Volume 11, Number 1, 2000 |
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ContentsEditorial - Millennium BugIan Katz - All aboard the sinking (?) ship Donald Zec - Fiddlin' my way to Fleet Street Cal McCrystal - Episodes from the Evans era Katharine Viner - Not just a pretty face Ronald Stevens - A hollow victory for Fayed Ken Jones - Decline and fall of popular sportswriting Andrew Wasley - Journalists who fall foul of the law Ian Mayes - The readers' friend at court Brian McConnell - Errors, omissions and TV docudrama Ivor Gaber - Lies, damn lies… and political spin BOOK REVIEWSDavid Leigh on Investigative ReportingGeoffrey Goodman on Twentieth century protest Christian Wolmar on Misrepresenting social policy Raymond Snoddy on Media gurus |
Editorial - Millennium BugQuite recently — January 18 to be precise — a Guardian editorial was busily protesting about the commercialisation of genetic medicine by certain biotech companies. It began its denunciation of such practices with this sentence: “In a civilised world it should not be necessary even to have a discussion about this...” Ah, yes, “in a civilised world....” etc. That is the problem. Increasingly it seems we could begin almost any debate by making the same qualification... [Read full article]
Ian Katz - All aboard the sinking (?) shipIn 1927 Editor & Publisher, the trade magazine of the American press, observed gloomily that “if news is known by the public through radio broadcasts, there is no logical incentive to buy a newspaper to get the news” In fact, of course, Mr Marconi's brainchild had no discernible effect on the fortunes of newspapers, and the apparent refutation of the doom-mongers' predictions has been seized on each time the industry has faced a challenge from some new technology. No medium has ever completely snuffed out another, the argument runs, so why should we be worried now?... [Read full article]
Donald Zec - Fiddlin' my way to Fleet StreetJournalism may not have much in common with the “Oldest Profession” except that enthusiastic amateurs have always been warmly welcomed by both vocations. A quick survey of our trade's most famous names demonstrates that there are no fixed rules on how to enter the fray. Some slogged it out in the parochial hinterland of provincial newspapers. Others, knowing somebody who knew somebody else, perhaps “Bubbles” Rothermere or Beaverbrook's colonic irrigator, might have been nodded in on to the ground floor... [Read full article]
Ivor Gaber - Lies, damn lies... and political spinNothing so graphically illustrates the pre-eminent position of “spin” within the political process than the fact that on the day of the launch of the Euro last year, the resignation of Charlie Whelan, Gordon Brown's Press Secretary, coming as it did just a fortnight after the resignation of Peter Mandelson, was regarded by most of the British media as the most significant story of the day... [Read full article]
David Leigh on Investigative reportingThis is an unassuming book, and once or twice, too unassuming for its own good. I was astonished to be told that a tabloid journalist “solved the murder” of magazine writer Jonathan Moyle, who turned up hanged in a Chilean hotel wardrobe. Moyle was assassinated to prevent him finding out about illegal arms deals, writes one Mr Wensley Clarkson in a sensational work put out by downmarket publisher John Blake... [Read full article]
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