Media

What does the Jimmy Savile case tell us about received wisdom? Over the last few weeks it has become clear that one of the most famous people in Britain was known by very many people to be an active, abusive paedophile. Many other people in broadcasting knew it. People in charities he was associated with knew it. People in hospitals he was associated with warned child patients about how to get around it. The person who founded Childline, no less, had heard about it. But nobody said or did anything. We are told that there were various reasons for this. Savile himself is said to have threatened that there would

And so the Savile stuff rumbles on with George Entwistle’s singularly unimpressive performance before the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee. It still seems to me that the bosses are being evasive over the issue of pressure applied, or otherwise, to the Newsnight editor Peter Rippon. Someone is hiding something, I think. But this whole catastrophe need not have occurred. There is no great crime in a senior manager quizzing a programme editor about a controversial investigation. There is no crime at all in a programme editor deciding not to run a story because he has doubts about it. And I take issue with the Times today which

There I was, enjoying a liquid lunch with a senior Tory who is long beyond accepting any front bench job, when we were interrupted by his vibrating iPhone. He raised an eyebrow at the private number. Could this be the call of which more ambitious men have been dreaming all reshuffle-day? Apparently not. ‘Hello… yes, yes it is. Oh BBC or Sky? Sky eh, who is it? … No, no not her. Anyone else. Well can’t you try someone later on? … Why not? … I will tell you why not: because Kay Burley is a thick as two planks and there is no point in being interviewed by her …

Prince Harry’s naked outing on the front page of today’s Sun has already prompted  60 complaints to the Press Complaints Commission about a breach of the Prince’s privacy. It also illustrates the problem facing Lord Leveson as he prepares to make his recommendations on the future of press regulation. The Sun’s editorial, which it published alongside the now infamous picture on its front page, argues that it was perfectly reasonable to defy the warnings from the Royal Family’s legal team not to print the snaps which have been circulated across the globe via the internet. The piece says: It is absurd that in the internet age newspapers like The Sun could

When the contestants were lining up for last night’s sensational 5,000 metre race, both of the American contestants waited until the cameras were on them, then crossed themselves and held their hands in prayer. It’s quite some sight to secular Brits, where religious language (even ‘God bless’) and mannerisms have dropped out of our national life and vocabulary. But to quite a few of the Olympians, their faith is of crucial importance, which we have seen this year through their Twitter feeds. Mo Farah, a Muslim, prayed on the track after winning both of his Golds. After Usain Bolt broke the Olympic record for the 100 metres, he did likewise.

Sorry I haven’t been blogging much recently – I’m on the annual family holiday. We’re in Croatia, on one of those islands they’re terribly proud of, roasting like pigs on a spit. Truth is I’ve regularly surfed the papers online to find something interesting to write about, but the only thing that seems to be happening is people rowing or running or lifting things up and everybody getting themselves into an awful frenzy about winning things and there’s no other news at all. That’s pretty much why we booked our holidays for these particular weeks; the overkill, the obsession, etc. The main Croatian TV channel shows nothing but Olympic stuff,

News reaches No. 22 that rising star of the right Milo Yiannopoulos, of Catholic Herald and tech-world fame, is to be nominated for Stonewall’s ‘Homophobe of the Year’. The news has come as a surprise to the flamboyant Yiannopoulos, who, despite arguing forcefully against gay marriage on Channel 4’s risible 10 O’Clock Live, has never made a secret of his own sexuality. Then again, headlines such as ‘The lingering stench of gay marriage’, published after an appearance on Newsnight earlier in the year, may have contributed to the nomination. But the waspish columnist, recently dubbed the ‘pit bull of tech media’ by the Observer, need not worry about winning: Mr

The Crown Prosecution Service this morning charged eight suspects in relation to phone hacking. These suspects, including Rebekah Brooks Andy Coulson face a total of 19 charges, which I’ve set out below. Rebekah Brooks, Andrew Coulson, Stuart Kuttner, Greg Miskiw, Ian Edmondson, Neville Thurlbeck and James Weatherup are all charged with conspiring to intercept the voicemail messages of well-known people and/or those associated with them without lawful authority from 3 October 2000 to 9 August 2006. Private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who is the eighth person charged today, does not face this first charge for legal reasons, but four charges relating to Milly Dowler, Andrew Gilchrist, Delia Smith and Charles Clarke