The Telegraph has a new head of business. Tim Jotischsky, deputy editor of the paper’s Sunday outfit, comes in to replace Damian Reece.

A Telegraph insider whispers to Media Guido that the circumstances around Reece’s departure are, as of yet, unknown, ‘but he doesn’t work here any more’.

UPDATE: Jotischsky keeps his position on the Sunday paper as well.

Journalists getting nicked are ten-a-penny these days, but this story is disturbing on a whole new level. Ben Leapman, the hack at the heart of the Telegraph’s expenses scandal exposé, has been in court this week on child porn charges. Leapman, who boasted of “my four-year battle for the truth” and was writing for the paper up until he left last month, is accused of publishing obscene articles on internet forums and making indecent photographs of children. Dark…

We are being spoiled for media ding dongs so far this year. You have to wonder whether Guardian website guy Jonathan Haynes still thinks that pointing out of a typo on the Telegraph was so funny. The replies from Telegraph Washington correspondent Jon Swaine have been sent into Guido half a dozen times:

@JonathanHaynes A very regrettable error. But at least you managed to scrape a few lunchtime RTs out of it, eh? What a hero.—
Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) January 14, 2013

@JonathanHaynes ..they are also frustrated when critics like you, having never broken a story in your life, abandon all esprit de corps..—
Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) January 14, 2013

@JonathanHaynes ..and assign laziness or even malevolence to the work they do for stupidly long hours/not great pay. Please consider this.—
Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) January 14, 2013

Wince…

Guido hears that the Standard’s political hack Peter Dominiczak is off to beef up the Telegraph’s political team. Dominiczak came to prominence during last year’s London Mayoral election.

The accomplished Ken-baiter starts his new gig on Monday…

This morning the Telegraph issued a carefully-worded apology to question-dodging Margaret Hodge:

“Contrary to our report “Hodge faces challenge over family firm’s taxes” (Nov 20), Stemcor, in which Ms Hodge has a small shareholding, has not abused transfer pricing to avoid tax. We accept that there is no inconsistency or hypocrisy in Ms Hodge criticising other companies for tax avoidance and apologise to her for any contrary impression.”

Note the very specific assertion that Stemcor did not abuse transfer pricing to avoid tax. Guido never made that claim. The paper’s willingness to describe a million pound plus shareholding as “small” is odd, and crucially there is no mention of Hodge’s use of shares held in trusts. She has still yet to reply to our repeated questions, which followed a very different line to the Telegraph’s accusations and have been sent again to her today. Guido stands by everything we have written.

The second government aide who threatened the Telegraph over the Maria Miller expenses story has been named as No10 director of communications Craig Oliver:

“In a phone call to the editor of this newspaper, Craig Oliver indicated that the article may be poorly timed as “she [Maria Miller] is looking at Leveson at the moment”…It can now be disclosed that after the contacts between Mrs Miller’s adviser and the newspaper, Mr Oliver phoned Tony Gallagher, the editor of the Daily Telegraph, last Friday morning. He said that Mrs Miller was “very distressed” about her family being questioned over her expense claims. The Downing Street communications director said that the Cabinet Minister, who is currently overseeing negotiations over a new system of press regulation, was considering making a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission. He then raised the fact that Mrs Miller was leading the Government’s response to the Leveson report which recommended statutory press regulation.”

It’s not the first time that Craig’s cack-handed media manipulation has emerged. See below for a classic example of a Craig Oliver bollocking:

Accusations from the Tories that the Telegraph coordinated their Maria Miller expenses story to coincide with the gay marriage announcement yesterday went down very badly over at Buckingham Palace Road. Still smarting, they have thrown the ‘rules’ out of the window and published rather embarrassing communications between Miller’s people and the paper in the run up to the story coming out:

“The Telegraph has decided to disclose details of the private conversations amid widespread concern about the potential dangers of politicians being given a role in overseeing the regulation of the press. When a reporter approached Mrs Miller’s office last Thursday, her special adviser, Joanna Hindley, pointed out that the Editor of The Telegraph was involved in meetings with the Prime Minister and the Culture Secretary over implementing the recommendations made by Lord Justice Leveson.

“Maria has obviously been having quite a lot of editors’ meetings around Leveson at the moment. So I am just going to kind of flag up that connection for you to think about,” said Miss Hindley. Miss Hindley also said the reporter should discuss the issue with “people a little higher up your organisation”.”

Not the best way to try to fight a negative story and particularly chilling in light of the fact Ofcom answers to the Culture Secretary – the exact chain of command that would control Leveson’s state backed press regulator. Eyebrows were raised about levels of experience after the Adam Smith mess at Culture when Miller hired Hindley back in September. She had been at Prince Charles’ Foundation as head of comms after a relatively junior role in the CCHQ press office. A pretty awkward situation…

The Sun’s business editor Steve Hawkes is off to the Telegraph to become their consumer affairs editor. The Standard diary had prematurely reported he was off to the Times, but the Telegraph have got their man this morning.

Still a step down from the Bank of England job though…

As MediaGuido reported last night, the Telegraph’s Chris Hope is the new chairman of the press gallery. He will take over from the Mail’s Tim Shipman in January. Jason Beattie of the Mirror stays as the honourable secretary, and Bloomberg’s Rob Hutton remains as honourable treasurer. All three positions were ‘elected’ unopposed. They are less democratic than the politburo…

On Wednesday both the Mail and Telegraph splashed with the story of Energy Minister John Hayes declaring “enough is enough” over wind farms. The Mail’s report was labelled as an exclusive and their political editor James Chapman noted in his piece that Hayes’ remarks came from a private interview. Yet mysteriously the Telegraph had the same story with quotations in its first edition. How come?

It seems the Telegraph got sight of Chapman’s raw, unsubbed copy – Hayes had only spoken to him. Mail sources point out that their version said:

‘Even if a minority of what’s in the system is built we are going to reach our 2020 target,’ he said. ‘I’m saying enough is enough.’

The quote is mysteriously longer in the Telegraph version:

‘If you look at what has been built, what has consent and what is in the planning system, much of it will not get through and will be rejected. Even if a minority of what’s in the system is built we are going to reach our 2020 target,’ Mr Hayes said. ‘I’m saying enough is enough.’

One disgruntled Mail hack points out that “It’s common practice in the lobby to get wind of things and seek to do a spoiler or cobble something together with source quotes but to actually barefacedly steal the copy and use the quotes as your own is unprecedented in my experience.”

So what happened? Did the Telegraph’s Political Editor Robert Winnett find a copy of Chapman’s story on a Commons printer? Nope. Guido understands that Chapman did print out his story but took it home in his briefcase.

Did a Telegraph spy at the Mail leak the story to Winnett? Possibly. Mail HQ is now in a state of high security. Or was the Telegraph tipped off by veteran eco-sceptic Christopher Booker, who wrote a feature linked to the Hayes story in Wednesday’s Mail? Booker, though a long-time columnist for the Telegraph, is surely too experienced a hack to hand an exclusive to the Mail’s arch rival in that way.

Some argue that Winnett is in breach of the first rule of the Lobby – by shamelessly lifting the story he has breached his “duty to the Lobby as a whole, in that he should do nothing to prejudice the communal life of the Lobby..” and should be thrown out. Angry phone-calls were exchanged between executives at both papers yesterday with Ben Brogan – the former Mail man and now Telegraph deputy editor – being accused of “theft”. Brogan is said to be claiming it was “serendipity” and is not taking Guido’s calls this morning…