Sodden failure
An Evening Standard reporter, Kevin Murphy, was pictured on the
front of Press Gazette, plunging into the sea at Folkestone after twice
swimming the Channel.
Murphy’s plan to do a triple Channel swim came to grief in rough sea
after he was half-way through his third crossing. The Standard’s JAK
made Murphy’s attempt the subject of a cartoon. It showed a sodden
Murphy crawling into the editor’s office to be greeted by: “We don’t
like failures here, Murphy – you’re fired!”
A striker for Chronicle
Nowadays Premiership footballers probably don’t need the cash. But
back in 1975 Malcolm MacDonald, the Newcastle United striker nicknamed
“Supermac”, featured in TV ads for the Evening Chronicle, Newcastle.
MacDonald is pictured with sports reporter John Gibson. What are the
chances (or cost) of Michael Owen plugging the Chronicle on TV today?
Editors call for anonymity for rape victims The names of rape
victims should not be disclosed during or after a trial, a joint
committee of lawyers and editors recommended.
However, the Law
Society and Guild of Editors Committee said that in order to stop women
bringing false charges, the alleged rape victim should be named if the
accused was acquitted.
Crisis cost-cutting at Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph announced that up to 720 of its 1,600 production
workers would have to be axed so that it could replant, pay off its
overdraft, and get back to operating profit. The Daily Telegraph Group
had warned that it was heading for an annual loss of £500,000 on
turnover of £45m.
No time inside
Time Out journalist David May was cleared by an Old Bailey jury of
dishonestly receiving a kidnapped Frenchman’s residence permit. May had
been given the permit by a source to verify that pictures of banker
Angelo Suarez, kidnapped in Bilbao, were genuine. May had refused to
disclose his source to police.
Maggie has a laugh
Margaret Thatcher, then leader of the Opposition, was pictured
enjoying a joke with staff at the offices of the Aberdeen Journals.
Apparently she had spotted a girlie golf calendar on the wall of the
sports department.
Pattinson off to Mirror
Terry Pattinson had quit the Daily Express to join the Daily Mirror
as an industrial reporter. Pattinson became one of the paper’s
bestknown journalists and stood against Tony Blair for the Senior
Citizens’ Party at the last general election.
Conkers? Bonkers!
Two women
reporters were banned from the annual conker championships at Oundle,
Northants. Event chairman Frank Elson claimed: “We are not against
women, but this isn’t kids’ stuff and we don’t want them to get hurt.”
Joy Bradley and Annette Garland of the Peterborough Evening Telegraph
said: “We have infiltrated male sports like darts and football. But
conkers is a harder nut to crack.”
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