Roy Greenslade is to stop writing his daily media blog for The Guardian at the end of this month ten and a half years after it was launched.
The blog has consisted of multiple posts a day including news, comment and analysis about the world of newspapers.
He is set however to continue writing for The Guardian on a less frequent basis, plans to increase his teaching at City University and is also involved in a new project which has yet to be revealed.
The Guardian has scaled back its media coverage in recent years, in common with other national newspapers, as it has sought to curb its losses.
Greenslade told Press Gazette: “I am sad to be giving up the blog, but I think the work of holding newspapers – their owners, controllers, editors and journalists – to account remains vital because they still set the daily agenda and therefore remain hugely influential.
“The Guardian has given me enormous freedom to do that, both with the self-published blog for the past ten years and in the 16 years before that when I wrote weekly for the paper. Journalism has been the central focus of my life for 53 years and I hope it remains so. Therefore, l am delighted that I will be able to maintain my relationship with the paper.
“Without wishing to employ the cliché about taking up new challenges, that’s exactly what I am proposing to do. I cannot talk about the specific project in which I’m involved – which has nothing to do with news media – but it is real and exciting. I am also increasing my teaching commitment at City, University of London.”
In November 2015 he wrote about the importance of journalism about the media in the British Journalism Review in response to an attack on him from Peter Oborne who described the role of media commentator as a “pathetic self-indulgence”.
Greenslade wrote: “Journalists cannot abide being the subject of the journalism they practise themselves. It is fine for them to hold every institution to account – Westminster, Whitehall, the judiciary, the police, the church, banks and businesses – and fine also to berate and ridicule everyone in public life, be they politicians or celebrities.
“But woe betide those evil ‘commentators’ who treat their own trade to similar scrutiny, who regard media, and especially the press, as an institution that should itself be held to account in the wider public interest. ”
He added: “If newspapers are doing their job, they should hold other newspapers to account. That isn’t treachery. It is not ‘self-indulgence’. It’s about transparency and, ultimately, about fulfilling their role in a democracy.”
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