✒ The Daily Telegraph is in theory as keen on freedom of information as it is on free markets, and achieved its greatest recent success by liberating details of MPs' expenses from secrecy. Yet whenever there's embarrassing news about the Telegraph itself, the Barclay brothers' managers become almost Soviet in their tight-lipped approach. So it proved again in Wednesday's paper, which contained reports on other media organisations (13 pars on the Guardian, for example) but not even a nib on the fact that its own editor, Tony Gallagher, had been disappeared the previous day. Nor have readers been vouchsafed any insight into the Telegraph's strategy rethink under Gallagher's nemesis, editor-in-chief Jason Seiken, even though (for example) he reportedly told staff that while the print paper is likely to remain the "Torygraph", the increasingly dominant online product won't necessarily be so true blue.
✒ Still, there will be winners from the Seiken revolution, and an in-house initiative called Telegraph's Got Talent will give hopefuls a chance to shine. Designed to find "people with the potential to be good on camera ... who may, one day, be the future faces of the Telegraph", the competition consists of screen-tests this Wednesday and Thursday. Things have moved on from the days when Telegraph TV seemed to consist mostly of Simon Heffer and other grandees harrumphing, and videos offered as guidance for wannabes include kooky efforts from YouTube showoffs as well as, say, a Sky News-style report on Nigella titbits from the Grillo sisters' trial. "Don't worry about looking daft or taking a risk - if it doesn't come off, we'll keep it to ourselves", the would-be Seiken starlets are promised, but Monkey can't help worrying that any especially entertaining screen-tests are bound to leak out. Just as the gory details of Gallagher's abrupt exit did.
✒ Jeremy Paxman has had much to put up with in making and promoting his series Britain's Great War, which begins on Monday night, submitting dutifully to having to sing a two-word duet with Kate Adie ("smile, smile", for the four-year centenary season's trailer) and to putting on a grim face in countless publicity pics. Among the trials may have been his dealings with the man who rejoices in the title Controller, Great War Centenary. Irony seemed to hang in the air when Paxo addressed hacks at the press screening, listing the "BBC functionaries" involved including "the head honcho – this is Adrian Van Klaveren for those of you who have not had the pleasure".
✒ This was not his only form of gentle revenge. Paxman recalled being "accosted by an old lady" asking why the BBC was not doing a programme about the children of first world war veterans. "It might be quite an interesting idea but I escaped after about 10 minutes by giving her Adrian's address, telephone number, home telephone number, so he'll be hearing from her soon."
✒ The rise of social media has made enforcing embargoes tricky, but few organisations have gone to the farcical lengths that Radio 6 Music did last week in attempting to dictate, in a press release, when the names of the 30 acts booked for its forthcoming festival were made public. The station may be laidback and occasionally a bit rebellious in its music policy and DJ-ing style, but the day of the great unveiling was a glorious display of control freakery, with the line-up revealed one by one on Tuesday on 6 Music itself – from Haim at 10.20am and James Blake at 10.50am, through to Jake Bugg at 3.45pm and Damon Albarn almost inevitably revealed as top-billing at 5.20pm. Jarvis Cocker isn't currently on DJ duty at 6, leaving listeners to wonder what gesture he might have made to controller Bob Shennan had he been asked to take part in the bonkers exercise.
✒ The Duchenne Dash will see more than 100 media folk cycling from Channel 4's HQ to the Eiffel Tower in June to raise money for muscular dystrophy research. And it's to be hoped they'll be accompanied by cameras, given who has signed up: they include C4's Jon Snow, Matt Frei, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Ben De Pear, David Abraham and Lord Burns, ITV's Peter Fincham and Sky News's John Ryley and Dermot Murnaghan, and not all of them are as regular cyclists as Snow. If there are decent pictures, Margaret Hodge, queen of the public accounts committee, might take delight in the struggles of Google's Matt Brittin.
✒ Why was last week's BBC2 two-parter Russia on Four Wheels presented by "Justin Rowlatt and Anita Rani" although alphabetically Anita and Rani precede Justin and Rowlatt and their journeys had equal air-time? "There was no conscious decision" on the order of the names, Monkey is told, yet somehow – in listings billings, in the credits, hence in previews and reviews – the bloke always ended up first.
✒ Express readers on Friday will have been puzzled by its transformation from glumness to glee, as if a New Year course of Prozac had suddenly kicked in. With comforting regularity, every recent Friday splash has brought pre-weekend gloom, usually due to extreme weather. This time there was a glorious front-page array of cheery news for Express folk: Diabetes 'Cure', Madeleine – Arrests Soon, and Royal Birth, with 20 Good Reasons To Be Cheerful This Year as a bonus. Meanwhile, Nathan Rao, the merchant of doom who writes all the apocalyptic Friday weather stories, was doubly humiliated by (a) being banished to faraway page 34, and (b) having his report made sunnier by "yet more torrential rain on the way" ("Bad News") being offset by "no hosepipe bans pledge" ("Good News"). Has Richard Desmond suddenly decreed that the grumpiness must stop?
Jeremy Paxman
Daily Telegraph
Barclay Brothers
6 Music
Jon Snow
Daily Express
Richard Desmond
BBC
Monkey
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