Posted by
Axegrinder on 15 August 2008 at 10:26
Tags: Uncategorized
Never let it be said that the red-tops can be less than sensitive to the feelings of the victims when reporting sex attacks.
As evidence, Axegrinder points you in the direction of a story carried in Monday’s Sun.
Posted by
Axegrinder on 14 August 2008 at 08:00
Tags: Uncategorized
Here’s a tip for anyone thinking about applying for a job at IPC (well, that’s if it lifts its recruitment freeze): Lie about your age.
According to Liz Jones she “stupidly, ridiculously shaved a few years” off her age on her CV when applying for the editorship of Marie Claire magazine.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Jones confesses that, when offered the job, she initially turned it down because she feared the truth would come out. When she came clean to her prospective boss, “luckily she was very understanding, and said she wanted me anyway”.
Axegrinder believes fibbing about your age is the way to go. We hear it’s jolly hard to get a job interview at a certain magazine publisher if you reveal you are 40 or over… even though the chairman is in his 70s.
Posted by
Axegrinder on 13 August 2008 at 08:00
Tags: Uncategorized
Can it really be possible, as Arnie Wilson recalled recently, that thirsty News at Ten legend Reggie Bosanquet once admitted that two drinks were too many before going on air at ITN?
Guy Pannell, a news producer at ITV Westcountry, finds it hard to believe. He tells me: “As an impressionable youngster – well, relative youngster anyway – from the regions, I have fond memories of a visit to ITN’s old Wells Street studios in the Seventies.
“It was a long and tiring day. Lunch was a leisurely affair taken at an Italian restaurant around the corner and seemed to go on for hours, accompanied by gallons of white wine.
“But the enduring highlight for me was spending time in the green room chatting to Reggie before he went into the studio to rehearse News at Ten. In less than an hour we got through the best part of three bottles of his favourite red wine – and I only consumed three glasses. I took my hat off that evening to a man who could go on air after that and present a half-hour bulletin almost impeccably.
“While I wouldn’t prescribe that level of alcohol consumption for today’s presenters, I would welcome a small measure of that personality.”
Posted by
Axegrinder on 12 August 2008 at 08:00
Tags: Uncategorized
When The Sun succeeded in bringing back to the UK great train robber Ronnie Biggs in 2001 it was hailed by some as one of the greatest scoops in recent times.
Not so, according to Anthony Delano, the journalist who wrote classic book Slip-Up, about how 27 years earlier Daily Express hacks tracked down Biggs in Rio de Janeiro, but lost their exclusive when Scotland Yard got involved.
In the new updated version of the book, published this month, Delano writes that this too was “a Fleet Street escapade, although hardly a great achievement, despite the days of headlines it generated in The Sun”.
He adds: “The paper merely did what Biggs had been asking for ever since the Slip-Up era: Take him home. The most remarkable aspect of that episode was the alacrity with which the Home Office, after assiduously ignoring Biggs’ existence for years, issued a passport for him at the request of a Murdoch newspaper.”
Posted by
Axegrinder on 11 August 2008 at 08:00
Tags: Uncategorized
The drinking reputation of journalists has been proudly upheld in a boozing experiment conducted for BBC Radio Devon.
Six people had their booze intake examined over the course of the week, and those with the highest intake were Richard Best, from the North Devon Journal, with an impressive 33 units of alcohol, and Marc Astley, editor of the Express & Echo, Exeter, with 36 units.
At the end of the experiment, Dr Jonothan Mitchell warned Astley he was leaning towards the danger zone and could almost be classed as indulging in “harmful” drinking.
The result will probably be a huge disappointment to Best (or “Boozer Best” as he was dubbed by Astley), who boasted on his blog midway through the ordeal: “I’m in the lead, and confident of winning the Radio Devon boozing contest. But frankly, there’s not much by way of competition.”
Posted by
Axegrinder on 8 August 2008 at 12:01
Tags: Uncategorized
As a fluent Chinese speaker, BBC News Channel presenter Carrie Gracey is sure to prove a major asset during the Beeb’s coverage of the Olympic Games.
However, we recommend she be kept away from the cycling events.
During the Tour of Switzerland bike race earlier this summer, the BBC showed a clip of a cyclist riding off the road and down a ravine, which inspired smiles and muffled giggles from Gracey.
We can reveal the reason. It reminded her of the time she lost control of her own bike … and rode straight into the River Thames.
Posted by
Axegrinder on 8 August 2008 at 12:00
Tags: Uncategorized
The perils of celebrity-led advertising were never more in evidence than on page seven of The Mail on Sunday’s Live magazine.
In an advertising feature headlined “STYLE ICONS”, in which Hugo Boss championed its support for the England cricket team in the Test series against South Africa, a few unfortunate glitches could be detected.
First, the photograph featured Stuart Broad, who wasn’t playing. Second, the opening par claimed “England’s cricketers are grooming themselves for a turn of fortune against South Africa this weekend”. Sadly, they lost the Test and the series the day before.
Finally, Paul Collingwood was featured, even though he resigned as one-day captain the morning the feature was run.
Posted by
Axegrinder on 8 August 2008 at 09:12
Tags: Uncategorized
I hear there were red faces (with anger) at the weekend over at the News of the World and smug ones at The Sunday Mirror over their respective Barry George scoops.
The News of the World is understood to have paid £50,000 and Sky News £30,000 for an exclusive interview with Barry George, who was cleared on Friday of murdering BBC presenter Jill Dando.
But unknown to the NoW, The Sunday Mirror had also bagged an interview with George, via author Scott Lomax who had spoken to him on the phone earlier in the week.
The Mirror paid George nothing for the interview, which was released to PA late on Saturday night before the NoW came out with its story and photos.The Sunday Mirror newsdesk is understood to have put Lomax up in a London hotel for three days prior to publication to ensure he did not speak to any other media.
I’m told that the Mirror and Mail titles didn’t even bother bidding for the George interview because they felt that paying him would be inappropriate given his unsavoury past.
Posted by
Axegrinder on 8 August 2008 at 09:10
Tags: Uncategorized
The Facebook groups inspired by Giles “porn” Coren come thick and fast, if you’ll pardon the expression.
In the wake of his now infamous email attack on Times’ subs for allegedly ruining a joke in one of his restaurant reviews, a group has been set up called Support Giles Coren’s Stand for A Nosh.
So far it has only five members, including founder Geoff Baker, former PR man for Sir Paul McCartney.
For those readers who have led a sheltered life, “a nosh” is slang for “a blow job”, whereas “nosh” is Yiddish for “food”.
As Baker is a famously strict vegetarian, one is unable to say which use of the word “nosh” fascinated him the most, but he clearly enjoyed Coren’s spat with the subs.
Posted by
Axegrinder on 7 August 2008 at 08:00
Tags: Uncategorized
Another tale of thirsty News at Ten anchor Reginald Bosanquet reaches Axegrinder.
Ski journalist Arnie Wilson recalls the night Reggie gave him a wonderful scoop. Wilson explains: “I’d worked with him at ITN, and got to know him better at Anglia TV, where I produced a political programme called Probe (known to us all as a Grope).
Reggie and I would travel up to Norwich by train together, and we chatted about his alcoholic image. He would always insist that he needed one drink to perform better on air, but admitted two was too many.
“One night when I was doing a casual shift on the Daily Express, he rang me and said he was burgling his first wife’s London apartment to get back some furniture he regarded as his. I could run the story, he said, as long as I didn’t reveal my source or quote him!
“Well, you can imagine the Daily Express lawyers were a bit jittery about this but they finally accepted that Reggie was a mate and the source. It made a front-page exclusive.
“Sadly, some years later I wrote the front page piece at The Daily Mirror (during another shift) when Reggie died. He’s much missed.”
