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TUESDAY 19 MARCH 2024

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

Parents — especially step-parents — are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don’t fulfil the promise of their early years — Anthony Powell

    THE ALTERNATIVE MEDIA DAILY

Our proud motto: We may not always be first with the news but we’re always wrong.

BY ROYAL DISAPPOINTMENT

CARTOON OF THE DAY

Chris Riddell

Or should that be fits the bulk? Expressman Roger Watkins celebrates his 80th birthday before leaving home to visit the Acker Bilk Appreciation Society in his village, or something like that. Here’s to the next 80, Buffy!

Watkins fits the Bilk at 80

Pub fun with Mad George and Big Julie the stripper

DRONE PHOTONEWS EXCLUSIVE

WHERE’S KATE?

Picture edited by Drone Laboratories Workshop Hub

My wordless interview with a disinterested Max Aitken

By KEITH GRAVES

Mentions in the Daily Drone of Max Aitken and his destruction of the Daily Express reminded me of an incident in 1967 when I was a reporter in London. 


I was assigned to cover a by-election in Leicester. It was a ‘safe’ Labour seat but, I was told, the Conservative candidate, Tom Boardman, a wartime hero, was a friend of Max, hence the Express’ interest. 


I was told Max himself wanted to see me before I headed north. He was something of a mystery figure because it appeared no-one below the editor, Derek Marks, had ever met him. 


So when I returned from my ‘meeting’ there was much interest from my colleagues about what had occurred. I had been up there on the top floor for some time. 


Naturally I made much of my ‘discussions’ with the chairman. The reality was that I had been kept waiting by his two secretaries, who clearly did not approve of mere journalists sullying their office, before being told I could enter. I was introduced as ‘Mr Graves the reporter’.


I stood there for several seconds until Aitken, without appearing to look up, said ‘I want Tom Boardman to win.’


Another few seconds passed  and it was obvious my presence was no longer required and I backed out. When I returned to the newsroom I made much of those few seconds during which I cannot remember uttering a single word.


Boardman did win in a surprising upset. But not, I fear, because of my reports but because of his Labour opponents ineptitude.


RANDOM JOTTINGS

Photographer Chris Wood dies at 85

Former Daily Express photographer Chris Wood died yesterday aged 85. 


His brother Steve, also a celebrated Express cameraman, told the Drone: ‘Chris was one of the most hard-working photographers on the Daily Express who covered the south of England and many other assignments. He introduced me to Fleet Street and got me my first job as a photographer. 


‘He leaves a son, Jonathan, who is a brilliant sound and lighting engineer to follow in his footsteps and his wife Carole brought happiness to everyone she met.

Chris and Carole shared a life together in Spain and England.’


‍ The funeral will be held at Southampton Crematorium, Bassett Green Rd, Southampton SO16 3QB on Friday, 22 March at 11.30 am and afterwards at the Pitcher & Piano, Ocean Village SO14 3JB


Pictured, from left, Steve Wood, his brother Chris and Chris’ wife Carole plus an unidentified friend.

TalkTV to go off air as losses mount

Rupert Murdoch is taking TalkTV off linear television to staunch heavy losses, weeks after Piers Morgan’s show retreated to YouTube.


Murdoch’s News UK confirmed that TalkTV will shut down its terrestrial channel, and will move to streaming-only from early summer. It comes after it struggled to attract audiences and was eclipsed by fellow opinion-led upstart broadcaster GB News.


Scott Taunton, News UK’s head of broadcasting, said in a memo to staff: “We now need to focus our investment on where the eyeballs are and where the revenues are in growth. 


“In order to be successful, we need to prioritise being where the audiences are, rather than asking them to come to find us down the channel guide.”


News UK Broadcasting, TalkTV’s parent company, made a loss of £34m in the year TalkTV was launched. With programmes often attracting audiences in the low thousands, the picture is not thought to have improved despite changes to the presenting line up and cost cuts.


JUST FANCY THAT

Sarah Vine on Twitter, Sunday: ‘The Picture Of Kate Kills The Absurd Conspiracy Theories.’

Sarah Vine on Twitter, Monday: ‘Kensington Palace Has A Lot Of Questions To Answer.’

LetterOfTheWeek. Brian Eastty, of Essex, to The Times: I am tempted to give up my landline. But without it what would I use to call my mobile when I’ve mislaid it?

*****

Manipulated’ snaps. Quite the thing these days: ask Kate. But back in 2003 US poster companies were in the mire over doctoring the cover of The Beatles’ Abbey Road. The iconic Ian Macmillian photo of the mopheads on a zebra crossing had been airbrushed to remove a cigarette in McCartney’s right hand. Apple Corps, which owns rights to the pic, was not amused.

*****

Just when you thought it was safe  … a toxic sea slug, the Blue Dragon, has been washing up on beaches in Texas, warns USA Today. The one-inch creature has a vicious sting which can cause nausea, vomiting and ‘searing pain’. Marine biology student Julian Obayd tells The Goss: ‘It’s the most painful thing you can imagine.’ 

*****

Caine’sCorner. Thanks to the advent of the printing press, the number of words written and printed in England between 1000 and 1600 went from a million a year to 100 billion, says The Spectator. NMPKT

*****

University degree?  Better get a plumbing apprenticeship, say career experts. Certainly true in the States where they reckon they’ll be short of 550 plumbers by 2027. A huge recruit-and-train campaign is under way but there’s a way to go. Steady with the wet wipes, gels.

*****

RuralRides. They’ve opened a sex shop on the Frame Hampton bypass. It used to be the Lone Star Diner before it went tits up (sic). Predominantly pink. Huge 24/7 neon sign proclaiming Adult Store. Twee sub deck: Couples Who Play Together, Stay Together. Caleb from the estate workers’ cottages says there are faux fur-covered handcuffs, ‘toys’, paddles and various elixirs, unguents, serums and potions. Whips? ‘Call those whips? Whips, my arse,’ said Caleb, warming to a theme.

*****

A comet larger than Mount Everest will be visible in the night sky over Britain in the next few weeks. The Devil Comet, so called because of horn-shaped haze that surrounds it, passes through the inner solar system every 71 years.

*****

Oooh er, missus! I’ve just been transported back to the banks of the sylvan Wye and the sandstone alma mater of my questing youth. Watching Penny Mordaunt being ever so strict with her Labour and SNP counterparts in the Commons suddenly reminded me of Matron. Oh, frisson! Dark and dangerous waters indeed.

*****

Make love, not war, Sarn’t Major.  Military boffins have seriously considered producing a bomb that would turn thousands of people homosexual, says Le Point. The Gay Bomb was dreamt up in the 90s at the cutting-edge Wright Laboratory in the States. The idea was to release an aphrodisiac so powerful that enemy troops would be overcome by an irresistible desire to have it off with one another. OK, so they didn’t do it but that doesn’t mean they won’t. 

*****

Guess what a new hyper-advanced Google building bristling with green tech and designed to lure back the WFH lead-swingers has not got: decent wi-fi. Unbelievable. Employees have been desperately plugging into ethernet cables or even working outside. Considering they are in the advertising and AI development departments, it’s not a good look, says my man still using the Amstrad CPC 464. Huge swooped roof tiles on the building in Mountain View, California, are being blamed. Google admits there are ‘wi-fi issues’.

*****

The scribbling sisters Brontë may have sounded rather exotic but it wasn’t always thus: Emily, Charlotte and Anne were originally called Brunty. Their father, an Irish Anglican minister, changed his name and, to be flash, added the umlaut in tribute to Lord Nelson, named Duke of Bronte by the King of Naples to thank him for saving the kingdom from the pesky frogs. Bronte was a town in Sicily’s pistachio-growing country which, ahem, the Rev Brunty never actually visited.


GOSS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED

Alan Smith

News in Brief

ALAN SMITH, a former Daily Express sports sub in the 1960s has died aged 90.

He later became deputy sports editor on The People, and Man of the People columnist. His funeral has taken place. 

The Association of Mirror Pensioners has more

Murdoch and Mail group in talks to buy Telegraph

Rupert Murdoch and the owner of the Daily Mail have held talks about a potential joint takeover of The Telegraph alongside UAE-backed RedBird IMI, as opposition to its solo bid hardens.


Mr Murdoch’s News UK and DMGT, which owns the Daily Mail, have held talks about putting money into the bid, Bloomberg reported, in a move that would dilute UAE money in the takeover.


It comes amid rising political hostility to RedBird IMI’s bid, amid concerns about possible state interference. IMI, a state-owned Abu Dhabi fund, has provided 75% of the £1.2bn used to buy The Telegraph and The Spectator from the Barclay family.


RedBird IMI, which is run by former CNN chief Jeff Zucker, has insisted that the UAE will have no input on operations and vowed to put in place protections for editorial independence.


However, the deal is currently in limbo after Culture Secretary Luzy Frazer issued a Public Interest Intervention Notice preventing a merger until the Competition and Markets Authority and Ofcom had investigated.


Both Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on Monday delivered their reports into RedBird IMI’s proposed acquisition of the Telegraph.


Ms Frazer must now decide whether to recommend an in-depth investigation, which could open the door to blocking the deal.


Pressure to do so is growing in Westminster. More than 100 MPs have written to the Prime Minister calling for the Government to block the takeover, describing it as a “dangerous Rubicon”.


Ministers are considering toughening up powers to intervene and block foreign ownership of UK newspapers. Shadow culture secretary Thangam Debbonaire has signalled Labour will block the bid if it wins the next election and the issue is still live.


The pressure has forced RedBird IMI to consider rethinking the structure of the deal. Separately, the Telegraph reported last month that other interested parties were holding discussions about a possible onward sale of the newspaper should RedBird IMI’s bid fail.


BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour host Emma Barnett is joining the Today programme’s presenting team ahead of Martha Kearney’s departure this year. (Press Gazette)


Redbird IMI is reportedly considering a full sale of Telegraph Media Group or getting US investors involved to replace the Abu Dhabi cash after the UK Government introduced legislation to stop foreign state ownership of newspapers and news magazines. (Financial Times)


Tidbit from INMA’s subscriptions summit: The Atlantic is not profitable but hopes to be this year. It also aims to reach one million subscribers in 2024. (INMA)


The family of 24-year-old Oleksandra "Sasha" Kuvshynova, who was killed in Ukraine working for Fox News, are suing the broadcaster. Another Fox journalist, Pierre Zakrzewski, was killed on the same trip, and Fox reporter Benjamin Hall was seriously injured. (NPR)


The inquest into the death of former Liverpool Echo journalist Dan Kay will focus on the mental health care he was receiving in the days before he died last May aged 45. A coroner apologised that the inquest process is moving "so slowly". (Liverpool Echo)


Mike McTighe, previously chairman of Daily Telegraph parent company Press Acquisitions Ltd, has had his role narrowed to just be chairman of The Telegraph. The company says it means McTighe will be "more closely involved in the day-to-day running" of the business and dealing with the challenges posed by its sale. (The Telegraph)


TalkTV presenter Rosanna Lockwood has left the brand due to the upcoming closure of its linear TV channel announced two weeks ago. Lockwood presented the Prime Time news show at 7pm on weekdays. (Lockwood on X/Twitter)


Vox Media has offloaded LGBTQ+ sports website Outsports to LGBTQ+ publisher Q.digital in an all-stock equity transaction organised after Vox started looking at scaling back its portfolio. All seven staff have moved over. (Digiday)Journalists at Reach have voted to accept a 5% pay rise offer, the NUJ says. It means the minimum salary for a senior journalist at Reach will rise to £32,760 from 1 April. (NUJ)


The NCTJ is calling for more people to fill in its Journalists at Work survey. It said this is especially important as it will not publish its usual Diversity in Journalism report this year due to concerns about the accuracy of the data. (NCTJ)


Sour grapes for Pilger

Better known for his investigative journalism, film-making and campaigning, obituaries to John Pilger didn't make much of his talents as a winemaker – and with good reason, reports Popbitch.

Many years ago, John invited a bunch of friends out to his house in Italy. They were sitting on the patio, opening a bottle, when Pilger announced "That's my vineyard at the end of this garden. The wine you are drinking comes from there."

"Hmmm," said one of his cattier friends, taking a sip. "Doesn't travel well, does it?"

ALEX COLLINSON writes: I’m reminded of a magic moment on Mirror features back in the days of glue pots, scissors and copy paper. A sub took to making wine at home and tried to flog bottles of the hideous brew to colleagues, which prompted one wag to post a comment on the features noticeboard: What’s the difference between Kev’s Valpolicella and a bucket of camel urine? Answer: the bucket.


PETER MICHEL adds: There was a lovely follow-up to that magic moment at the Mirror.  The following day someone pinned up a picture of Henry VIII with him saying: "I was having trouble dissolving the monasteries until I discovered Kev’s Valpolicella.”


DON JOHNSTON spotted this letter from Henry Scott-Irvine in the Guardian Media:


Two decades ago I found myself using an internet cafe in Clapham, south London, when my laptop crashed. A quarter of an hour later a man logged on next to me. It was John Pilger.


He explained that he was almost certain that he was being tracked by “the powers that be. Those around us from on high.” I went on to meet the very affable Pilger there several times. I told him how much I admired The Quiet Mutiny (1970), his first film, made for Granada ITV’s weekly series World in Action, about US conscripts in the Vietnam war.


Its helicopter and Miss America pageant sequences later inspired more glorified versions in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979). The Quiet Mutiny also led to Barry Levinson’s Good Morning Vietnam (1987) about the DJ Adrian Cronauer’s satirical antics on air to the frontline troops, as played by the late Robin Williams. The real-life Cronauer opens The Quiet Mutiny in full throttle, yelling: “Good Morning Vietnam!’’



WHAT A LOUSY TRICK
Reach boss announces jobs drive weeks after sacking hundreds of journalists

REACH boss Jim Mullen has added insult to injury by announcing a recruitment drives weeks after sacking hundreds of journalists.


But don’t all rush. The new jobs are for the graveyard shift, working from 10pm to 6am.

 

Mullen announced at the beginning of November that 450 jobs at the group, which publishes the Express, Mirror and Star titles plus regional newspapers, would be lost, including around 300 editorial roles. The following weeks saw a host of experienced staff leaving the business, club football coverage cut back in some towns and cities and 13 websites closed.


Now the company is back on the lookout for new staff. It goes without saying that the roles will be lower paid.


News of the recruitment drive, which will see the creation of five new roles, came in an email to all staff from chief digital publisher David Higgerson,  the HoldtheFrontPage website reported. The company is creating a new ‘overnights team’ to be responsible for covering breaking and trending stories for the group’s ‘Live’ network of websites.


Higgerson wrote: “As we continue to focus on building our audience, we’re creating a new overnights team to improve our overnight coverage and put us on the front foot as we go into each day. We’re kicking off internal recruitment for five new roles (four senior reporters and a content editor), so please apply if you’re interested.


“The team will be responsible for covering breaking and trending stories overnight for our websites. They’ll work closely with colleagues in New York to ensure we’re getting the most out of audience opportunities overnight.Shifts will be 10pm-6am and be remotely based across the UK/Ireland – see the job descriptions for more details.”

The ones that got away

The year is 1986 and the three subs in the centre are celebrating their handsome voluntary redundancy pay-offs at the Daily Express Fleet Street offices in London. Several are no longer with us and are marked with a asterisk *

Pictured from left: Peter Caney*, Alastair McIntyre, redundo trio John ‘Bertie’ Brookes*, Dan McDonald*, and Denis Brierley; Geoff Compton, Les Diver*, and Roger Watkins. Terry Ryle is behind Dennis Brierley who has disappeared without trace but is hopefully still with us (but probably not)

Why we weren’t ready for Eddy

Only here for the Behan

Irish writer Brendan Behan was once invited to Oxford to take part in a debate about the difference between prose and poetry. 


His opponent spoke for almost two hours. Behan rose to his feet and promised to be brief. He recited an old Dublin rhyme.


There was a young fella named Rollocks

Who worked for Ferrier Pollocks.

As he walked on the strand 

With a girl by the hand

The water came up to his ankles.


"That," declared Behan, "is prose. But if the tide had been in it would have been poetry."

DRONE TV

The Daily Express Poem

You’ll Never See a Nipple in the Daily Express

By JOHN COOPER CLARKE, 1976

DAN AND DAN PRESENT ….

The Daily Mail Song

DRONE TV

Fleet Street history in 18 minutes

WE’RE ALL DOOMED!

(According to the Telegraph)

Four headlines from the Telegraph’s comment pages in recent weeks.


Britain has become a lawless country where good people have to live in fear


Western civilisation is being destroyed from within by forces we can’t control


I have glimpsed the terrifying future of lazy, defenceless, near-bankrupt Britain.”


For the first time in my life, I’m now beginning to think Britain is finished.

Drunken day that  Oliver Reed threatened to kill me

News reporters do sometimes get themselves into terrible scrapes, it’s a hazard of the job. BARRY GARDNER knew he was taking a risk when he visited hell-raising actor Oliver Reed. At first everything went well but after more drink was taken the mood changed — and Reed pulled a gun on Barry.

DON’T BE SILLY DEAR


Palaces of the Press

This pic of the Daily Express building in Manchester was posted on Facebook by Pat Wooding.


The photo, probably taken in the 1950s, was spotted by Nick Jenkins who commented: ‘At least the Express building is still there — unlike the fine old Mail building on Deansgate. The DX offices have been converted into flats.


Nick has written a fascinating account of ‘newspaper palaces’ for the British Journalism Review. READ IT HERE

By George, it’s our George starring as, er, Boy George (pity about the moustache)

By GEORGE DEARSLEY

It’s April 1984 and I’m squashed with several other Fleet Street journos in a doorway yards from the Libyan Embassy in St. James Square, where a day earlier WPC Yvonne Fletcher was fatally wounded by an unknown gunman.


The adrenaline is pumping. Could we also be shot? We’ve just had a row with television’s bouffant newsman Michael Cole who tried to push in and was roundly told to Foxtrot Oscar and find his own doorstep. 


Suddenly a colleague hands me a message from the Daily Star newsdesk ordering me to go to another location. I’m excited. Have we been given some secret information about the Met Officer’s murder? It could be a front page story. 


I’m whisked away in a black cab to the address … which turns out to be a top beautician’s salon. Apparently Boy George has just launched a new make-up range and because we share the same name I’m to be made up like the androgynous singer. 


I was fuming to miss out on the world’s top news story. When the woman wanted to shave off my moustache I adamantly refused. The stunt made nearly a full page. 


And two years later when I left the paper my colleagues framed it as a leaving gift. Looking back, maybe I should have been Karma (Chameleon) and lost the tache.

Proof that crime is nothing new

If you think crime today is bad and getting worse you might find reassurance from this front page of the Daily Sketch from December 1945.


A man shot dead in a Glasgow railway station and bandits escape during a ‘fantastic chase’ in Leatherhead. Yes, that’s Leatherhead in quiet, leafy Surrey.


The tabloid Sketch was founded in Manchester in 1909 by Sir Edward Hulton. It was owned by a subsidiary of the Berrys' Allied Newspapers from 1928. The company  was renamed Kemsley Newspapers in 1937 when William Berry, Lord Camrose, withdrew to concentrate his efforts on The Daily Telegraph.


The paper, which supported the Conservatives, struggled through the 1950s and 1960s, never managing to compete successfully with the Daily Mirror, and on Tuesday 11 May 1971 it closed and merged with the Daily Mail.

How Eddy hit the Post

EDDY Shah found fame by taking on Fleet Street’s Bolshie printers by opening Today newspaper but it is perhaps forgotten that he opened a second title, The Post.

The paper was based in Warrington and edited by former Daily Express and Star man Lloyd Turner. It lasted just five weeks, closing in December 1988. Shah later admitted that it was a big mistake.

GEORGE DEARSLEY was there at the start.

READ ALL ABOUT IT HERE

The Daily Drone is published, financed and edited by Alastair ‘Bingo’ McIntyre with contributions from the veteran journalists of old Fleet Street, London’s boulevard of broken dreams. Dedicated to scribblers everywhere.

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