If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
Sly Bailey isn't going quietly. Shortly before the chief executive of Trinity Mirror heads off to reflect on the massive value diminution at the publisher under her reign, she drops a major bombshell. The daily and Sunday Mirror are to merge their operations - a move clearly resisted by the current editors, Richard Wallace and Tina Weaver, who are leaving.
There has been a lot of discussion at the Leveson Inquiry about the desirability of having a much clearer distinction in our print media between what is news and what is comment. Lord O'Donnell, Alastair Campbell and Andrew Marr have all given their thoughts on this over the past few days and I hear it's already standard practice in America for such a distinction to be made.
In 1975, a man watched a movie. The movie was called Jaws and the man was one Mr Fidel Castro. The Cuban leader liked what he saw and would reportedly go on to proclaim it one of the greatest American films of all time.
I've long thought that the editors of our international media (and the British media is a particular culprit) needs to start noticing Africa. Not just the coups and the food crises and the droughts, but also the positive stories, the African success stories that are putting, for example, Ghana amid the fast growing nations in the world.
I'm not a geologist, vulcanologist nor even a phenomenologist but I've spent a lot of time in the last few years reading about and watching Vesuvius, mostly online or in the media, and once or twice on the spot, while writing a book on its enduring fascination.
Next Tuesday, The Journalism Foundation will host a gala event to benefit the Foundation's work supporting free and ethical journalism around the world.
What's wrong with newspapers? We could spend the next year struggling to answer the question, while traipsing through the undergrowth of the internet, of consumer tastes and news appetite, and of the competition for time, money and advertising. Newspapers are, of course, a format, not a media channel.
Here's another official interview as part of my 'Career Chat' series. This week I am pleased to be interviewing Colin Campbell-Austin, Channel 4's People Development Manager. Here's some great pieces of advice for how you can kick-start your dream career in television.
The phone hacking scandal has brought to public attention investigators selling intrusive information on celebrities. This in some ways has distracted from a much wider issue of the trading in the private and most personal information on us all.
Poor David Cameron, he's not going to live this one down in a hurry, is he? Forget messing up the budget, turning off women voters, strikes across the country and a dismal showing in the local council elections. His greatest embarrassment right now, and if we dare to speculate, for some time in the future, will be his inability to abbreviate his text messages correctly. In quite possibly the highlight so far of the soap opera that is the Leveson Inquiry, ex-News International exec Rebekah Wade outed David Cameron as so far behind the times he needed advice from a newspaper editor to type his texts correctly.
I never had the pleasure of meeting Bernard Levin, the controversial commentator - famed for his intellectual and stinging commentaries on politics and political figures of all persuasions - but despite passing away nearly eight years ago, he will not be forgotten.
My name is Martin Middlebrook. The 12 of you who read this regularly know this of course, but by other countries other conventions apply. So depending upon relative status or affection, my moniker here is either Kaakaa Martin, Mr Martin, or Martin Jan.
Laurie Penny fails to present a nuanced article on why same-sex marriage should be legalised. She derides and underestimates her opponents on an issue with which deserves a mature discussion, wielding the sword of class and culture warfare.
"We live in a Post-post-Leveson world," he muses, cupping his b*lls. "People expect their journalism to be fresh, healthy, handmade now. We sell ours at journalism markets - truly horrifying f**kfests which take place in Stoke Newington school playgrounds and attract the very worst kind of smug pram-pushing broadsheet reader."
Whether or not Roy Hodgson himself is offended or not by this approach from the Sun the implications are much bigger than that. As a society do we want to send the message that if you speak in a 'different' way that you can be singled out because of this?
Perhaps, after they have finished dealing with the British media, Lord Justice Leveson and Lord Hunt should offer their combined talents to Islamabad? They might be there a long time.
