Volume 13, Number 3, 2002 |
||
ContentsEditorial - Time to heal ourselves 3Peter Wilby - Letter 6 Special edition: editors and editing Geoffrey Goodman - Bridging the generation gap 7 Bill Hagerty - Paul Dacre: the zeal thing 11 Bill Hagerty - The forgotten Cudlipp 22 Patrick Ryan - The art of the editor 28 The greatest editor of all? 33 Martin Rowson - High importance of being Low 37 Sarah Shannon - When the fox preaches, look to your geese 44 Bruce Page - Pricking the bubble: financial scandal and the media 49 Andrew Wasley - Indy journalism: facts are free, opinion is sacred? 58 Richard Littlejohn - Why I'll never give up the day job 65 Rudi Vranckx - Now truth is the first target 71 Michael Billington - Who shot Adrian Noble? 75 BOOK REVIEWSMike Molloy on Richard Stott 80David Eliades on Penny Junior 84 Phillip Knightley on Robert Capa 86 
|
Editorial - Time to heal ourselvesOne November night the Prime Minister summoned his press secretary to the Cabinet Room, demanding to know how an evening paper had been able to reveal some of the contents of the Budget speech before the Chancellor had told the Commons. Reluctantly, the advisor – Francis Williams, a former editor of the Daily Herald – said it seemed that the Chancellor had talked to the press. “Talked to the Press?” said the astounded Prime Minister. “Why on earth did he want to talk to the press?” The incident, in 1947, cost Hugh Dalton his career in Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour government... [Read full article]
Bill Hagerty - Paul Dacre: the zeal thingPaul Dacre grants interviews with a reticence that has dictated very few public proclamations during the 10 years he has edited the Daily Mail. It is a scarcity that should be welcomed by many of the great and the good, those wandering the corridors of power, both in Westminster and the various branches of the media, for when Dacre does choose to speak out, it is with lacerating force. The Mail, as well as being one of the most successful newspapers in the land, is also the most pugnacious... [Read full article]
The greatest editor of all?Who is the greatest national newspaper editor of them all? Here is an arbitrary list of some of the more accomplished of those who have been privileged to tread the most difficult of journalistic tightropes in the 300 years since Edward Mallet launched the Daily Courant, the first daily. Readers are invited to vote – polling details to follow – for the editor they consider to be the best editorial and commercial genius of the lot... [Read full article]
Richard Littlejohn - Why I'll never give up the day jobFor the first time in more than 11 years, I’ve got only one job. The day job. My life over the past decade has been a three-ring circus, with me as ringmaster, clown and performing seal. In 1991, after 20 years in newspapers, I decided to strike out on my own. With a wife and two kids and a monster mortgage to support, I waved farewell to office, secretary, pension, BUPA, company car and generous expenses. Armed only with a 12-month security blanket to continue writing my column in The Sun, I took a punt... [Read full article]
Michael Billington - Who shot Adrian Noble?At virtually every panel or public discussion in which I have participated over the past 30 years, one particular question has always come up: “How much power do you have as a critic? Can you make or break a show?” It is a question I have never heard critics themselves discuss in private. But members of the public – heavily influenced, I suspect, by American movies from All About Eve to Star! – are haunted by the idea of the critic as some kind of omnipotent arbiter on whose whim the fate of whole productions depends... [Read full article]
Phillip Knightley on Robert CapaLet’s get the bad stuff over first. Robert Capa was a liar, a compulsive gambler, a depressive, a heavy drinker and a womaniser (especially with prostitutes). He used people, broke promises and when he was accused of being a communist and the US State Department kept his passport, he “named names” to get it back. At the urging of the appalling Henry Luce, the founder of Life and producer of the March of Time newsreel series, he staged Republican attacks on Fascist positions during the Spanish Civil War and filmed them, noting that they looked “more real” than if they had actually taken place... [Read full article]
|
|