Rumours abound of News International red-top reshuffle

Posted by Axegrinder on 13 October 2009 at 09:31
Tags: News of the World, The Sun

Backing a loser before the racing begins at Cheltenham

Posted by Axegrinder on 10 March 2009 at 12:44
Tags: Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, The Sun

With the Cheltenham Festival coming under starter’s orders this afternoon, today’s national papers are trying to attract punting readers with apparently attractive “free bets”.

But beware – buy the wrong paper and it might prove to be your first loser of the day.

The Daily Mail’s front page screams “FREE £6 BET FOR EVERY READER”. That looks by far the best offer available from any paper today. But please note the “EVERY READER” bit.

Turn to page 48 of the Mail, however, and, in the small print explaining terms and conditions, one finds that the free offer applies to “New Ladbrokes customers only”.

So if, like Axegrinder, you already have an account with Ladbrokes (and more than two million people worldwide do have an online account with them), the £6 free bet is not available to you, even though you are a “READER”.

Meanwhile, the Daily Star’s front page boasts a “FREE £2 BET” offer, but in order to qualify for your free bet you must first place a bet of £2 or more.

There are some no-catch offers available: Mirror readers can take their coupon to any Wllliam Hill office and have a free £2 bet, while Sun readers can do similar at Labrokes for a free £1 bet.

Rebekah Wade at the LCC: An audition for greater things?

Posted by Axegrinder on 27 January 2009 at 12:29
Tags: Rebekah Wade, The Sun

Rebekah Wade didn’t leave anything to chance when she delivered her Cudlipp Lecture at the London College of Communications last night.

The speech was scripted on autocue, there was a sophisticated lighting job and it was interspersed with professionally produced audio-visual segments.

Consipiracy theorists among the audience (well me anyway) thought that perhaps Wade was auditioning to take a more senior role in the News Corp empire - where her presentation skills might be more in demand at a corporate level.

She’s been Sun editor for six years now - and is known to be a huge personal favourite of the The Boss Rupert Murdoch.

In the audience was News Corp UK, Europe and Asia boss James Murdoch - who was sat next to Sun political editor George Pascoe-Watson (in indication perhaps of the huge importance attached to that role).

In the audience at the LCC were more editors, past and present, than you could shake a proof at including: Eve Pollard (formerly Sunday Express and Sunday Mirror), Veronica Wadley (Evening Standard, for now anyway), Lionel Barber (Financial Times), James Harding (The Times), Stefano Hatfield (thelondonpaper) and Will Lewis (Telegraph Media Group).

Axegrinder also spotted Telegraph Media Group MD Murdoch MacLennan - but there was no sign of the Guardian’s Alan Rusbridger, who normally enjoys this sort of thing.

It was probably just as well, as his title’s “knee jerk tabloid kicking” came in for some criticism on more than one occasion in Wade’s speech.

She was strident in her defence of free speech - except when it comes to The Guardian giving publicity to the views of privacy-loving S&M fan Max Mosley.

Echoing the views of Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre, she said that any privacy law should be debated in parliament, not created by the case law of one judge.

And she said: “Whatever side of the argument you are on - you can’t really beleive that in a democracy we should have a privacy law being made by case law.

“If we want a privacy law in this country then it needs to be debated in parliament by all sides…As an industry we want a debate and the debate should be in parliament.

“When I saw the other day G2 [in the Guardian] having I think about seven or eight pages of Max Mosley’s view on S & M and privacy law and press freedoms it was like a parallel universe.

“I do not believe in any shape or form in a privacy law, and I don’t think it’s the tabloids’ problem - I think it’s a very small section of our media commentariat’s problem.”

She said: “Sometimes I suspect most of the media commentariat are suffering from Munchausen syndrome. They are certainly making us suffer unnecessarily.

“Only journalism allows us to exist. Yet they often decry its existence. And it’s the epitome of self-flagellation when The Guardian publishes Max Mosley’s views on press freedom.”

Access Interviews salutes Gordon Smart Coldplay chumminess

Posted by Axegrinder on 27 January 2009 at 11:49
Tags: Access Interviews, Gordon Smart, Rob McGibbon, The Sun

Journalist Rob McGibbon has celebrated the first birthday of his website Access Interviews - which aggregates journalists’ interviews from all over the web - by creating the Access Interviews Awards 2009.

Most accessed interview of the year was Henrietta Zuel, by Matt Dickinson of The Times.

More fun are his irreverant categories such as Most Inept Interviewer of the Year - winner DJ Les Ross’ now legendary chat with Hardeep Singh Koli.

Says Rob: “This was a supreme master class in all the things you are not supposed to do as an interviewer. No preparation, no clear line of questioning, an attitude to totally piss off your subject.”

Winner of the Gone Native award went to Sun Bizarre editor Gordon Smart for “Kidnapped by Coldplay“.

Rob says: “We accept that a certain degree of chumminess is necessary to get the goods from an interview, but Gordon showed enough warmth to accelerate the melting of the ice cap while schmoozing with hack hating Chris Martin and his band mates (do the others have names?).

“Gordon gushed and puffed until Coldplay fell down on his tape recorder. To prove he was well onside he donned a Coldplay stage outfit, drank their booze, used their cars, their jet, their LA hotel and even joined their football team.

“But it is his name-checking of the flunkies that brings him the Gone Native trophy: ‘I watched from the sound desk with the group’s tour manager, Franksy, PA Vicki and Arlene, who works for the management.’

“We applaud Gordon’s ligging abilities in securing this junket at (we hope) the record company’s expense and for getting a centre spread out of a reportage preview to an interview. But it was all worth it because the resulting world exclusive interview produced a stunning revelatory line: “We miss X-Factor“.

Sun chief reporter John Kay proves that some journalists ARE indispensable

Posted by Axegrinder on 27 November 2008 at 12:30
Tags: The Sun

Working in a newsroom nowadays feels a bit like being in an episode of The Sopranos - you never know who is going to get “whacked” next. It sometimes seems that, to the newspaper beancounters, no-one is indispensable.
So Axegrinder was gratified to learn that one man apparently is.
Chief reporter of The Sun John Kay is fast approaching retirement age - but Press Gazette understands he has been persuaded to stay on for at least another couple of years as a full-time freelance on the same pay.
Kay is regarded by many to be the best reporter on Fleet Street and has twice been named reporter of the year in the British Press Awards over the last decade.
He is also one of the 40 greatest national press journalists of the last 40 years to make it into the Press Gazette National Newspapers Hall of Fame.

Wonder why Woolies is filling Jane Moore’s column?

Posted by Axegrinder on 26 November 2008 at 01:17
Tags: Catherine Ostler, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Daily Telegraph, Evening Standard, Gary Farrow, Gordon Ramsay, Jane Moore, Liz Hunt, Sue Carroll, Tana Ramsay, The Independent, The Sun, Virginia Ironside

As expected, Fleet Street’s women columnists have leapt on the Gordon Ramsay ’scandal’ like a pack of vicious, sharp-tongued hyenas. 

Leading the assault in recent days have been Allison Pearson in the Daily Mail (“As his monumental hypocrisy was revealed, the 42-year-old Celebrity Father of the Year could at least have shown some embarrassment, even a little shame”); Sue Carroll in the Daily Mirror (“Any man who doesn’t understand that a secret lover, left to simmer unattended, will one day finally explode like a toxic stew can only be described as totally naive or completely arrogant”); Liz Hunt in the Daily Telegraph (“If Gordon has strayed … then I hope, in private, that pots are being hurled, that a few kitchen knives have found their way out of the block, and the F-word is issuing from Tana’s mouth rather than his”); Catherine Ostler in the Evening Standard (“Somewhere in this sorry saga is a victim, but who? Surely it’s Tana Ramsay”) and Virginia Ironside in The Independent (“He’s been a complete wally, and no one would blame Tana for giving a bollocking rather more fiery than he would deliver in one of his restaurants”).

Meanwhile, over at The Sun,  Jane Moore wrote in her column on Tuesday: “My local Woolworths has just closed down and now the entire chain is on sale for £1.”

Er, quite.

As readers of Axegrinder on Monday will know, Gordon Ramsay’s press spokesman is Gary Farrow, head of The Corporation PR agency. Farrow is also married to Jane Moore.

Roasted Ramsay not on the menu for The Sun’s Jane Moore

Posted by Axegrinder on 24 November 2008 at 12:34
Tags: Daily Mail, Gary Farrow, Gordon Ramsay, Jane Moore, The Sun, Uncategorized

Tabloid allegations that Gordon Ramsay conducted a seven-year secret affair with a so-called “professional mistress” should provide tasty material for Fleet Street’s unforgiving women columnists (aka the Glenda Slaggs).

But one fears The Sun’s Jane Moore will not be among those giving the potty-mouthed celebrity chef a good kicking.

As Monday’s Daily Mail reminds us, Ramsay’s spokesman is Gary Farrow, head of The Corporation PR agency, which specialises in crisis management. He is also husband of Jane Moore.

Two years ago, when interviewed by The Guardian’s James Silver, she was asked if this meant she would go easy on his clients in her column.

She replied: “Yes, I think you are probably right. I would hold my hand up to that. But then again what I won’t do is praise them… It would be very awkward for me to write something dreadful about one of my husband’s clients. What kind of wife would I be if I went around doing things like that?”

And what kind of journalist, Jane?

No happy reunion for Macca and PR man

Posted by Axegrinder on 10 October 2008 at 00:30
Tags: Geoff Baker, Paul McCartney, The Sun, Uncategorized

For a brief moment on Thursday it appeared that Sir Paul McCartney had kissed and made up with his former publicist, Geoff Baker, whom he fired back in 2004.

The Sun ran a story by Ben Ashford about vegetarian Macca allegedly blasting McDonald’s “after accusing them of using his picture to flog hamburgers”.

The piece attributed the quote “What sort of morons do McDonald’s think Beatles fans are?” to “Sir Paul’s spokesman Geoff Baker”.

But this was far from true. Writing on his blog, Baker puts the record straight.

“This is new to me and, I suspect, Paul and the excellent Stuart Bell, who actually is the spokesman that I am not.”

Sir Paul severed his ties with Baker in September 2004, claiming his behaviour had “not reached the professional standards” he had come to expect from him.