The Barclay Brothers, it seems, have acquired the Daily Telegraph. And also, it should be said, The Spectator. What an incredible thing. Whatever their shortcomings as newspapermen — I shall be coming on to that — no one could deny the brilliance of their coup. Suitors were queuing ten deep to buy the Telegraph Group,
The serious newspapers — what we used to call the broadsheets — have extracted themselves from the frying pan only to find themselves in the fire. For years they lived in a world of reduced cover prices which meant lower revenues. Rupert Murdoch started that when he slashed the price of the Times in September
I must confess that I have not watched the development of Ofcom with the care I should have. In the distance I heard the voices of colleagues muttering that the new media regulator would interfere in the freedom of the press, but I chose not to listen. I thought that Ofcom, as the successor of
Within the next few weeks Lord Hutton will publish his inquiry. None of us can know where, if anywhere, his axe will fall. Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, may be feeling his neck a little anxiously. So too will Andrew Gilligan, the BBC reporter whose story about Downing Street ‘sexing up’ the September 2002 dossier
There seems scarcely to be a person alive who does not hope to acquire ‘ or know someone who hopes to acquire ‘ the Telegraph group in the coming year. The names of former Daily Telegraph editors and managing directors, and even one or two still on the payroll, are associated with this or that
Jane Root, the controller of BBC 2, has decided to axe the award- winning current affairs programme Correspondent. Thirty years ago there were a number of such programmes on the BBC, and the disappearance of one of them would scarcely have been noticed. But in Greg Dyke’s increasingly dumbed-down BBC, Correspondent is probably unique, and
As the days pass, more and more people are assuming that Hollinger International will be forced to sell the Daily Telegraph, the Sunday Telegraph and The Spectator. Of the home-grown suitors, the favourite remains the pornographer, Richard Desmond, owner of Express Newspapers. Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) is another potential bidder. Let me declare
First the Independent goes tabloid, now the Times follows suit, though both papers are still available in broadsheet form. The Daily Telegraph and the Guardian may not far be behind. What is behind this revolution? There has been a decline in quality newspaper sales over the past couple of years, and publishers have increasingly felt
Most people are assuming that Conrad Black will lose control of the Daily Telegraph, the Sunday Telegraph and The Spectator. He has been forced to resign as chief executive officer of the New York listed company Hollinger International, which owns these titles in addition to the Jerusalem Post and Chicago Sun-Times. Lord Black and fellow
Earlier this week my dear friend the writer William Shawcross left a message on my answerphone. I am sure he will not mind if I repeat it. ‘Hi, Stephen, it’s William, your old friend. How are you? I have just heard some wonderful rumour today that you are going to use your entire column to
The Tory party’s embrace of Michael Howard has caused much wonderment, particularly in the liberal press. One moment shadow minister after shadow minister declares undying support for IDS, whose virtues of integrity and honour are said to be an extraordinary gift. Mr Howard himself says he has no wish other than that Mr Duncan Smith
The Tories, we are told, are a party of unstable men who are genetically predisposed to plotting against their leader. I would certainly appreciate a learned piece on this subject from the Times’s esteemed medical correspondent, Dr Thomas Stuttaford. Perhaps when he has finished with the Tories he could turn his attention to his own
If the Daily Mirror reported the Second Coming, would anyone believe it? Probably not. There is a general view in polite society that the newspaper and its editor, Piers Morgan, are not entirely to be trusted. This may be an opinion based on prejudice, or it may have its roots in solid fact. This week
Nigel Dempster was the most famous print journalist of modern times, even though he seldom appeared on television. I remember his coming down to Oxford in the early Seventies. A group of admirers lured him to the Saraceno restaurant in Magdalen Street. Foremost among them was Tina Brown, already setting her compass in the direction
The merger of Carlton and Granada may seem a matter of little importance. Who cares if two ITV companies, neither of which any longer produces very distinguished programmes, should come together? But the development is in fact of some interest because it may well lead to an acquisition by an American behemoth of the new
It strikes me, as I follow the Hutton inquiry, that almost any human activity can be made to appear questionable, even dodgy. I think of my – not untypical – hurried departure for London yesterday morning. Already late, I filled the dog’s water bowl directly from a jug, though I knew it needed washing out;
Last Saturday the Times raised its cover price to 90 pence, which is what the Daily Telegraph sells for on that day. On Monday it went up to 50 pence, pricing the paper at only 5 pence less than the Guardian and Telegraph. Thus ends the price war between quality newspapers which began ten years
When I learnt of Dr Kelly’s suicide, my first thought was that he had been fatally drawn into Alastair Campbell’s world. It is what many people felt. It was a reasonable assumption that Mr Campbell or his office or someone responsible to the Prime Minister’s director of communications had deliberately put Dr Kelly’s name in
What is the view of the Andrew Gilligan affair at the Frog and Firkin? It is some time since I have been down to the Frog, but I feel I know its ways so well that I can be pretty sure what they are thinking. Most of its denizens are stuck somewhere between boredom and
To lose one loyal media friend may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. Not long ago the government could depend on the instinctive support of the BBC. That has been forfeited as a result of the row over Andrew Gilligan, and the two sides are locked in battle. Now the