For the record: 06/07/2009

“I think they might benefit from a Beeching-style enquiry to explore just how well they are serving the public with the public’s money and just how many of those media branchlines are really necessary and viable” The ITV newsreader Alastair Stewart questions the value of the BBC

Wade in the money

The newly-appointed News International chief executive Rebekah Wade (pictured right) and new husband Charlie Brooks were not pleased by the scoffing that greeted a recent Tatler profile depicting their jetset lifestyle and private flights to Venice to lunch at Harry’s Bar. Nonetheless, the couple are planning a long-haul trip to Rwanda to look at gorillas, which is an interesting way of preparing Wade for her new role.

TMZ trumps ‘Times’

Congratulations to the website TMZ, not so much for breaking the Michael Jackson story, as for getting a prominent correction published by The Financial Times, which had wrongly accredited the scoop to The Los Angeles Times.

An unfair cop

The Times recently described its investigation to out the police officer behind the Orwell Prize-winning blog Night Jack. Great sleuthing! Det Con Richard Horton clearly identified himself on the voicemail of his mobile phone, the number of which he had freely given to any journalist who asked for it.

Doggone it

After All The President’s Men and State Of Play, another story of, erm, dogged reporting is to hit the silver screen. This latest cinematic examination of the Fourth Estate, featuring Luke Treadaway as a “motivationally-challenged journalist” carrying out investigations in the car parks of North-east England, premieres in August and is titled: Dogging: A Love Story. Great.

Beeny there, seen it

Sarah Beeny has been lined up for a new Channel 4 show. It is surely a signal that the property market really is recovering, except Beeny is looking for volunteers to talk about the “disasters people face when their dream home turns into a nightmare damp, pest infestations, major cracks, leaks, flooding, dry rot or subsidence or worse”. So maybe it isn’t.