Is Richard Desmond the new Murdoch? Many lips were curled when he acquired Express Newspapers in November 2000. People said that he had borrowed too much money. It was suggested that as a man whose fortune was built on pornography he knew next to nothing about running national newspapers. In some quarters he was dismissed
One person I have been feeling a little sorry for over the past few days is Charles Moore, editor of the Daily Telegraph. His newspaper was a fervent supporter of the war against Iraq. I think we may say that it was motivated entirely by ideological concerns. There was no commercial benefit for the Telegraph
Last week the Press Complaints Commission delivered two judgments which, taken together, seem highly perplexing. It exonerated the News of the World for paying £10,000 to a convicted criminal who was implicated in the alleged plot to kidnap Victoria Beckham. And it censured the Guardian for paying £720 to a former criminal for writing an
When Robert Thomson was made editor of the Times some 18 months ago he let it be known that he intended to take his paper up-market. There was also good reason to believe that he would not let it be so slavish towards New Labour as it had sometimes been during the long tenure of
Many people distrust the BBC. They may like the idea of it, but often deplore the practice. They suspect that journalists who work for it are metropolitan lefties. But such people are apt to be equally wary of Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s spin chief. They sense a bad ‘un. They have read newspaper stories which
A favourite newspaper ruse is to sneak a journalist on to the flight deck of a Boeing 747 and then to suggest that we are all at risk as a result of lax security. It is, of course, very effective. Most of us are easily alarmed. And many of us will have been persuaded by
Polly Toynbee of the Guardian believes that the Daily Mail is responsible for most of what is wrong with this country. When she learnt that the paper was intending to hold its own referendum on the new European constitution, the streets of Clapham, where Polly has her house, began to tremble. ‘Who runs the country?’
The Times’s campaign against the billionaire businessman Michael Ashcroft is now largely forgotten. At the time it was a sensation. In the summer and autumn of 1999 the paper ran scores of articles about Lord Ashcroft, then treasurer of the Tory party and its major donor. The Times not only suggested that Lord Ashcroft was
Almost everyone dislikes the News of the World, including many of its readers. It is coarse, intrusive, hypocritical and sanctimonious. It frequently puts itself above or outside the law – perhaps most famously when it so whipped up public hysteria over paedophilia that the mobs took to the streets, in one case mistaking a paediatrician
Before I start this piece, which is about the future of the Daily Telegraph, I should make clear that it is written by me. When I last wrote at length about the Telegraph – rather controversially, perhaps – I appear to have caused palpitations in the heart of at least one banker. The Spectator is
It was in these pages four weeks ago that the idea of a non-governmental referendum on the new European constitution was first mooted. Paul Robinson explained how, if Tony Blair remained steadfast in his refusal to consult the people, it would be possible to organise a referendum. He could have cited the example of Gibraltar,
Is the eight-year reign of Piers Morgan at the Daily Mirror drawing to a gentle close? Last October I wrote, ‘My bet is that in six months’ time the Mirror will not belong to Trinity.’ Mmm. More than six months have passed and the newspaper has not been sold – yet. An approach to buy
In the early hours of last Thursday, armed police arrived at the Belfast house of Liam Clarke, the Sunday Times’s Northern Ireland editor, and his wife, Kathy. They seized four computers, children’s games, old newspapers and written material. Liam’s and Kathy’s eight-year-old daughter was in the house. Police smashed the door to Mr Clarke’s office,
If William Rees-Mogg had a fan club, I would be its president. I would lick envelopes for him and update his website, which would no doubt be full of his latest geopolitical prognostications. I would arrange coach parties of the faithful so that we could travel down to Somerset and glimpse him as he paced
The Daily Telegraph’s story about the Scottish Labour MP George Galloway is undoubtedly a cracker. In some respects it reminds me of the Guardian’s demolition of the Tory MP Neil Hamilton during the Major years. As a cocky, rather slimy Thatcherite of conspicuously ungentlemanly mien, Mr Hamilton represented everything the Guardian loathed. Similarly, though it
This was not a good war for newspapers. I am not so much thinking of the journalism. Much of it was excellent, though newspapers are obviously at a disadvantage to 24-hour rolling news channels, which not only provide breaking stories but also analysis from people who surprisingly often know what they are talking about. Newspapers
One of the paradoxes of this war is that most of us do not have very much idea of what is going on. That is at any rate what I feel. There are hundreds of brave and talented journalists in Iraq who address us every hour of the day and night on television, and fill
We journalists think pretty highly of ourselves. I don’t mean the chap who touches up photographs of Page Three girls; he may have a proper sense of his place in the universe. I mean columnists, leader writers and foreign correspondents. I mean the undoubtedly brave men and women who stand in the desert in Iraq
President George W. Bush has suggested that journalists should be pulled out of Baghdad. You may ask what business it is of his. On the other hand, perhaps he knows better than most of us what is likely to happen to the Iraqi capital over the next few days and weeks. There has been talk
Our old friend Peter Mandelson is alleged to have engineered the removal of Harry Blackwood, editor of the Hartlepool Mail, a newspaper in Mr Mandelson’s constituency. Tony Blair is supposed to have made a telephone call on Mr Mandelson’s behalf which may have been instrumental in Mr Blackwood’s suspension. These and other allegations have been