Janet Street-Porter
A former editor of The Independent on Sunday, Janet Street-Porter is now the paper’s editor-at-large. As a journalist and broadcaster she has had an innovative and groundbreaking career in television, creating programmes for the BBC, Channel 4 and LWT, for which she has won a Bafta and the Prix Italia. She is also vice president of the Rambler’s Association.
Editor-At-Large: Twitter ye not, for it will not change the world
Never mind the twitterati – and here, unusually, I agree with David Cameron – anyone suffering from the desire to communicate what they are doing or thinking every minute of the day in fewer than 140 characters is best described as a twat.
Recently by Janet Street-Porter
Editor-At-Large: Harman could fix things, but the men won't budge
Sunday, 9 August 2009
No wonder many women find politics a turn-off and the idea of a career in Parliament less than appealing. Just look at the amount of vindictive press Harriet Harman attracted over the past seven days. If a mouthy, intelligent female – who, won an open election for her job, unlike her male superior – gets described as "thick" and "an idiot" by that repulsive shagger Rod Liddle in The Spectator, and is relentlessly pilloried day after day in the tabloids, it's no wonder her colleagues, Caroline Flint, Ruth Kelly and Jacqui Smith have jumped ship.
Editor-At-Large: Older mums are 'selfish', but older dads are studs ...
Sunday, 19 July 2009
The death from cancer at 69 last week of the world's oldest mum produced some provocative headlines – and I suspect they were written by men. "Two-year-old twin sons orphaned" is factually correct, but will these small children really ever remember their mother?
Editor-At-Large: Three kinds of sorry, and I know which one I trust
Sunday, 12 July 2009
Formula One racing is not really my kind of sport, but I can see why it attracts millions of fans. Its very existence is a kind of two-fingered salute to the green lobby, and the combination of macho men and glamorous women a jolly reminder of a previous, less politically correct era when having fun was so much simpler. Today's German Grand Prix will have fewer viewers than usual, however, because of remarks made by one of the two unpleasant men who run the sport.
Editor-At-Large: Graduates leave with more debts than knowledge
Sunday, 5 July 2009
On Friday I attended a moving ceremony in Maidstone. Hundreds of graduates of all ages, ethnic backgrounds and social backgrounds patiently queued up to receive their degrees from the University of Creative Arts, where the pass rate is a highly commendable 92 per cent.
Editor-At-Large: Superior BBC bosses take the biscuit over pay
Sunday, 28 June 2009
I can't waste energy getting worked up about BBC executives claiming for parking meters, bunches of flowers, hotel rooms and taxis – it's their smug sense of superiority that makes me nauseous. Pushed into revealing the pay and expenses of their top staff, we were told it was because the corporation is now being run in a more transparent way. Actually, it was because licence-payers and journalists asked hundreds of questions under the Freedom of Information Act.
Editor-At-Large: The class rift at the heart of the expenses debacle
Sunday, 21 June 2009
I laughed and laughed when a hapless MP moaned last week about the hypocrisy of journalists attacking MPs for creative work with their expenses. Well, if only I could claim that my work for this newspaper required my Aga being serviced or my garden weeded, and that charity wreaths, comedy wigs, flapjacks and hair straighteners were essential to carrying out my duties, I'd be thrilled. If I could charge for food against tax, you'd all be invited round on a rotating basis. Even now, MPs just don't get it, do they? On the radio on Friday, someone was trying to justify the expenses debacle by waffling, "They work in a palace, so this kind of grand behaviour has just rubbed off on them." I'm sure that the Queen's footmen can't claim for duck ponds, second homes or crisps, so that argument clearly doesn't wash. Another commentator called it "a sickness" – well, it's a pretty attractive disease that's got them a lot of property, big tellies, and a grandiose sense of their own importance.
Editor-At-Large: Hard-up mums need to work, but kids pay dearly
Sunday, 14 June 2009
Cameron Diaz says the planet is over-populated, and there's too much pressure on women to have children. She's right: I've managed four ex-husbands, a long-suffering partner, no kids and no pets, but deep down, I've always felt I made a selfish choice. My reasons, though, were very different from hers. There was never any question of having a family and a career when I started out, so I made a tough decision. I would never have got this far if I'd decided to breed, taken time off, and tried to combine motherhood with long hours.
Janet Street-Porter: Mixing politics and business turns off voters
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Perhaps Gordon Brown should take a look at the furore surrounding the antics of irrepressible Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and ask himself whether it was such a clever idea to bring Sir Alan Sugar into government. Not because Sir Alan surrounds himself with topless models, or cavorts with gorgeous female television weathergirls when he isn't being brutal on The Apprentice, but because events in Italy prove that mixing politics and the cut-throat attitude you need to run a thriving business causes nothing but trouble and turns off voters.
Editor-At-Large: Supermarkets lop a penny off, then ring up millions
Sunday, 7 June 2009
What recession? If you want to make money, invest in a supermarket. Last week Morrisons shares rose after they reported a sales increase of 8.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2009. Tesco increased sales by 10 per cent over the past year, delivering a record £3.13bn profit. Sainsbury's profits were up 11.3 per cent to £543m, which means their boss takes home about £6m in pay and bonuses. And, even though Marks and Spencer's profits plummeted by 40 per cent to £604m, which meant shareholders get a reduced dividend, it turns out that directors will still receive bonuses of 11.25 per cent of their salaries, even when profits fall 10 per cent below internal targets. If they only manage to achieve these targets, and don't do really well and exceed them, executives can still trouser a whopping 45 per cent of their basic salaries! Even more incredible, the chap M&S; hired to run their food division, dismissed after a mere 112 days in the job, took home more than a million quid, including his "golden hello" of £500,000.
Janet Street-Porter: 'Jeopardy' – television's crack cocaine
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
I only tuned into to the last 10 minutes of the Britain's Got Talent final, and even that tiny bit of blood sport made me feel extremely guilty. Surprising really, as I've created and produced quite a bit of television, and appeared in reality shows, starting with I'm a Celebrity... in 2004.
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