Madame Marcati, Suzanne Moore, Rod Liddle and Claire Khaw - Orwell Prize blogger Aspirant

KEEP WATCHING THIS SPACE.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pr4c0#synopsis

http://madamearcati.blogspot.com/2010/01/rod-liddle-and-suzanne-moore-fight-it.html

http://www.anorak.co.uk/236651/media/rod-liddle-and-suzanne-moore-row-over-independent-editors-job-on-facebook.html

Private Eye No 1253, 8-21 January 2010 - Street of Shame

While hacks on the Independent cannot fail to notice the fractious relationship between editor Roger Alton and is deputy Ian Birrell, who seem to have different editorial agendas, the truth is that neither will be decisive in shaping the future direction of the paper.

Instead, hacks keen to work out what they'll be doing this year should be looking to two other men: Alexander Lebedev and Matthew Freud.

Ailing Independent boss Simon Kelner has spent more than 18 months negotiating the sale of the Independent to Lebedev - who may or may not turn it into a freesheet like his other purchase, the London Evening Standard. They will find out soon enough, since the sale is scheduled for completion by mid-February.

Meanwhile, Kelner's long-standing buddy Matthew Freud, has handed over a room in his own offices for the clandestine redesign of the paper that will debut early this year. So close to the action is Freud's PR team that one member, Claire Curran, has ever been known to attend meetings of the paper's executive board. If all goes to plan, the redesign will be accompanied by a major advertising push; but given that the paper is being guided by a PR firm and is about to be purchased by a former KGB agent, it is safe to assume the new campaign is unlikely to reprise the paper's old shout line: "The Independent: It is, Are You?"

Private Eye No 1254, 22 January-4 February 2010 - Street of Shame

Frenzied ululations in the blogosphere and Twitterland at the news that Rod Liddle's buttocks may fill the editor's chair if Alexander Lebedev buys the Independent. By last Friday almost 4,000 people had signed up for the Facebook group "If Rod Liddle becomes editor of the Independent, I will not buy it again".

How many Tweets and Facebook groups are there expressing similar shock at the prospect of the venerable Indie being owned and controlled by a man from the KGB? Er, none.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that Lebedev may install Indie features executive Adam Leigh as Liddle's deputy. Leigh's most obvious qualification for the job is that his uncle is Indie supremo Simon Kelner, but the Guardian omits to mention this. It claims instead that "his appointment could mollify Independent journalists worried that the potential appointment of Liddle could overturn the paper's liberal values".

This surprises some hacks who have worked under Leigh. "Mollify?" one mutters. "Liberal values? The man's a craven philistine and an appalling bully. A worse bully than Max Hastings. At least with Max there was usually a reason why he was angry. With Adam it was just insecurity, always second-guessing what his uncle would want. "

What his uncle now wants is Rod Liddle. Could even Leigh have second-guessed that?