Abstract
From the British Journalism Review of ten years ago (vol.15, issue no. 3, 2004)
‘When politicians rail against journalistic malpractice, the words pot, kettle … and black spring to mind. The public may distrust, with some cause, certain sections of the fourth estate, but its view of politicians – as being largely a bunch of hoodwinkers for whom the truth is a foreign country – is not without foundation … Sir Harold Evans says: “Something is rotten in the state of relations between government and press in Britain.” But who started the rot?’
– BJR editorial
‘Following both the Hutton and Butler inquiries, I am frequently asked what is my view now about what happened a year ago [on Radio 4's Today programme]. I am not one of those who would argue that Andrew Gilligan was “mainly right”. In journalism “mainly right” is like bring half pregnant – it's an unsustainable condition. The facts as they continue to emerge show we got some things right and we got one big thing wrong’
– Richard Sambrook, former director of BBC News and the then director of BBC World Service and Global News
‘He did not only attack the powerful, corrupt and greedy, including bringing down the Tory home secretary Reginald Maudling, but he defended, encouraged and embodied the underdog. There is much in his writing that is invigorating and exhilarating, even poetic, precisely because he was driven by a vision of a more generous and better word … Paul Foot: passionate, living socialist, great journalist – a complete man.’
– Brian Rostron, who worked at the Daily Mirror with the then recently-deceased Paul Foot from 1986 to 1993