Rantings

This week Letter from the editor: Introducing the do-it-yourself obit. Letters to the editor, with a complaint: Get your facts right. And lost Art is found. More complaints? Inspector Watts finds Barker’s new book ‘the most repetitive book I have ever read.’ Possibly, even, ‘the most repetitive book ever written.’

This week It must be wonderful being the author (or the publisher) of a book that every media student – there are 13,500 applications a year – needs to buy; one that can’t be sold on, second-hand, because it’s out of date as soon as it’s published. Revel Barker looks

This week Harold Heys remembers happy days spent mainly snoozing on the Press Bench. Nick Jenkins adds some memories, and some tales about the way it was, to our earlier tribute to Ken Smiley. Bryan Rimmer picked up the ball when Colin Dunne dropped it, and kept running towards the

This week Another saunter through the groves of Ranteria. Lucky dogs, that’s what we were, to have experienced the greatest of the great days. And Alasdair Buchan picked up a genuine lucky dog. But was anybody out there, reading about it? It’s a question we often ask ourselves. Ignore the

This week Putting the boots in: There not much that’s surer to get fingers to keyboard as a mention of exes (Ranters, last week). Desmond Zwar and Jeff Blyth remember the gumboots story, among many others; Tom Brown demanded a rewrite. Derek Jameson remembers subs getting exes… More prompts from

Gentlemen Ranters is a blog that publishes a charmingly eccentric compendium of fond reminiscences and tall tales from the glory days of the old Fleet Street. – Professor Tim Luckhurst, Centre for Journalism, University of Kent Is splg necy? Can reporters spell? And is it even necessary for them to

This week: cockle-warming It warms the cockles when the in-tray fills up after a Ranters edition with copy that was prompted by the current week’s content. Roy Stockdill’s account, last week, of his trip to Denmark with that self-promoting peer and all-round tosser Lord Longford mentioned how he said he’d

So… where were you? When Stalin died, Cassandra wrote a piece saying: ‘Few men by their death can have given such deep satisfaction to so many.’ But, as Liberace used to say, ‘That Bill Connor sometimes has rough edge to his tongue.’ Continuing our Where-Were-You-When theme, last week’s reference to

This week Last week we asked whether you remembered where you were, when… and mentioned the name of Kennedy. Phil Harrison knows precisely where he was when JFK was shot. James Mahoney remembers where he was when Churchill died, and how he almost blew a scoop. Ann Farrell recalls her

This week Remember when New Technology was… new? Jon Churchman does. From new technology to old techniques. Joe Morris tells younger readers where stories used to come from on slow news days. Old technology? Gordon Amory’s first editor used to come to work on horseback. And where were you when

This week Remember Woman’s Mirror? You should, it had an all-star cast. And it is set for a reunion next month. Anthony Peagam is issuing invitations. Former Daily Telegraph business editor Roland Gribben recalls the days before he was on the Manchester Evening Chronicle or even the Lancashire Evening Post,

That reminds me… This is how it’s supposed to work. We had two tales last week of reporters being scooped on their own stories and this prompted two more. And a book review of Ladies of The Street reminded Gordon Amory of an incident involving a lass in chilly Tynemouth,

This week Editor’s letter (please read) Harold Heys follows last week’s note about a reporter who invented his own list of mourners at big funerals with a cautionary tale about inventing quotes for vox pops. Last week’s piece about the Border Wars in Carlisle also reminded Stan Solomons about the

You couldn’t make it up After last week’s Australian extravaganza, we have Garry Steckles this week writing on how he avoided going there (he went to Canada instead, and thence to St Kitts, so he obviously didn’t much mind missing the boat). But we seem never to be far from

This week ·Editor’s letter – Revel Barker ·        Gerard Kemp – Peter Smith goes on the road with a professional ·        Bob Warren – Tom Crone is in the office and on the fairway with the old hand from the Screws. ·        In a well-travelled career,Peter Laudfound himself in Birmingham,

This week ·Editor’s letter – Revel Barker ·Before he rocked around the clock Bill Haley rolled around the ping-pong table. Alan Whittaker reveals some little known background about the great editor of The Thunderer. ·‘He has been called the Keith Richards of tabloid journalism, but that’s half-arsed. It should be

This week Is the Grim Reaper persona non grata on a website for old hacks who are, it was noted here in passing this week, getting older by the day? Surely not, for his visits are nowadays virtually the only excuse we still have to get together. Whatever, he has

Editor’s letter: the untold stories British Journalism Review – out this week Best man at a Hollywood wedding, by Jeffrey Blyth Court in the act, by Stan Solomons The elephant we missed, by Garth Gibbs Pleasant memories of Reveille, by Ian Bradshaw The office Mungo, by Jack Irvine The gent

Editor’s letter: the untold stories British Journalism Review – out this week Best man at a Hollywood wedding, by Jeffrey Blyth Court in the act, by Stan Solomons The elephant we missed, by Garth Gibbs Pleasant memories of Reveille, by Ian Bradshaw The office Mungo, by Jack Irvine The gent

Book early for Christmas And now, a toast to the ladies… Roy Greenslade reviews Ladies Of The Street by Liz Hodgkinson It’s called hack-lit, says Garth Gibbs in The Independent, and it’s the latest successful publishing phenomenon Paul Dacre was right about the Sunday Express, says Michael Watts But he

Down Memory Lane (contd.) Two new reviews of Murray Sayle’s great novel about the ‘red-top’ or ‘tabloid’ days – long before the titlepiece was done in red, and even before the papers were necessarily tabloid in size. Roy Greenslade (Media Guardian) says every journalist should read A Crooked Sixpence. And