Journalism
The Sun goes down
Where did it all go wrong for the Sun?
Out-scooping the men: six women reporters of the second world war
Two war correspondents were hitching a lift towards Paris in August 1944 when a sudden wave of German bombers forced…
The problem with Equity’s anti-racism guidelines
‘Rouse tempers, goad and lacerate, raise whirlwinds.’ Those were the words that Kenneth Tynan, the most celebrated drama critic of…
One of the lucky ones: Hella Pick escapes Nazi Germany
Hella Pick is one of that vanishing generation of Jewish refugees who arrived in Britain on the eve of the…
The dangers of televising lobby briefings
The dangers of televising lobby briefings
Joan Didion’s needle-sharp eye never fails
Most collections of journalism are bad. There are two reasons for this: one is that they are usually incoherent and…
Watch: Boris on the problem with journalists
What’s the phrase? Poacher turned gamekeeper? Boris Johnson was once the arch poacher — a journalist at the Telegraph before taking on the editorship…
The decline of American journalism
The US press has lost its way
A conciliatory P.J. O’Rourke is not the satirist we know and love
There was an acidic bravura and beauty in P.J. O’Rourke’s early journalism and a gleefulness in the ease with which…
Lockdown might bring the Dickensian Christmas back into fashion
I feel like a prisoner, making daily marks on the cell wall to chart the approach of freedom. But will…
The journalists who scripted the golden age of Hollywood
Tanya Gold on the journalists who scripted the golden age of Hollywood
Never a dull sentence: the journalism of Harry Perry Robinson
Is Boris Johnson a fan of Harry Perry Robinson? If he isn’t, he really ought to be. Reading this absorbing…
The BBC's failure to report gender identity accurately
‘Blackpool woman accessed child abuse images in hospital bed’. It’s a good headline, in that it catches your attention. But…
Writing my High Life column made a man of me
As Cole Porter might have said, only second-rate people go on and on about their inner lives. Self-analysis, according to…
I love my fellow hacks – even when I disagree with them
It’s one way to keep in touch with people. Each morning, somewhere between the first coffee of the day and…
A note to fellow lockdown lethargics
Strange times, these. Dull and unsettling in equal measure. Much of life feels as though it is stuck in some…
How Nova revolutionised women’s magazines
Batsford has just brought out a huge tome on Nova — ‘one of the most influential magazines in history’ —…
The hypocrisy of our politicians’ support for press freedom
Cynical old hacks like me have been amused by the chorus of establishment applause for the Mail on Sunday’s great…
Sports journalism in Britain is being attacked by an American predator
Forty years ago the football transfer market went crazy: the British record was broken four times in 1979, more than…
Where were you when you read John Hersey’s ‘Hiroshima’?
Of how many magazine articles can you recall where you were and what you felt when you read them? If…
Why would anyone in their right mind choose to be profiled by Janet Malcolm?
God, I wish I was Janet Malcolm. Fifty or more years as a staff writer on the New Yorker, reviews…
My ringside seat on the Mary Quant revolution
I think I probably qualify as the oldest fashion editor in the world, because in spite of my advanced age…
Slow-moving tale with a strong echo of Brideshead: Alys, Always at the Bridge reviewed
Nicholas Hytner’s new show, Alys, Always, is based on a Harriet Lane novel that carries a strong echo of Brideshead.…
David Cairns explains how we learned to love Berlioz
According to his friend and fellow-composer Ernest Reyer, the last words Berlioz spoke on his deathbed were: ‘They are finally…
The film makes you ashamed to call yourself a journalist: A Private War reviewed
A Private War is a biopic of the celebrated Sunday Times war correspondent Marie Colvin who was, judging from this,…
