• Imagine the joy of John Witherow, editor of the Times, on learning that for the second time he will reporting to group supremo Rebekah Brooks, whose editing career was entirely spent on red-tops (and from a posh paper’s perspective, she’s arguably even less fitted for the overlord role now, as News UK is down to two broadsheets and one tabloid, the Times papers and the Sun - in her first reign as chief executive, News International’s offering was two of each). The Times’s helmsman also has a more specific reason to be underwhelmed by the comeback queen’s return today. Piers Morgan gleefully records in his diaries that in 1994, when the Sunday Times was about to run extracts from a book in which Prince Charles admitted adultery, Brooks (then Wade) disguised herself as a cleaner, hid in the broadsheet’s loos until copies appeared, and then dashed off to the News of the World with one so it could run a spoiler. The rookie Sunday Times editor then? John Witherow.
• In this connection, Monkey couldn’t help noticing that the Times devoted a page-lead to Brooks’s reappointment last week, but picked a very un-Timesian picture story to fill up the rest of the half-page - the tale of a missing pet which had been injured and assumed to be finished, but happily has been “reunited” with its “family”. No doubt it was pure coincidence, but cynical readers may have been tempted to see the juxtaposition of the two survivors – the former boss back in the top seat at News UK after being acquitted, Max the dog shown back with his smiling owner, who just happens to be called Becky, ie Rebecca - as naughtily deliberate.
• Also pictured in the Times’s Brooks report (though only postage-stamp size) was Tony Gallagher, whose appointment as Sun editor it also covered - so those taking a mischievous view of the juxtaposition might instead see the man who was cruelly sacked as Telegraph editor as the wounded but recovering dog in Becky’s arms. Seeing their faces together was a reminder that this relationship is also likely to be prickly, and not just because the Daily Mail – soon after Gallagher returned there last year as joint deputy editor – made Brooks the target of one of its trademark takedowns (“The world-class schmoozer who bewitched three prime ministers - and Rupert Murdoch. The extraordinary rise of the tugboat crewman’s daughter from Warrington”) following her acquittal. As a Press Gazette profile points out, Gallagher’s reputation owes much to the Telegraph’s award-winning exploitation of the MPs’ expenses leak, but he only had the information to exploit because Brooks at News International had turned it down, raising an obvious question: whose instincts will prevail if another such opportunity arises?
• Though some have expressed surprise at Gallagher’s descent, in little more than 18 months, from a broadsheet (Daily Telegraph) via a mid-market tabloid (the Mail) to a red-top (the Sun), the new job does at least to vindicate his decision to hang on to the same Twitter handle as he hurtled downmarket. Sticking with @gallaghereditor looked the decision of a man in poignant denial in the months after his Telegraph sacking, when he did shifts as a sous-sous-sous-chef at the trendy London restaurant Moro; and then as deputy editor at the Mail the defiantly retained moniker smacked of a naked bid for the Dacre succession. But now Gallagher really is editor again, and hopefully the eccentric tweeted food pics and musings about West Ham won’t stop.
• Are Charlotte Moore and Kim Shillinglaw, respectively the controllers of BBC1 and BBC2, on speaking terms? Monkey only asks because the first week of television’s autumn season saw the kind of clashes between their networks that are natural between BBC channels and their commercial rivals, but are rather alarming when they occur between schedules that are supposed to be “complementary”. Take last Monday, the new season’s kick-off, when BBC1’s autobiographical Lenny Henry drama was head-to-head at 9pm against a self-mocking Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse gala on BBC2 - might there be a bit of audience overlap there, do you think? Or Wednesday, when Shillinglaw’s 9pm offering was the debut of the would-be landmark feminist series, The Ascent of Woman; instead of drama or something blokey, Moore’s BBC1 scheduled against it another brainy female-led documentary, about Kolkata, which had the bonus galling feature of being presented by Sue Perkins, whose successes - Supersizers, Maestro, Bake Off - have mostly been or begun on BBC2. (Inevitable ratings result: strong 23% share for BBC1, pathetic 3.7% share for BBC2). Football-loving BBC head of television Danny Cohen is already rumoured to wear referee’s kit under his suit, but if this kind of argy-bargy continues he’ll have to start blowing his whistle.
• Which celebrity is the only one singled out by Wall to Wall founder Alex Graham as having made a futile fuss about his Who Do You Think You? programme, in an article in a forthcoming book (Adventures in the Lives of Others) on documentary making? Patsy Kensit apparently got cold feet mid-filming, and Ian Hislop lobbied successfully for a rethink, but it was David Baddiel who Graham says, over two hours and “with excessive politeness”, tried to explain to me how he would have directed a better film than the one we came up with. He was convinced we had left gems on the cutting room floor. We hadn’t.”
• Monkey’s subtitling highlight of the month, which occurred when the Ulster Unionists walked out of the power-sharing executive also including Sinn Fein: “UUP say they no longer want to be in coalition with the elliptical arm of the IRA” (Sky News).
