Volume 14, Number 3, 2003 |
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ContentsEditorial - A matter of conscience 3Rod Liddle - Hands off the BBC 6 Description in the media John Owen - Now you see it, now you don't 11 David Bradbury - Of course it happens here The greatest columnist? Geoffrey Goodman - The write brigade 22 Bernard Shrimsley - Columns! The good, the bad, the best 23 Stein Ringen - Why the British press is brilliant 31 Quentin Letts - Still thriving, the daily sketch 39 Freedom of the press Nicholas Jones - Can Alastair open closed doors? 45 Sondra M Rubenstein and Tamar Lahav - Uncivil society 52 Jeff Wright - The myth in the Mirror 59 Joy Francis - Where are the ethnic minorities? 67 BOOK REVIEWSMichael White on Joe Haines 74Keith Waterhouse on William Davies 78 Julian Petley on media regulation 80 Sandy Gall on Christina Lamb 84 Peter Stothard on war and the media 86 
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Editorial - A matter of conscienceFor the experienced and worldly-wise journalists who read the BJR, the mean-spirited behaviour of some of the senior journalists who were supposed to be helping in the on-the-job training of youngsters may just be a memory. The chief reporter who filed juniors’ stories under his own name and kept the lineage money for himself, the small-town editor who gave the late jobs to the newest member of staff and then refused to reimburse the bus fare – these petty ogres have vanished into the past for most of us... [Read full article]
Rod Liddle - Hands off the BBCAt the beginning of the year, Peter Hitchens wrote an article for The Spectator in which he likened Tony Blair’s Government to that which pertained in the German Democratic Republic in the years leading up to 1989. I thought, at the time, reading this stuff, that Peter had become entirely unhinged and, even worse, was now spinning away, out of reach to the rest of humanity, down a wormhole or, perhaps, a black hole... [Read full article]
John Owen - Now you see it, now you don'tBroadcast journalism has quite rightly kept its head down while newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic have had a field day trashing the New York Times over the Jayson Blair scandal that resulted in the resignations of its two top editors. After all, television news has had its own share of scandals involving faked documentaries and dubious reporting that managed to get to air without rigorous fact-checking and sober second judgments... [Read full article]
Bernard Shrimsley - Columns! The good, the bad, the bestIt was an enormous challenge for readers when a year ago this journal inaugurated a poll to elect the greatest newspaper editor of all time (the winner was Harry Evans; see BJR issue 14/1). Bernard Shrimsley’s piece below poses questions that are even more challenging: who is the greatest British national newspaper columnist of all time; and who is the greatest of those writing today?... [Read full article]
Stein Ringen - Why the British press is brilliantIn February of this year, in a scandalous book – La Face Caché du Monde by Pierre Péan and Philippe Cohen – Le Monde, held by many to be the world’s best newspaper, was accused of being a part of the French establishment rather than its watchdog. In last year’s BBC Reith Lectures, A Question of Trust, Onora O'Neill spoke of the breakdown of trust and accused the British press of contributing by not being adequately accountable. But is there such a thing as a good press?... [Read full article]
Jeff Wright - The myth in the MirrorThe Daily Mirror is about to celebrate its centenary, no mean feat in a century that saw many other new titles launching and crashing, presses stopping in the night never to restart, and mastheads absorbed by rivals. The Mirror deserves its hundredth birthday and, no doubt, a telegram from the Queen. But one of the great stories of Fleet Street – that the paper pioneered newspaper illustration with real photographs and in doing so created press photography as we know it today – may be a myth, or at best a considerable exaggeration... [Read full article]
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