Journalism
Investigative journalists: new crime fiction reviewed
Despite being well-travelled as the BBC’s world affairs editor, John Simpson doesn’t roam far from home in his spy thriller,…
Critical injuries: the perils of book reviews
The perils of book reviews
Bad news for fans of good TV drama – there’s three more corkers to keep up with
This week was bad news for fans of good television drama series — mainly because there’s now three more of…
What will Katie Hopkins do next?
In her memoir Rude, the former Mail Online columnist Katie Hopkins reveals her true self. She does this by accident,…
Adam Gopnik: 30 years of New Yorker life
When Adam Gopnik arrived in Manhattan in late 1980 he was an art history postgrad so poor that he and…
How internet paywalls are making us all dumber
Thanks to meteoric advances in computational power, it is now possible to take abundant data from a wide range of…
Almeida’s new play about the Sun is exactly as I remember it, says Kelvin MacKenzie
It was most odd. Four decades after I’d walked into the Sun to start my first shift as a news…
Arundhati Roy’s new big cause: the conflict in Kashmir
Arundhati Roy has published only one previous novel, but that one, The God of Small Things, won the Booker Prize.…
Journalists have a lot to answer for
At a chic dinner party last week, a Trump insider gossiped about an American president having had an affair with…
You’re an editor now George Osborne... it’s time you made some enemies
Dear George Osborne, I thought it worth passing along some advice about your new job. I’ve never edited a news-paper,…
Liberal lefties should relish hating the Daily Mail while they can
According to Private Eye, executives at the Daily Mail were alarmed by the impending publication of Adrian Addison’s new history…
David Tennant is magical: Don Juan in Soho reviewed
Don Juan in Soho rehashes an old Spanish yarn about a sexual glutton ruined by his appetite. Setting the story…
Why I’m falling in love with Sean Spicer
At last, someone is taking on the pompous White House hacks
The brutality and barbarism of everyday life in Raqqa
In my work as a reviewer, a small, steady proportion of all the books publishers send me concern the Holocaust.…
How Alexander Chancellor restored The Spectator's greatness
As he left the editorship of The Spectator in March 1984, Alexander Chancellor wrote in this space: ‘When I joined…
Piers Morgan is a shameless brown-noser but maybe he’s on the right track
A few weeks ago I was having an argument with Piers Morgan on Twitter. Oh God, is that really how…
Press regulation will be a boon to anti-journalists like Katie Hopkins
More press regulation will give us more idiotic anti-journalists of the Katie Hopkins variety
Is Boris without a philosophy? No, he’s worse than that
Against Boris Sir: In discussing my attitude to Boris (‘The Boris-bashers should be ashamed’, 27 August), Mary Wakefield is too kind —…
How Radio 4 made it possible for people to talk to the dead
One of the weirdest responses when someone close to you dies is the gradual realisation that now at last you…
A feral, all-powerful press? The Whittingdale story disproves that
For weeks, Westminster has been full of rumours about the private life of a certain cabinet member. It was said…
Why I feel compelled to defend Boris
I got Boris Johnson into trouble once, without meaning to. The two of us had been driven hither and thither…
Virtual reality news is coming - and the implications are ominous
John Humphrys staggering around in a piece of ‘virtual reality’ headgear that looked like binoculars and made him feel sick…
Close encounters on the starship Enterprise
For a show with a self-proclaimed ‘five-year mission’, Star Trek hasn’t done badly. Gene Roddenberry’s ‘Wagon train to the stars’…
David Astor: the saintly, tormented man who remade the Observer
Before embarking on this book, Jeremy Lewis was told by his friend Diana Athill that his subject, the newspaper editor…
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How do you snare a journalist? Offer an “award”!
Nick Cohen 3 November 2018 9:00 am
Hacks love winning awards – and lobbyists know it