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July 7, 2005updated 22 Nov 2022 4:02pm

Dog watches dog 08.07.05

By Press Gazette

WHO ARE THESE IMPOSTERS?

Preposterous news reaches the kennel of a team purporting to
represent this very magazine making an appearance at the renowned River
Café quiz last weekend. It’s a charity event that attracts great minds
from the worlds of media and celebrity to prove their knowledge of
trivia is the best in the business.

The so-called Press Gazette team featured two national newspaper
editors (Simon Kelner and Roger Alton), whose only known connection to
the title is that they recently signed a statement saying they might
boycott the British Press Awards. Other members included some bloke
called Shaun Wallace, a lawyer, who turns out to be the most recent
champion of Mastermind, and Larry Lawrence, the Daily Mirror’s
librarian and a former University Challenge winner.

But the team
of ringers, led by an unidentified but rather cocky individual
(pictured left), strolled to victory – much to the horror and
indignation of losing competitors including Robert Harris, Nick Hornby
and Stephen Fry. Only John Mortimer had the good grace to congratulate
them on pinching his crown.

Of course Dog can reveal that the
real brains behind Press Gazette are all far too busy moving office and
preparing for a relaunch to get involved in such trivial pursuits.

[Subs:
For God’s sake change this copy. Piers is really proud of this and
wants us to rub everybody’s nose in the fact that his team won.

Particularly
The Guardian, who were so upset they led booing as he picked up the
trophy – despite the fact they’d brought their own ringer, Francis
Wheen, who no longer writes for the paper. Ed]

Hard but fair Lowe reveals he’s not always tough to tackle

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Mike Norton, the new editor-in-chief at Northcliffe’s Bristol
titles, had good reason to feel concerned about the fact that he would
be stepping into the shoes of Mike Lowe.

The two had clashed violently – very violently – while playing in an ill-tempered football match some years ago.

Blows were exchanged and the two barely spoke for a long time afterwards, despite working for the same group.

So
it was with some trepidation that Norton headed to the south west,
wondering if there’d be any contact from Lowe, an uncompromising
character on and off the pitch, who would be understandably aggrieved
by his departure.

He needn’t have worried. Dog hears that Lowe
kept his studs well and truly hidden, telling Norton that if there was
anything he could do to help, he only had to ask.

Will Lowe’s reputation ever recover? It’s a bit like finding that Roy Keane helps old ladies across the road in his spare time.

She wasn’t lost, but The Sun found her

Famine survivor Birhan Woldu stole the show at Live 8 when the
toddler who was given just minutes to live in a famous 1984 news report
stepped on to the stage with Madonna.

Woldu was flown over to London by The Sun, and Monday’s paper proudly proclaimed it was the paper that “found Birhan”.

This
was news to broadcaster Michael Buerk, who visited Woldu in January
2004 for a documentary to mark the 20th anniversary of the famine.

It
may also have been news to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s
Brian Dennis, whose original 1984 news report featuring the apparently
dying child was later played at the Live Aid concert.

He returned
to Ethiopia in 1988 and tracked Woldu down after a major search using
photos and village contacts. He arranged schooling and local help for
her and has since kept in touch with the family.

A perplexed
Dennis wrote on the CBC website earlier this year: “The British
tabloids, a world unto themselves, have just discovered, this year,
that Birhan is ‘alive’ and even claimed, bizarrely, to have just
‘found her’.”

Southern
Daily Echo sports editor Simon Carter must surely have been furious
when he saw this typo on his byline last week. Er, no, actually. It was
Carter himself who made the crucial typing error. His red-faced
explanation to grinning colleagues was that the C and the F are very
close together on the keyboard.

The theory of relatively unappealing news ideas

If anyone still thinks that scientists are not like the rest of us,
the message below, sent to the kennel by journalist Mike Harrison,
should put them straight.

It was placed on a science writers’ bulletin board and pulls the
lowest stunt of the lowest profession by inventing the story first and
searching for the evidence as an afterthought.

As a matter of interest, AlphaGalileo is a ‘pan- European press centre’ for science and technology.

Help! 

can anyone point me at a nice juicy
anti-media quote from a researcher? It will be used in a published doc
but with a general attribution, for example, a European researcher in
the Daily Express said,”…..”

Peter Green Director Development AlphaGalileo Foundation

Harrison says: “In my very best Eurospeak, all I can say is: ‘Nul points Peter Green!”

 

‘A good headline from the Dewsbury Reporter. But after that, it’s all down hill.

The gentleman having his hair cut off for charity is referred to as Gary Crawford in the copy.

In the caption he is referred to as Ashley Crawford.

In fact, he is the only boxer of any note to come out of the area in the past 20 years and is very well known.

Not
only that, his gym is called the Crawford Ashley Fitness Centre – and
his correct name, Crawford Ashley, is clearly visible on the T-shirt in
the picture.

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog

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