Volume 18, Number 4, 2007 |
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ContentsEditorial - Lord help us 3Martin Dunn - How to survive Rupert Murdoch 5 Peter Oborne - Clean-up in spin city 11 Kenneth Baker - Great politicians rise above ridicule 19 Amber Melville-Brown - Children and the media quicksand 27 Martin Brunt - The crime beat is hard labour now 33 Paul Moorcraft and Philip M Taylor - War watchdogs or lapdogs? 39 David Meara - Fifty years on, God's still smiling 51 Gareth Smyth - Breaking eggs in Iran 57 Rowenna Davis - Truth and nothing like the truth 63 W F Deedes - Journey's end 69 BOOK REVIEWSMatthew Engel on Rob Steen 81John Humphrys on Martin Conboy 83 Ann Leslie on David Randall 85 Jane Reed on Jessica Callan 87 Brenda Maddox on David Hendy 89 Paul Routledge on Peter Oborne 91 Don Berry on Charles Wintour 93 Quotes of the Quarter 56 Ten years ago - The way we were 68 Letters 95 Paul Foot Award/Michael Rowntree obituary 80 
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Martin Dunn - How to survive Rupert MurdochThe greats of America journalism and literature gathered under the majestic dome of Columbia University's Rotunda in May, as they have done every year since 1917. At the round tables, which were covered with crisp, white tablecloths adorned with spring flowers, sat the winners of the 2007 Pulitzer Awards and their guests. Wine flowed in celebration as waiters served a salmon lunch. At many tables, there was only one topic of conversation – Rupert Murdoch... [Read full article]
Peter Oborne - Clean-up in spin cityIt is well known that British political reporting operates according to the herd instinct. It is also well known that newspapers worship power. From the 1979 General Election through to 1992, Fleet Street was preponderantly Conservative. From 1997 until 2007 it has been preponderantly New Labour. In other words, the primary loyalty of the collective British press for the last three decades has not been to Labour, Liberal or Conservative: it has been to the government of the day... [Read full article]
Kenneth Baker - Great politicians rise above ridiculeThe brush and pen strokes combined with the scything wit of British cartoonists have brought this country's society to book, and our political leaders have not escaped attention either. It has been a fine tradition for the satirists of the day to lampoon those in high places – whether the nobility or those in the elected chamber. Political cartoons and the office of Prime Minister both became established in the 1720s... [Read full article]
Amber Melville-Brown - Children and the media quicksandWith a missing child dominating the headlines this summer, and reports that their obesity means our children may not outlive their parents, the question of protecting the next generation is high on the news agenda. But it is not only the physical health and well-being of children that is at stake in our modern society. The public's appetite for news – serious or gossip – and photographic evidence of both, together with the media's preparedness to feed this hunger, is putting our children at risk of media over-exposure... [Read full article]
Martin Brunt - The crime beat is hard labour nowOh for the good old days, when you could drive right up to Paul McCartney's back door and ask him about the plot to kidnap his wife (he denied it, but it was true). When you could perch at the bar of Blondes in Dover Street and tackle George Best over his drink-drive arrest (he ignored me, but later revealed all, so to speak, when I followed him to the gents). They were both big somebodies, but not a minder between them. These days you have to go through a spin-doctor, a PR firm, five lawyers and, for a while, a police cordon for the chance of a word from the parents of missing Madeleine McCann... [Read full article]
Gareth Smyth - Breaking eggs in IranShortly before I left Tehran, an Iranian official asked me if I had faced any difficulties under the relatively new Government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Not really, I replied. Given we were about to eat lunch, it didn't seem appropriate to mention my detention earlier in the year for four days by the intelligence section of the Revolutionary Guards after I had entered a national park without permission... [Read full article]
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