper. Both versions are subject to wild exaggeration. We legions of hacks did not live it up as wildly as legend would have it. Nor, in fairness, did we produce journalism of unparalleled brilliance fuelled by alcohol.

It's true that pubs did play an inordinate role in Fleet Street life. The names spring easily to mind - El Vino, the King and Keys, the Poppinjay, the Tipperary and others known exclusively by their nicknames, such as the Stab in the Back, Aunties and the Mucky Duck. Many journalists drank through the day and on into the early hours at the Press Club. Daily life was punctuated by drink. Liquid lunches were common. Old editors and young reporters got drunk on a regular basis. It was not seen as a sin, simply as a way of life.

To both the outsider, and to those newspaper insiders who were not journalists, such as advertising and management employees, it seemed as if the paper appeared by magic.

The appearance was deceptive, however. There was a work regime. Exclusive stories were broken. Investigations were carried out. Campaigns were pursued.

Many journalists worked just as hard as they played. Money flowed out and money flowed in, but profits were thin and accountability was poor. Discipline was lax.

Despite over-manning, many sub-editors and reporters on dailies also enjoyed the benefits of well-paid casual shifts on Sunday titles or on magazines. More work meant more chances to drink with pals.

Overall, the two major differences between the nationals of the past and now are the eradication of the drinking culture and the improved productivity of the journalists. Oh yes, and most journalists' livers are definitely in better shape.