Volume 19, Number 1, 2008 |
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ContentsEditorial - Trivia pursuit 3Investigative journalism David Leigh - Time to climb out of the sewer 5 Ivor Gaber - The myth about Panorama 10 Roy Greenslade - People power 15 Joseph Harker - Ethnic balance: race against the tide 23 Chris Moss - Travel journalism: the road to nowhere 33 Bill Hagerty - Tony Hall: fighter pilot, enter stage left 41 Kevin Sutcliffe - Not guilty - but who’s to know? 48 Tom Whitwell - Rogue elephant: editing in cyberspace 57 Lauren Bravo - The devil wears Primark 63 John Knight - Last of the long goodbyes 69 The Cudlipp Award - 74 BOOK REVIEWSGus Macdonald on World in Action 81Joy Johnson on Reporting Iraq 77 Don Berry on Guardian Style 79 Julia Langdon on Katharine Whitehorn 81 Jon Snow on Channel 4 83 Michael Leapman on Christina Lamb 85 Anthony Delano on media moguls 87 Quotes of the Quarter 22 Ten years ago - The way we were 32 
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David Leigh - Time to climb out of the sewerIf the journalist and author Nick Davies is to be believed, the news investigations that appear in today’s British newspapers represent nothing but a smelly sewer of malpractice. His recently published polemic, Flat Earth News (Chatto & Windus, £17.99), depicts a media universe rife with data rape, bribery, and wilful distortion. He speaks feelingly of “the mass-production of ignorance”, and goes on to name so many of his former media colleagues in a disobliging context that, if he’s a wise man, he won’t go out after dark for a long, long time... [Read full article]
Ivor Gaber - The myth about PanoramaTo quote the BBC’s own website, Panorama is “the world’s longest-running investigative TV show”. This is a problematic way for a programme to brand itself. “The world’s longest-running...” has a slight feel of hubris about it and is almost impossible to prove. The line is also problematic because it describes Panorama as a “show”. It’s a word that is probably indicative of the new style and philosophy of what, for most people interested in serious journalism, has always been not a “show” but a “programme”. But it’s the bit in the middle – “investigative TV” – that begs the biggest questions: is it, and was it ever?... [Read full article]
Roy Greenslade - People powerThere is no history of The People. Given the current state of that newspaper, it is very doubtful that any publisher would rush to commission such a book. The paper’s pathetically short and uninformative Wikipedia web entry is testament to its now-marginal status. With its dubious editorial agenda, lacklustre content and rapidly declining circulation (below 700,000 at the last count), the absence of a history may not seem like much of a loss. However, The People of the past, especially from the late 1940s until well into the 1980s, was a very different paper from the one that currently exists... [Read full article]
Joseph Harker - Ethnic balance: race against the tideLate last year Kamal Ahmed, The Observer’s executive editor, left the paper to become communications director for the new Equality and Human Rights Commission. With him went probably the best chance we’ll have in a long time to see a black national newspaper editor (ironically, The Observer’s editor, Roger Alton, stood down just a month later). Just as Americans discuss the significance of potentially having their first black president, for the British press the appointment of the first black editor, if it ever happens, will be also be hugely symbolic. But how likely is it? And how soon?... [Read full article]
Chris Moss - Travel journalism: the road to nowhereIn a recent Q&A for an indescribably ugly publication called Real Travel, Simon Calder advised anyone thinking of going into travel journalism not to waste his or her time. “It’s an industry that has huge over-supply,” he warned, “so the last thing you want to do is try and rely on it to make a living.” Yet the reason there are so few jobs is, in part, because Simon Calder has most of them. In addition to occupying the role of senior editor and “the man who pays his way” at The Independent, he writes columns for an assortment of magazines, regularly pops up on Radio 4’s Excess Baggage, and is invariably the hard-talking pundit the networks pull out of the drawer every time a strike is announced, a tour operator collapses, or a plane goes down... [Read full article]
Lauren Bravo - The devil wears PrimarkWith TV in turmoil and newspaper circulations declining, what drives young graduates towards a media career? A byline wannabe explains the attraction When the editor approached me to write this piece on “Why would any young person be attracted to working in the media?” I was in a state of happy ignorance. Obviously, there are too many wannabes chasing too few decent jobs and there’s not much money to be had, he told me. I did a cartoon doubletake, like Sylvester realising Tweety Pie has escaped from his sandwich... [Read full article]
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