For the record: 22/03/2010

'Blatantly Biased against Conservatives.' The rabidly Tory Sun claims to decipher the initials of the corporation

An editor's wrath

Daily Telegraph editor Tony Gallagher is not to be messed with. Thursday's eccentric splash and whole of page three story about a "bizarre plot" in Mid-Bedfordshire involving Esther Rantzen and a former radio presenter, Stephen Rhodes, became clear in the final sentences.

It was revealed that Rhodes, using the pseudonym "Tom Bargery", had approached the paper and "posed as a whistle-blower in an attempt to stop this newspaper's investigations" into his friend, the Tory MP Nadine Dorries, a critic of the Telegraph's expenses coverage. Gallagher won't have liked that. Rhodes now has a higher profile than he ever had on BBC Three Counties Radio.

Time for a close-up

Stylists were on hand for senior writers at The Times, after James Harding's revamp of the paper was deemed incomplete without new by-line photographs to make the staff look more elegant. Writers were ordered to bring a choice of casual attire and formal wear. Very glamorous they look too, if almost unrecognisable.

Chiqui's girl

No need to give a makeover to Wendy Ide, glamorous film critic for The Times, who writes indignantly on the paper's website about being "kicked off" Facebook, despite her online activities being "almost embarrassingly vanilla". Not that vanilla. She later concedes she had posted on her profile a picture of herself with "Stripper of the Year", the nipple tassel-wearing Chiqui. The Times investigated the matter and helped Wendy be readmitted to the site, concluding that "we suspect that it was the hint of pubic hair that offended someone somewhere".

A rush to Africa

Band Aid's ongoing row with the BBC World Service over charity donations is not deterring British media companies from investing in Africa. Virgin Media is setting up an indigenous radio station aimed at 25,000 pygmies in the Congo Basin, advertising agency Ogilvy London has built a school in Uganda which opened last week, and Jazz FM presenters are jumping out of a plane to raise money for a five-year campaign on the station to help tackle malaria in Ghana.