Big changes afoot over at Northcliffe House as Mail+ – the online branch of the Daily Mail definitely not to be confused with the Mail Online – makes some major changes to cut losses. Guido learns that Michael Crick has gone along with most of their video team being made redundant last month. Editor Gordon Thompson has also left, supposedly of his own accord. It is noticeable that the production of expensive original video content is being dropped at a number of digital media outlets. Clearly Lord Rothermere, like Guido, is unable to figure out how to make news-focused video content commercially viable…
The Mail mole who alerted Guido to the Mail’s de-Cricking also said that, amid rumours of a £20 million loss, Andrew Pierce and Sarah Vine are also facing the loss of their podcasts. No doubt they’ll be relieved not to do them…
Michael Crick on splitting the BBC political editor’s role…
“If one newspaper group owned 50% of daily readership, there would rightly be public outcry. When I did economics as a student, I was told that academic economists defined a monopoly as 30% of the market. In that case, the BBC certainly has a technical monopoly.
This is not an argument to demolish or weaken the BBC. I am a great supporter of the Corporation (having spent half my career there). It produces some of the best broadcast journalism on the planet. And many powerful people – not least lazy and corrupt politicians and officials, or crooked businessmen – would rejoice at the BBC’s demise.
But for so much journalistic clout to be held by a few individuals is unhealthy. This is not just an arcane discussion for media professionals; it’s about a fairer distribution of influence and power among the important checks and balances that a free and democratic society always needs.
The answer – as so often – is to promote pluralism and diversity. How about splitting the current job of BBC political editor into two posts – one for television and one for radio? It would ease the workload and provide a bit of competition.”
Ian Lavery got riled up yesterday by Michael Crick’s impromptu interview concerning his huge payments from the National Union of Mineworkers before he became an MP.
Considering his £165,000 pay off bung from the NUM when he went off to be an MP, he was a curious frontman, therefore, for Labour’s new strap-line about the miners being ripped off. As Guido previously reported the incident was reported to the police for investigation…
When he ran the Northumberland branch of the NUM, Lavery received:
- £73,000 to pay off his mortgage.
- Nearly £90,000 in a juicy redundancy payment when he went on to another lucrative job as a Member of Parliament.
If he really believes miners are so hard done by, maybe Lavery should give them some of their NUM membership fees back…
Michael Crick on the closure of the National Organisation of Labour Students…
“This must be the only case in Labour or Conservative history where a party youth organisation has been closed down for not being extreme enough!”
Broadcasters have ignited a media spat with Number 10 over access to Theresa May, with Channels 4 and 5 particularly aggrieved about not getting time with the PM compared to the BBC. An indignant Michael Crick tweeted “if Number Ten is not careful it could soon look like the BBC has become the state broadcaster.”
May’s comms chief and former BBC exec Robbie Gibb was the recipient of a strongly-worded missive from the broadcasters earlier this afternoon:
Robbie wasn’t having any of it, hitting back with a long list of the PM’s recent interviews and challenging them over whether they’d made the same fuss over Corbyn last week:
Over to you, Channel 4…
Channel 4‘s interview with the Prime Minister in South Africa has again given rise to the internet myth that Margaret Thatcher somehow supported apartheid. Here’s Nelson Mandela setting the record straight.
“[Margaret Thatcher] is an enemy of apartheid. Our differences are in regard to the methods of inducing the Government to dismantle apartheid.”
Also worth noting that Michael Crick’s accusation that “Mrs Thatcher believed that Nelson Mandela was a terrorist” is nonsense. In fact when she met the leader of South Africa in 1984, official records show that Thatcher told Botha “very firmly” that “apartheid had to be dismantled, [and] Nelson Mandela and other prisoners released”. Anti-apartheid movement president Trevor Huddleston wrote to Thatcher to say her words were “truly all I could have wished for”.
Channel 4 should be better than to peddle comprehensively disproven internet myths.
