Volume 18, Number 2, 2007 |
||
ContentsEditorial - A new dawn, is it not? 3Bob Woffinden - Treating contempt with contempt 5 Bill Hagerty - Richard Littlejohn: published and damned 13 David Loyn - Local heroes: risk-taking in Iraq 21 John Mair - World Cup? What World Cup? 27 Martin Moore - Public interest, media neglect 33 Kim Fletcher - Why blogs are an open door 41 Philip Reevell - Freedom as the web gets wilder 47 Paul Willetts - Crime: everything old is new again 53 Suzanne Franks - India’s angst – it’s access all areas 59 Gavin Rees - Weathering the trauma storm 65 Grey Cardigan - Life and Death on the Evening Beast 71 BOOK REVIEWSMartin Kettle on Michael Foot 79Alan Philps on Anthony Loyd 82 Patrick Sutherland on David Friend 84 Anthony Miles on Rene MacColl 86 Quotes of the Quarter 26 Ten years ago - The way we were 88 Press Club Ball 64 News Hugh Cudlipp Award; Paul Foot Award IBC 
|
Bob Woffinden - Treating contempt with contemptOn April 20 2007, the Metropolitan Police handed over to the relevant authorities the report on their year-long investigation into the loans-for-peerages affair. Within 24 hours charges had been brought against a number of those involved by The Times and Daily Mail. Well, not really, but that would have been an understandable misperception at the time, because before the file had even been opened, let alone considered by the Crown Prosecution Service, much of the media had pre-determined what they anticipated the outcome would be... [Read full article]
Bill Hagerty - Published and damnedLunch with Richard Littlejohn is not for the fainthearted, not if it is to be one of those involving what Britain’s highest-paid newspaper columnist calls “a good drink”. Stamina is needed if one is to be Littlejohn’s companion during such a lazy afternoon, but the experience is rewarding. He tends to talk like he writes – pugnaciously, often hilariously, while pouring vitriol on the control freaks he believes have damaged Britain. That means, mostly, the political Left. Richard Littlejohn is the scourge of the Left and as such has been branded a right-wing zealot comparable with, say, TV and radio commentator Rush Limbaugh... [Read full article]
David Loyn - Local heroes: risk-taking in IraqThe policeman who stopped us at a routine checkpoint was quite matter of fact in his comment when he heard we were journalists. Opening the car doors in Baghdad always gives you a feeling of nakedness, even though they offer no protection from bombs or bullets when closed. But the policeman gave the vehicle only a cursory check. “You are journalists, are you?” he said. And then, almost conversationally: “That’s where the journalists were shot this morning.”... [Read full article]
Kim Fletcher - Why blogs are an open doorReporters always faced two hurdles on the “death knock”. The first was getting over the doorstep. The second was laying hands on the family album. I never found the second as bad as the first: if you could only get in the house, it wasn’t so hard to turn the talk to the physical appearance of the late spouse or child and the question that followed: “You don’t have a picture, do you?” A few platitudes about the smiling face in the holiday snap and the big moment: “Could I borrow this?” Then, with luck, you would be away, job done, trying not to think about the pain left in your wake... [Read full article]
Suzanne Franks - India’s angst – it’s access all areasIn January 2007 Ofcom received the largest volume of complaints made about a single programme. The subject was the notorious “racial bullying” incident on Celebrity Big Brother, where Bollywood princess Shilpa Shetty was the victim of the charmless Jade Goody and her associates. Nineteen thousand people registered their concern to Ofcom and a further 3,000 direct to Channel 4. Strong feelings indeed – but at least no one was out on the streets of Elstree burning effigies of Big Brother producers. Yet this was the reaction the programme provoked in India... [Read full article]
Martin Moore - Public interest, media neglectPublic-interest journalism is... but wait. Stop a second. Let that phrase swirl around your head for a moment. Pretend you’ve not seen it before and are thinking about it for the first time. Like so many similar phrases – freedom of the press, free speech, the fourth estate – “public interest” has been so used and misused that it has lost much of its meaning and therefore its power. Especially since news organisations frequently invoke the “public interest” when it is, in my view, entirely inappropriate (such as the Mail on Sunday’s defence of its exposure of Lord Browne’s relationship with Jeff Chevalier)... [Read full article]
|
|