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The Dead Journalists Society (sponsored by Uzbekistan)
Has a new member, Alisher Saipov. Saipov was shot dead outside his office. Of course, there is no evidence connecting the murder of this critic of the Uzbek regime and aforesaid repressive regime. Why only the other week, the European Union was offering Uzbekistan a little carrot, to encourage it to repress a little more…
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Why be a journalist?
Why be a journalist? The recent Forbes report that listed journalism as an endangered profession has got an answer from the ever readable John Robinson: What a crock … the report ignores the two reasons that everyone I’ve ever met in print journalism got into the business: they love the work and they want to…
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The NUJ: the people united shall never get their act together…
When I first tried to join the National Union of Journalists, aged 22, I was told they were full. Really. This was because they were run by ultra-leftists who wanted to mobilise labour by keeping people out of trade unions. It took two years, but eventually they let me in, and by way of punishment…
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Irwin Stelzer, big shot?
Much speculation in the Guardian around lively septuagenarian Irwin Stelzer, and the influence he does or doesn’t carry. Having just returned from the land of the free, I think it’s worth recalling that Stelzer ranks only modestly in the neo-con league, behind such luminaries as Norman Podhoretz. Last Thursday night, I went to hear Norman…