Raise your glasses please! It's media anniversary season on each side of the Atlantic. Tonight, in Britain, The Independent is holding a party to mark its 20th birthday hosted by Tony O'Reilly, ceo of Independent News & Media. I'll be at Lancaster House to hear the speeches, but I won't be hanging around because I will be rushing off to join my City University colleagues who are celebrating 30 years of journalism teaching. It was in September 1976 that Tom Welsh (not Welch, as the invitation says - where were those fact-checkers?) welcomed the first 20 students to City. Now there are more than 200 taking the post-grad courses alone and there are thousands of City alumni working in newspapers, on TV and radio, in magazines, for PR outfits and diverse new media outlets.
Last night, in New York, Rupert Murdoch hosted a lavish party to mark 10 years of Fox News. During that time Fox has become the most popular cable TV news channel and the party reflected its success by ensuring that all its staff were present in the vast tent on West 48th Street, adjacent to the Fox headquarters, There have been rumours of froideur between Murdoch and his network chief Roger Ailes but they praised each other warmly in their speeches. Ailes spoke of Murdoch as a visionary, and Murdoch responded: "I don't think anyone else could have put Fox in this position than Roger Ailes."
And back in Britain, on October 19 there is yet another anniversary event - a special service at Fleet Street's church, St Bride's, to mark 100 years of the existence of the National Publishers Association. The host will be the NPA chairman, Murdoch MacLennan, who is of course, ceo of the Telegraph group. His address will surely be a poignant remembrance of things past as he stands on the threshold of taking his papers into the digital age.
