Guardian

An old journalist told me that there was a time when people used to know the names of national newspaper editors. It’s a mark of Fleet Street’s decline, he said, that Alan Rusbridger of the Guardian and Paul Dacre of the Mail are the only well known editors today. He added that Rusbridger is famous because he has made himself into a public figure; but people have heard of Dacre despite his being remarkably private. Neither of us could recall Dacre doing a broadcast interview or even writing an article. He’s an enigmatic beast. All of which makes Dacre’s appearance in this morning’s Guardian under the headline ‘Why is the left

The Guardian seems to be hurt that larger selling Fleet Street newspapers (ie almost all of them) have not rallied to its side since Andrew Parker, the boss of MI5, stuck the boot in. Parker eviscerated the North London local paper for publishing material stolen by Edward Snowden, which he said had given a ‘gift’ to terrorists lurking within our midst. It amounted to, he said, the ‘greatest damage to western security in history’ and was ‘hugely harmful’. The Grauniad cheerfully published various details relating to our own information gathering centre, GCHQ, without giving a monkey’s as to the possible ramifications. Of course, it did the same with the indiscriminate

The chief executive of The Guardian has delivered a rather grim verdict about the newspaper’s future (or lack thereof). ‘At the moment, I believe we could not survive in the U.K,’ says Andrew Miller, blaming the ‘oversupply’ of newspapers and the omnipresence of the BBC. He has been speaking to the New Yorker magazine which has run one of its brilliant investigations (read it all here) and his verdict is reinforced by the editor, Alan Rusbridger, who (the piece says) ‘can envisage a paperless Guardian in five to ten years’. Rusbridger can also ‘imagine…printing on only certain days’. So the newspaper that came out with the slogan ‘we own the

Why was Melanie Phillips ousted as the Monday columnist for the Daily Mail? The Guardian suggests that she was frustrated by the ban on writing about Israel, which is not a restriction placed exclusively on Mel. Meanwhile, the peaceniks over at the Indy claim that Mel’s incendiary appearance on Question Time in June made Paul Dacre hit the red button. The clip above will refresh your memory. The Indy has an axe to grind (having lost Dominic Lawson, who is tipped to replace Mel); but I hear that it’s on the money. A source at the Mail tells me: ‘She played up to every stereotype of the paper, and it got too over the top’. Apparently, after the infamous

Professor turned campaigner Brian Cathcart, executive director of Hacked Off, wrote a comment piece for the Guardian this week where he asked: ‘Does it show double standards to condemn David Miranda’s detention without criticising the arrest of journalists suspected of illegal phone hacking and bribery? There are news organisations that want us to believe it does.’ Brian, I’m afraid they are right. I remember bringing up this exact issue with Brian when I was still working at Hacked Off. I asked him if we should not react to the fact the MSC (Management Standards Committee set up by Rupert Murdoch to hand over evidence to the Met Police) might have

The Church of England has had some surprisingly good press recently. Who knows how these things happen, but the media seems to have decided to stop attacking its homophobia, and to start praising its social vision. The change at Lambeth Palace seems to have prompted this shift, which is a bit ironic, as Justin Welby is far more involved in the sexually illiberal side of Anglicanism than Rowan Williams was, but never mind. It has also been prompted by persistently hard economic times: the Church’s involvement in deprived communities gradually wins it more attention. Maybe it has insights that normal political bodies lack. Would you believe it? Some of the

I watched this thinking it would be hilariously bad, but ended up quite liking it; especially the line, near the end, ‘it’s not British, it’s brutish’. Ok it ain’t T S Eliot. But then the wizened old chap would sit oddly at the Guardian. (‘In the room the women come and go, talking of George Monbiot’).

The Washington Post has had a crack at Mr Steerpike’s favourite game: trashing the Guardian. Full marks to them for a knock out job. The Post describes Britain’s most sanctimonious rag as ‘a newspaper that’s small and underweight even by British standards’. ZAP! Then the Groaner really gets it where it hurts: ‘… the Guardian has its own sacred cows. Unlike its American media cousins, which have traditionally sought neutrality in their news reporting, the Guardian hews to the British model of identifying with a political party. The paper has been liberal since its founding by Manchester mill owners and cotton merchants; in the last British elections it supported the minority Liberal Democrats. BOOM! And it gets

Over the past few years a new trend has emerged in British journalism. Our trade has become over-run with reporters or columnists who are not quite what they seem. They pretend to report objectively on events. In practice the true loyalty of these campaigning reporters or columnists is not just to their readers. Sometimes covertly, sometimes furtively, they also further the agendas of political parties and interest groups. This confusion of loyalties is a notorious problem at Westminster, but is now spreading beyond the political desks of national newspapers. Last weekend’s reporting of the Grand National was a very troubling example of the muddling of categories between straightforward reporting and