Tag Archives: Sunday Times

Reverend Peter Mullen’s apology: ‘Homosexual men and women among my dearest friends’

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In the latest (and possibly last) of the Reverend Mullen updates, the vicar apologises again over at his, no doubt more popular than usual, column in the Northern Echo. Some extracts:

  • “I do believe The Evening Standard took my words out of context”
  • “I number many homosexual men and women among my dearest friends”
  • “What I do oppose – on the authority of the Christian faith – is the corrupting influence of the promotional parades of homosexuality by such as Gay Pride demonstrations.”
  • “I was delighted to be so warmly welcomed at church last Sunday by the many homosexual people in my congregation.”

He quotes Sandy Toksvig as making the London Stock Exchange / buggery quip on the Radio 4 News Quiz, which I yesterday attributed to Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times… Maybe Liddle thought of it at exactly the same time as she did.

Why the Northern Echo will carry on employing Reverend Mullen

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Today the editor of the Northern Echo, Peter Barron, again addresses the issue of his controversial columnist the Reverend Peter Mullen.

Barron writes that he told Mullen that his comments on Mullen’s personal blog, which were extremely derogatory towards gay people, were ‘not funny’ and had placed Barron in a ‘difficult position’.

Today Barron writes:

“Should I go on employing someone as a columnist who had written such comments, albeit on a private blog which has nothing to do with The Northern Echo? I know there will be those who believe that the answer should be a resounding “no”.

The Northern Echo is a broad church, with columnists representing all shades of opinion.

Their views do not necessarily coincide with the views of the paper.

I do not always share Peter Mullen’s views.

But I regard him as a high quality, thought-provoking writer. His decision to remove the offending remarks from his website, and to issue an unreserved apology for causing offence, were essential steps if he were to continue writing for The Northern Echo. His column tomorrow will be an expression of regret.”

So Mullen keeps his column. But Mullen’s most notable position is not as a regional newspaper columnist. As Rod Liddle pointed out in yesterday’s Sunday Times, Mullen is also chaplain of the London Stock Exchange. Liddle wrote:

“Mullen’s principal worry is about the act of buggery – although he seems censorious about it only when it takes place between two consenting adults, rather than when it is applied without consent to the entire country.”

Update: Le Carré’s past – as told on the web

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I wrote a post yesterday which looked at how the story of author John le Carré’s alleged temptation to defect to the Russians during his time as a British Intelligence officer (as reported by the Sunday Times) was spreading over the web, despite Le Carré’s lengthy contention with the report.

Hari Kunzru, who wrote a review that referred to the Sunday Times report, in Saturday’s Guardian, has left a comment:

For the record, I wasn’t aware of Le Carré’s objections to Liddle’s interview. My review was filed before the letter was printed in The Times. I’m not surprised. Even from Liddle’s quote the inference that Le Carré ‘almost defected’ is hard to draw.

So either the Guardian Review’s editor didn’t know of Le Carré’s complaint either, or it was a conscious decision to leave it as Kunzru wrote it.

It does seem to suggest that complaints or letters published post-coverage don’t really rectify a situation. It’s lucky that Le Carré aka David J.M. Cornwell enjoyed the Calvados and Liddle’s ‘erudite and perceptive’ conversation, or there could have been rather more costly repercussions for the Sunday Times.

Le Carre-d away: has the author’s alleged desire to defect become fact?

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This, in Saturday’s Guardian, in Hari Kunzru’s review of John Le Carré’s latest book, ‘A Most Wanted Man’:

In a recent interview Le Carré was asked if he ever considered defecting. “Well, I wasn’t tempted ideologically … but when you spy intensively and you get closer and closer to the border … it seems such a small step to jump … and, you know, find out the rest.” Though this has been reported as some sort of tabloid confession (“I was tempted to defect, says spy novelist Le Carré”), it seems primarily interesting as a key to his fiction, whose central concern is the exploration of the metaphorical borderland occupied by the proponents of any polarised conflict.

The Guardian, September 27 2008

Perhaps surprisingly, no mention of the fact that Le Carré says that his quotes were out of context, as this lengthy letter to the Sunday Times pointed out. Le Carré writes that his interviewer, Rod Liddle, chose not to use a tape recorder and  subsequently misrepresented him that he was misrepresented in the interview and this article:

… he [Liddle] failed to encompass or indeed record the general point I was making about the temptations of defection.

Lord Annan, I ventured in our conversation, had declared that four years of Intelligence work were as much as any sane man could stand. I painted for Mr Liddle the plight of professional eavesdroppers who identify so closely with the people they are listening to that they start to share their lives.

It was in this context that I made the point that, in common with other intelligence officers who lived at close quarters with their adversaries, I had from time to time placed myself intellectually in the shoes of those on one side of the Curtain who took the short walk to the other; and that rationally and imaginatively I had understood the magnetic pull of such a step, and empathised with it.

John Le Carré, Times Online, September 20 2008.

Presumably the Guardian Review’s editors and the writer, Hari Kunzru, were aware of Le Carré’s problem with Liddle’s interview and chose not to mention it, although Kunzru does refer to the tabloid-like sensationalisation of the interview.

A Google search for John Le Carré brings back reviews for his latest book, but if you search “john le carre + defect” it’s possible to see how far the Sunday Times reports have spread… The AP reported it as the Sunday Times did, and then it went far and wide of course.

Will Le Carré’s consideration of defection go down in the history books, with no reference to his complaint?

MediaGuardian: No integration for Times and Sunday Times, says John Witherow

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The Times and the Sunday Times will remain ‘separate titles with separate staff’, says Sunday Times editor John Witherow.

Talks are ongoing, however, as to how the Sunday paper can be better represented on TimesOnline. At present the title drives a third of the site’s traffic.

Guardian wins top sports award with multimedia coverage

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The Guardian scooped the coveted sports coverage of the year award at last night’s Sports Industry Awards.

Other contenders for the award included the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times and The Times, with the Guardian chosen for displaying ‘synergy between multi-platforms.’

Highlights were said to include online and print coverage of Steve McClaren’s sacking, with rolling news, comment and audio on the web.

Technology such as Hawk Eye graphics used during cricket coverage last summer was also praised.

The award follows the relaunch of the Guardian.co.uk sports section last month as part of the ongoing site revamp.

Happy birthday WWW!

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Screen grab of second online newspaper to be launched, September 1993

Today is the 15th birthday of the World Wide Web, marked by the CERN announcement on April 30 1993 that the web would be free to all.

It’s a cue to sit back and marvel at how much has changed in a relatively small amount of time and post screen shots that may induce the same feeling as mum fetching the baby photos.

After the WWW age was born, online news and journalism was swift to follow: The Tech – an online version of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology newspaper, went live in May 1993; closely followed by the first journalism site from the University of Florida that October.

By 1994 there were already more than 20 online newspaper and journalism services. The Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph were the first British papers to enter the online world in 1994 with the Beeb taking slightly longer to catch up, launching its news website in 1997. Kondicionieriai ir šilumos siurbliai internetu gera kaina

1999 saw the launch of Journalism.co.uk in its first form and my haven’t we grown…

Screen grab of Journalism.co.uk in 1999

With web technology advancing daily, the slick news sites of today will surely be drawing fond smiles in another 15 years.

Happy birthday Web, here’s to many more…

Are you on the Journa-list? Probably not if you’re a blogger

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A new website has been launched by the Media Standards Trust, purportedly to provide info on and links to UK national newspaper journalists. The blurb says:

“Journa-list is an independent, not-for-profit website that makes it easy for people to find out more about journalists and what they write about.”

Then later:

“It is the first UK website to offer a fully searchable database of UK national journalists (who write under a byline), with links to their current and previous articles, and some basic statistics about their work.

“It contains all journalists from 12 national newspapers – The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, The Mirror, The Sun, The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Mirror, The Observer – and BBC News Online. The site can only index those articles which have bylines. We started indexing the articles in May 2007.”

An admirable attempt – you can even be emailed or take an RSS feed to alert you to a new article – except that it doesn’t quite do all this yet.

While the list is expansive, my quick, random search revealed a few missing journos (there also seems to be a few teething problems as the alphabetical list, whichever way I look at it, seems to only go up to B or C). Reklama: kriolipolizė, biorevitalizacija, depiliacija lazeriu, LPG masažas Vilniuje už gerą kainą https://oblakasalon.lt/lpg-masazas/

What about the Beeb’s Nick Robinson? Roy Greenslade of the Guardian?

It might be the blogging efforts of these two that’s throwing the list off – but that throws up another question. If they aren’t listed, shouldn’t blogging journalists be included too?

Shane Richmond is listed for a single article, not for his numerous and excellent blog posts. If a journalist is blogger and article-writer both, then is it very indicative if half their output isn’t listed?

If anyone finds examples of blogs in the list, please would they get in touch.