He did more farewell performances than Sinatra and, like Ken Dodd, refused to get off the stage while people were still laughing. But – and I report this with a heavy heart – reporter, broadcaster, and author Ian Skidmore has finally left the newsroom. He died peacefully, aged 84, at

Still in holiday mode but, unable to stop, we came across a quote via the editor’s blog of Press Gazette lifted from a story in The Independent, which was an extract of a piece in GQ magazine. On the off-chance that there are readers out there (difficult to believe, I know,

  Brian Hitchen and his wife Nelli were both killed after being hit by a car while walking along the pavement in Altea, Spain, on December 1. Nelli died instantly, Brian the following day. A former DailyMirror reporter, Brian became editor of the Star (1987-94) and of the Sunday Express (1994-96).

Hyphens and line breaks Hyphens and compound nouns The Union Jack Mis-use of Ms Creeping Americanisation #     Man’s laughter or male diction? Hyphenation of compound nouns and adjectives [see below] was only part of the dashed problem facing subs and proofreaders: the other concern was, and is, the

Introduction This tax guide for authors and journalists has been prepared by HW Fisher & Company Ltd, Chartered Accountants. Please note that this information is provided for guidance only and does not purport to give professional advice. Our Authors and Journalists Team, led by Barry Kernon and Andrew Subramaniam, specialises

Internet sites that may be of interest… Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London 1674 to 1834 http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/ All our yesterdays: (Annie Robinson, Mirror TV commercial) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdmSgcQp5t4 + Contributors’ websites and blogs: Revel Barker: http://revelbarker.blogspot.com/ Alun John, website: http://alunjohnascot.wordpress.com/ and blog: http://alunjohn.wordpress.com/ Geoffrey Mather, website: http://www.northtrek.co.uk/ Paddy O’Gara: http://elcaminounreal.blogspot.com/ +  Newspapers

·Our own books ·Books in print –novels –non fiction ·Save pounds by buying directly from the publisher Most of these books are available from amazon.co.uk. Click on the book title to go there directly. Our own books The first books in this section represent what is anticipated to be a

He’s no journalist… he’s a poet Roy Greenslade Media Guardian. April 25: There is a superb reminiscence on the gentlemenranters.com website today by Colin Dunne. His contributions are always a joy to read, but I especially commend Which of you ****ing poets subbed this? It reveals how the acclaimed modernist

Click here for notes about contributing copy  Ken Ashton has been a journalist for most of his life, working on a national, evening, and local newspapers; he’s been a sports writer, covering major events, won press awards, and even found time to be mayor of Prestatyn. He took a change

Next month will mark two years (apart from a necessary obit) since the last edition of this website. During that last year, there had been more than three million hits on the site and so it was probably not surprising that one or two people noticed, and caringly wrote to

We are taking an extended break at Palazzo Ranter.  In the meantime, we can still accept copy. So please get typing   This Week We are breaking up for the hols today (spend too much time with the Hackademics, and it’s catching) so, first… a very merry Christmas and a

This Week We’re breaking up for the hols next week, so if you have any Christmas stories, please file them now. (Otherwise, we might break up a week early…) If you need to be reminded when service is resumed, please use the box on the right to register. If you

This Week We all know the feeling. You’re watching TV or a movie and see somebody portraying a newspaperman and you think: ‘That’s not how we do it. We don’t behave like that. We don’t act like that. We don’t talk like that…’ Then you watch live news coverage of

This Week We start with the Leveson Inquiry on the grounds that it’s still too new to have become boring (but it will, Oscar; it will). The thing is that it could in theory produce at least one good story a day for its entire run, and it could be

This Week A funny old week, in which the Daily Mirror apologised in a Page 2 correction (they’re all getting into this idea) for a mistake in referring to the, er… oh yes… to the Daily Mirror. They got the quote wrong. Well, it happens, I guess. At least, it

This Week We’ll get round to the Leveson Inquiry in a minute; we don’t want to appear preoccupied with the thing. The important news is that Tabloid, the movie based on (but not giving credit to) Tony Delano’s brilliant book, Joyce McKinney and the Case of the Manacled Mormon goes

This Week We start with a special offer… Most readers of this website have fond memories of World’s Press News. Dozens of you have written of the days when it was required reading – and often urgent reading because that’s where the jobs were and you needed to get off

This Week First, a service message. If you are planning to communicate with this website please use a unique catch-line in the email subject box. You know, like you used to do when you wrote a copy. If you simply hit the Return button on the weekly round-robin blurb –

This Week There will be no Ranters next week, as the entire editorial team takes a break. But we can of course accept copy during the shutdown (please use a new and unique subject line when you write, as you used to do for catchlines). If you are likely to

This week The News of the Screws saga isn’t going to go away, so what would Harry Procter – legendary [sic] ace red-top reporter in our (and my dad’s) day – have made of it all? His daughter Val Lewis – she married Lynn Lewis and, like most of Harry’s

This Week There was a time (predominantly the 60s and 70s) when it would have been unusual to have entered any newspaper pub (certainly in the north of England) without being regaled by stories of the most recent escapades of reporter Gilbert Johnson. He died last week, aged 81, after