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The apex predators of pointlessness
I remember as an undergraduate wondering why – with so many applicants – were trainee investment bankers so well paid? The answer of course is that investment banking remuneration had broken free from the petty economic tyranny of “supply and demand” and was not being driven down by an over-supply of potential recruits. As Jonathan…
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Reflections on media intrusion in Newtown and Sandy Hook School
Ten days before my wedding, Thomas Hamilton walked into a primary school and killed seventeen people, sixteen of them very young children. The media descended. I descended. I was filming an hour or so away and arrived on the scene as shattered parents waited for news, and local TV news crews slung their cameras, unsure…
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Leveson report: press, police, politicians
If you were drowning, you might not celebrate the lack of appetite amongst the sharks in the ocean in which were submerged. But the Leveson report is out and to read what is left of Britain’s national newspaper industry put forth, between the gulps of sea water, there were hearty cheers. Or perhaps they were just…
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On #Leveson and regulation (from 2004)
Switch on to regulation This article first appeared in the Press Gazette on 22 July 2004. Politicians frequently bemoan the poisonous relationship between themselves and members of the press. Peter Hain asked at a meeting earlier this year what could be done to rebuild relationships between journalists and the government. There is an answer, and it’s one…