Rusbridger: Express will “fall off a cliff”

Posted by Martin Stabe on 23 March 2006 at 15:00
Tags: Craigslist, Express, Guardian, Journalism, Online

Before winning Newspaper of the Year (and then being turned away at the door of the Met Bar after-party) this week, it seems Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger was busy recycling bits of the Craig Newmark speech he gave at Queen Mary, University of London, back in February.

In the speech’s recent incarnation, delivered at the Royal Society of Arts on 16 March (MP3, 21Mb) and reported by Mike Butcher, Rusbridger added a few snipes at those who don’t don’t share his foresight about the Internet’s effect on the newspaper business model:

He noted that Richard Desmond’s Express Newspapers are trying to “pretend the Internet doesn’t exist” - and Desmond himself is drawing a large salary in the meantime. “At some point,” said Rusbridger dryly “The Express titles will fall off a cliff as the last reader dies.”

Cash for answers

Posted by Lou Thomas on 17 March 2006 at 14:43
Tags: Express, Issues, Journalism, Nationals

After a week of speculation across the journalistic spectrum over exactly how much money tucked into a brown envelope is needed to become a Lord, The Daily Express have a story about their good mates at the Beeb paying once great footballer Diego Maradona £50,000 for an interview.

Their story on page 5 today says:

The Argentinian footballer would only agree to talk about the hugely controversial handball incident for money. The fee is an extremely unusual sum to be paid by a BBC documentary.

The Express may be on to something, after all, the BBC is funded by the public which means, by extension, that we are all helping Maradona with his retirement fund. But has the Richard Desmond-owned title ever paid an interviewee £50,000 for a chat..?

Freemasonry in the lobby

Posted by Martin Stabe on 23 February 2006 at 16:40
Tags: Express, Mirror, New Statesman, Press Association, Times

Writing in the New Statesman, associate editor Kevin Maguire of the Daily Mirror notes the Masonic goings-on in the Parliamentary press gallery:

I read in the minutes of the parliamentary press pinny boys the names of an old Times hand, a couple of ex-Express scribes and my former boss at the Press Association news wire, yet disappointingly none of the Gallery galacticos. Word was that the masons operated two lobby lodges, so perhaps chapter 1928 is the retirees. Anyone who’d like to peruse what this funny-handshake brigade got up to at their 366th convocation should get in touch.

Surely Maguire refers to the minutes of lobby hacks’ Masonic lodge, which, as our very own Axegrinder recently reported, were accidentally e-mailed to MPs by former Daily Express political editor Rob Gibson.

Maguire should get in touch with Paul Linford, who noted that the Westminster hacks’ Masonic lodge was a major topic of gossip during his time as a lobby correspondent.