Regular readers of Press Gazette will have gathered by now that there is little love lost between Richard Caseby and The Guardian.
After being a thorn in the side of the paper's Readers' Editor during his time as managing editor of The Sun, soliciting various apologies and corrections, he is up to his old tricks in his new berth as director of communications at the Department for Work and Pensions.
In a guest blog for Press Gazette yesterday he mischievously suggested that The Guardian's coverage of his department has been so inaccurate that the paper should be banned from joining new press regulator IPSO.
Responding to Caseby last night, Guardian assistant editor Michael White accused him of being a "perilously reckless" "pitbull" who was pursuing a "personal vendetta".
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With accuracy being at the nub of the dispute in hand Axegrinder feels duty-bound to point out a couple of, ahem, inaccuracies in the Michael White piece.
Caseby left News International, where he had been a loyal executive on both Sun and the News of the World for 24 years – praised by Rupert Murdoch as he headed for the door in mid-2013.
Although Caseby spent 24 years in total at News International, he only spent just over a year as managing editor of The Sun and, briefly, News of the World and a further 11 months working full-time on the Leveson inquiry. Before that he spent 13 years as managing editor of The Sunday Times.
Caseby had just been made joint MD of both papers…
Caseby was joint managing editor (an editorial position) of The Sun and News of the World, not joint managing director (a commercial one).
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