The Guardian quickly ditched the pro-Saudi Crown Prince advert on Emily Thornberry’s piece declaring his London visit this week “shameless”. Not quite quickly enough…

The Guardian sat on stories from charity sex abuse victims, according to claims made by an industry insider. An ‘overseas aid expert’ writing under a pseudonym told the OpenDemocracy website:

“Why didn’t the complainants go to somewhere like the Guardian? They did.

“These victims are not typical Mail and Telegraph readers and they understood that a story about a lack of accountability in an aid organization will likely be followed in those newspapers by calls for less foreign aid. None of the victims support that goal. What they want is aid plus accountability.  

“Almost all of the complainants went to the Guardian first. Different Guardian journalists were contacted, but all went quiet. One told me: “I just wanted to say I haven’t forgotten about this. Unfortunately the decision to work on the story or not is above my station, so I’m just waiting for a decision either way…” Later, when I asked if they had heard back the same journalist said: “I haven’t unfortunately. It was passed onto powers that be. At the moment it’s looking like it’s not going to run… I presume after some weighing of pros and cons.”

The writer then claims the whistleblowers turned to the right-leaning press: “When the Guardian sat on the story a subsection of the whistleblowers went to the Mail and the Telegraph, who ran it with many fewer sources.” The importance of a plural media…

UPDATE: Priti Patel tells the Sun:

“The Guardian and Save the Children should be apologising to the victims of these horrendous acts who have been let down by their appalling conduct and the subsequent cover-up. They have shown a callous lack of responsibility and a complete betrayal of the victims.”

Buzzfeed’s political editor Jim Waterson has joined the Guardian as their new media editor. Looks like the competition just went up a notch. Will the last person to leave Buzzfeed please turn off the fridge full of free beer?

Following Guido’s story this morning, Jeremy Corbyn’s interview with a Corbynista YouTube star who sent N-word, “Jew” and Hitler tweets has been removed from the Guardian website “pending investigation“. Down the memory hole…

Today’s Guardian splash backs the government’s crackdown on unpaid internships, exclusively revealing that “HM Revenue & Customs is expected to target sectors such as media” and criticising Vogue and its publisher Conde Nast for offering placements without pay. It is a pretty bold front page given that just last week the paper was embarrassed by a young journalist on Twitter who revealed he had just been on an unpaid internship at… the Guardian. Of course this is the same Guardian which last year offered an internship scheme to ethnic minority candidates, telling them “the scheme is unpaid”. And the same Guardian which offers “editorial work” internships – real work – again telling applicants “these placements at the Guardian and Observer are unpaid”. If the government’s unpaid internship crackdown is targeting the media, they should start with the paper to which they briefed the story… 

Barmy MP Emma Dent Coad has hired Guardian writer Liam Young to work in her parliamentary office, not that they mention that anywhere on his columns. Leftie scribe Young is also a columnist for the i newspaper – so he has plenty of work on his plate. Would be more than a bit weird for the Mail, Sun or Telegraph to hire a paid-up Tory researcher as a columnist and not disclose their job to readers.

Also worth pointing out that Dent Coad’s daughter is still on the latest register of member’s staff (meaning she has a parliamentary pass). Despite the MP telling Guido the pass had been given up in November…