Kelner defends Indy drop | Media | The Guardian Kelner defends Indy drop Monday 13 January 2003 08.33 EST First published on Monday 13 January 2003 08.33 EST Share on Messenger Close The editor of the Independent, Simon Kelner , has insisted its owners are committed to the newspaper after its circulation fell by more than any other broadsheet apart from the FT. Kelner said Tony O'Reilly's Independent News and Media was "very settled" and there was room in the market for a broadsheet newspaper that was "free from political affiliation". The latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures show the Independent down 5.46% on the year to 181.933 in December 2002, excluding bulks. The Guardian was down 1.53%, the Telegraph was down 3.52%, the Times lost 5.25% and the FT fell by 6.4%. But Kelner said the paper could ride out the fall. "We have a very settled ownership, a very committed ownership, the paper's good, we've got a very loyal core of readers who like the paper.

And there'll always be room in the market for a paper that's free of proprietorial interference, that's free of political affiliation, that's upmarket, intelligent and surprising. "I feel that while it's difficult for all broadsheet newspapers, we're in no more a difficult situation than anyone else," he told LBC. Kelner said the paper had emerged stronger from its difficult times: before he became editor the paper had a troubled period under the joint editorship of Andrew Marr and Rosie Boycott. "I've been editor for almost five years now. It did go through a terribly rocky time, but I think we've stabilised the paper and we've been faithful to the original vision of the paper," he said. elner also praised the editor of the Mirror, Piers Morgan, for attempting to reposition the tabloid with a more serious agenda. "I think he was right. I think there was an appetite, post-September 11, for more serious accessible news." But he said the execution of the strategy did not always seem to work.

"In a tabloid paper, particularly in this trivialised culture that we have at the moment, you can't have two pages of John Pilger from Cambodia and then two pages of the 3am girls." Morgan has joked he could edit the Mirror in the morning and the Independent in the afternoon: Kelner graciously conceded that he would not be able to do the reverse. Rosie Boycott : definition of Rosie Boycott and synonyms of Rosie Boycott (English) 5 External links Journalism career Daughter of Major Charles Boycott and Betty Boycott née Le Sueur, Rosel Boycott was born in St Helier , Jersey and was educated at the independent Cheltenham Ladies' College and read mathematics at the University of Kent . After working briefly for the radical magazine Friends in 1971, [1] she co-founded the feminist magazine Spare Rib in 1971 with Marsha Rowe . Two years later she and Rowe became directors of Virago Press , a publishing concern committed to women's writing , with Carmen Callil , who had founded the company the previous year. From 1992-96, she was editor of the men's magazine Esquire .

Boycott was the first female editor of two national broadsheets , heading The Independent and its sister publication the Independent on Sunday (1996–98). While editing the Independent on Sunday in 1997, she campaigned for the decriminalisation of cannabis use by individuals, [2] earning her the nickname "Rizla Rosie". [3] She addressed the Decriminalise Cannabis rally in London 's Trafalgar Square on 28 March 1998. [4] Later, she edited the Daily Express (May 1998 - January 2001), leaving soon after the newspaper was bought by Richard Desmond , who replaced her with Chris Williams . She is currently the Travel Editor for The Oldie Magazine and hosts The Oldie Travel Awards each year. Outside journalism Boycott has made several appearances on Newsnight Review and other cultural and current affairs programmes, where the fact that she is a recovering alcoholic has been discussed. She started drinking heavily again after losing her job at the Express. [5] She was banned from driving for three years in September 2003 after crashing on the A303 in Wiltshire , injuring another driver.

She was cut free from the wreckage. A court was told she had also been caught drunk driving the day before. [6] Boycott has presented the BBC Radio 4 programme A Good Read . She has sat on judging panels for literary contests , notably chairing the panel judging the 2001 Orange Prize for Fiction . She is also a media advisor for the Council of Europe . [7] In September 2007, Boycott appeared in the third series of Hell's Kitchen , and was the first contestant to be voted off. Boycott is a Trustee of the Hay Festival in the UK and in Cartagena, Colombia . In March 2002, she denounced the New Labour government as "more reminiscent of a dictatorship than a free healthy democratic system", [8] and announced her support for the Liberal Democrats . She is rumoured to be considering becoming a Parliamentary candidate. Since her accident, Boycott has been running a farm in Somerset . [9] On 5 August 2008 she was appointed as the chairman of London Food as part of Conservative Mayor Boris Johnson 's attempt to help improve Londoners’ access to healthy, locally produced and affordable food.

In June 2009 she appeared on Celebrity MasterChef . In June 2009 she was also one of five volunteers who took part in a BBC series of three programmes Famous, Rich and Homeless about living penniless on the streets of London. [10] Publications Batty Bloomers and Boycott: A Little Etymology of Eponymous Words, Peter Bedrick Books, 1983, ISBN 0-911745-12-2 The Fastest Diet, London: Sphere, 1984.

ISBN 0-7221-1960-7 A Nice Girl Like Me: A Story of the Seventies, 1988, ISBN 0-330-30103-9 All for Love, Fontana Press, 1989, ISBN 0-00-617698-4 Our Farm: A Year in the Life of a Smallholding, London: Bloomsbury, 2007, ISBN 0-7475-8897-X References Andrew Marr : definition of Andrew Marr and synonyms of Andrew Marr (English) Children 1 son and 2 daughters Andrew William Stevenson Marr (born 31 July 1959) is a British journalist and political commentator. He edited The Independent for two years until May 1998, and was political editor of BBC News from 2000 until 2005. He began hosting a political programme Sunday AM, now called The Andrew Marr Show , on Sunday mornings on BBC One from September 2005. Marr also hosts the BBC Radio 4 programme Start the Week .

In 2007 he presented a political history of post-war Britain on BBC Two , Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain , followed by a prequel in 2009 - Andrew Marr's The Making of Modern Britain focusing on the period between 1901 and 1945. In 2010 he presented a series, Andrew Marr's Megacities, examining the life, development and challenges of some of the largest cities in the world. In early 2012 he presented The Diamond Queen , a 3 part series about the 60-year reign of Queen Elizabeth II . [2] Contents 9 External links Early life Marr was born on 31 July 1959 in Glasgow , Scotland [3] to Donald and Valerie Marr, his father being an investment trust manager. Marr was educated in Scotland at Craigflower Prep School, the independent High School of Dundee and at Loretto , also an independent school in Musselburgh , East Lothian , where he was a member of Pinkie House . He went up to read English at Trinity Hall, Cambridge graduating with a first class honours degree.

[3] [4] He was once a member of the Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory . At Cambridge, Marr says he was a "raving leftie ", and he acquired the nickname ' Red Andy'. [5] [6] Newspaper career Marr joined The Scotsman as a trainee and junior business reporter in 1981. He became a parliamentary correspondent for the newspaper in 1984, moving to London at this time, and then a political correspondent in 1986. During this period, Marr met the political journalist Anthony Bevins , who became Marr's mentor and close friend. Bevins was responsible for Marr's first appointment at The Independent as a member of the newspaper's launch staff. Marr left shortly afterwards, and joined The Economist , where he contributed the weekly "Bagehot" political column and ultimately became the magazine's political editor in 1988. Marr has remarked that his time at The Economist "changed me quite a lot" and "made me question a lot of my assumptions".

[7] He admits that while working at The Economist he earned himself the jocular nickname ‘Tearound Tessa’ because of his enthusiasm for trips to the canteen on behalf of his colleagues. [8] Marr returned to The Independent as the newspaper's political editor in 1992, and became its editor in 1996. His period as editor coincided with a particularly turbulent time at the paper. Faced with price cutting by the Murdoch -owned Times , sales had begun to decline, and Marr made two attempts to arrest the slide. He made use of bold 'poster-style' front pages, and then in 1996 radically re-designed the paper along a mainland European model, with Gill Sans headline fonts, and stories being themed and grouped together, rather than according to strict news value. This tinkering ultimately proved disastrous. The limited advertising budget meant the paper's re-launch struggled to get noticed, and when it did, it was mocked for reinterpreting its original marketing slogan 'It Is - Are You' to read 'It's changed - have you?'. The response from some was that many existing readers had indeed changed - to The Guardian . At the beginning of 1998 Marr was sacked.

According to one version of events he was sacked after refusing to implement a further round of redundancies. The author and journalist Nick Cohen writes that Tony Blair 's director of communications, Alastair Campbell demanded that David Montgomery , The Independent 's publisher, sack Marr over an article which compared Blair with his predecessor John Major . Blair, in the offending article, had written "On the day we remember the legend that St George slayed a dragon to protect England, some will argue that there is another dragon to be slayed: Europe." Marr's offence was to suggest Blair was speaking in bad faith, and that the phrase "some will argue" was a weasel phrase to create distance from an otherwise xenophobic article. [9] Three months later he returned to the Independent. Tony O'Reilly had increased his stake in the paper and bought out owners Mirror Group . O'Reilly, who had a high regard for Marr, asked him to collaborate as co-editor with Rosie Boycott , in an arrangement whereby Marr would edit the comment pages, and Boycott would have overall control of the news pages. Many pundits predicted the arrangement would not last, and two months later Boycott left to replace Richard Addis as editor of the Daily Express .

Marr was sole editor again, but only for one week. Simon Kelner , who had worked on the paper when it was first launched accepted the editorship, and asked Marr to stay on as a political columnist. Kelner was not Marr's "cup of tea" Marr observed later, and he left the paper for the final time in May 1998. [10] At the BBC Marr wrote as a columnist for The Daily Express and The Observer before being appointed BBC Political Editor in May 2000. Like his predecessor-but-one John Cole and his famous herringbone overcoat, he soon developed a trademark style, characterised by much gesticulation, as sent up in the comedy impersonation programme Dead Ringers where the impressionists use ridiculously long plastic arms when portraying him. He also became known and widely praised for his ability to describe the background to Westminster gossip and intrigue and explain to viewers and listeners how it would affect their lives.

A great believer in the view that "politics matters", Marr championed the democratic process and saw it as part of his role as Political Editor of the BBC to help make politics meaningful and relevant for many people who tended to see politics as the preserve of a remote, largely male and middle aged Westminster clique. Among his personal scoops as Political Editor were the second resignation of Peter Mandelson , and the interview in late 2004 in which Tony Blair told him that he would not seek a fourth term as Prime Minister should he win the forthcoming general election. Marr was criticised for some of his on air statements during this period. John Pilger claimed that Marr "rejoiced at the vindication of Blair who, he said, had promised 'to take Baghdad without a bloodbath'" during the second Iraq war in March 2003. Pilger has attacked Marr further over an interview with Tony Blair, in which Blair was promoting his memoirs. Pilger is critical towards Marr for not questioning Blair on whether he had colluded with George Bush to invade Iraq and for not bringing up the legality of the invasion.

[11] Marr reviewing the papers with Armando Iannucci and Janine di Giovanni on The Andrew Marr Show in December 2009 During his time as political editor Marr assumed various presentational roles, and announced in 2005 that following the 2005 General Election , he would step down as Political Editor to spend more time with his family. He was replaced as Political Editor by Nick Robinson . In September 2005, he moved to a new role presenting the BBC's Sunday morning flagship news programme Sunday AM, known as The Andrew Marr Show since September 2007; [12] the slot was previously filled with Breakfast with Frost and hosted by Sir David Frost . Marr also hosts the BBC Radio 4 programme Start the Week . In May and June 2007, the BBC broadcast Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain . He presented the five one-hour documentaries, and chronicled the history of Britain from 1945 to 2007.

Unsold copies of the book of the series, a best seller, were recalled in March 2009 by publishers Macmillan when legal action was taken over false claims that domestic violence campaigner Erin Pizzey had been a member of The Angry Brigade terrorist group. [13] [14] According to her own account, in a Guardian interview in 2001, Pizzey had been present at a meeting when they discussed their intention of bombing Biba , a fashion store, and threatened to report their activities to the police. [15] [16] Damages were paid to Pizzey and Marr's book was republished with the error removed. [17] [18] Marr has written several books on politics and journalism, notably state-of-the-nation reflection The Day Britain Died (2000) and My Trade: A Short History of British Journalism (2004). The former was a three-part television series shown after Newsnight on BBC Two from 31 January to 2 February 2000. He has also written several articles for the British political magazine Prospect . In 2008, he presented the prime time BBC One series Britain From Above .

The following year, he contributed a three-part series called Darwin's Dangerous Idea to the BBC Darwin Season , celebrating the bicentenary of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his theory of evolution. He played a small role as himself in a Doctor Who episode, "World War Three"; reporting Slitheen entering 10 Downing Street, he was noted as himself in the credits. In late 2009, BBC Two broadcast his six-part television series on British politics in the first half of the 20th century Andrew Marr's The Making of Modern Britain . [19] In September 2009 on the Sunday before the Labour Party conference in Brighton , Marr interviewed Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Towards the end of the interview, Marr told Brown he wanted to ask about: [20] “ Something everybody has been talking about in the Westminster village... A lot of people in this country use prescription painkillers and pills to help them get through. Are you one of them? ” The Prime Minister responded: "No.

I think this is the sort of questioning which is all too often entering the lexicon of British politics." Marr was later heavily criticised by Labour politicians, [21] the media and fellow political journalists for what was described as a vague question which relied on its source being a singular entry on a political blog. [22] In later interview with Krishnan Guru-Murthy of Channel 4 News , John Ward, the author of the Not Born Yesterday blog, admitted that he has no proof to back up the claim. [23] Politics Wikinews has related news: Andrew Marr angers bloggers, describing them as 'inadequate, pimpled and single' Marr has written about the need to remain impartial and "studiously neutral" whilst delivering news reports and "convey fact, and nothing more". [24] Marr responded to criticism as "pernicious anti-journalism". [25] In the Daily Telegraph he claimed to be a libertarian when discussing his conflicting views on smoking bans. [26] However, writing in The Guardian, he said "And the final answer, frankly, is the vigorous use of state power to coerce and repress.

It may be my Presbyterian background, but I firmly believe that repression can be a great, civilising instrument for good. Stamp hard on certain 'natural' beliefs for long enough and you can almost kill them off. The police are first in line to be burdened further, but a new Race Relations Act will impose the will of the state on millions of other lives too." [27] At an October 2006 BBC seminar discussing impartiality, Marr highlighted alleged bias within the BBC. He stated: "The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities, and gay people. It has a liberal bias, not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias." [28] [29] Marr spoke at the Cheltenham Literary Festival on 10 October 2010 about political blogging. He claimed that "[a] lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed young men sitting in their mother's basements and ranting.

They are very angry people." [30] Other work Marr has helped support the Sense-National Deafblind and Rubella Association , and was the face of a Sense direct marketing appeal. He has also been involved with the charity Common Purpose UK .[ citation needed ] Marr is President of the Galapagos Conservation Trust . Personal life Family Marr lives in East Sheen , London, with his wife, the political journalist Jackie Ashley of The Guardian, whom he married in August 1987 in Surrey . [4] She is a daughter of the Labour Life Peer, the late Lord Ashley of Stoke . The couple have a son and two daughters. [31] Privacy injunction On 28 June 2008, Richard Ingrams reported in The Independent that Marr had obtained a High Court injunction preventing disclosure in the media of "private" information. The order was anonymised, preventing press reporting . The injunction was not mentioned in the UK media until Private Eye commented on it.

[32] On 26 April 2011, following legal action by Private Eye editor Ian Hislop , an interview with Marr was published in the Daily Mail , in which he revealed that the super-injunction had covered the reporting of an extra-marital affair with a female journalist. [33] Marr said that he had believed that a child of the journalist was his, but had learned through a DNA test that it was not. He commented: "I did not come into journalism to go around gagging journalists. Am I embarrassed by it? Yes. Am I uneasy about it? Yes. But at the time there was a crisis in my marriage and I believed there was a young child involved. I also had my own family to think about, and I believed this story was nobody else's business." [34] Hislop had filed a court challenge earlier in April 2011, and described the super-injunction as "pretty rank". [35] Awards In 1995 he was named Columnist of the Year at both the What the Papers Say Awards and the British Press Awards , and received the Journalist Award in the Channel 4 Political Awards of 2001.

[36] He was considered for honorary membership of The Coterie for 2007. [37] Marr has received two British Academy Television Awards : the Richard Dimbleby Award at the 2004 ceremony [38] and the award for Best Specialist Factual Programme (for his History of Modern Britain) at the 2008 ceremony . [39] Marr and his wife were both awarded honorary doctorates from Staffordshire University in July 2009. [40] References Andrew Marr | Open Access articles | Open Access journals | Conference Proceedings | Editors | Authors | Reviewers | scientific events Jackie Ashley (m. 1987–present) [2] Children 1 son and 2 daughters Andrew William Stevenson Marr (born 31 July 1959) is a British broadcaster and journalist. Beginning his career as a political commentator, he subsequently edited The Independent (1996–98), and was political editor of BBC News (2000–05). He began hosting a political programme—Sunday AM, now called The Andrew Marr Show —on Sunday mornings on BBC One from September 2005.

In 2002, Marr took over as host of BBC Radio 4 's long-running Start the Week Monday morning discussion programme . In 2007 he presented a political history of post-war Britain on BBC Two , Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain , followed by a prequel in 2009, Andrew Marr's The Making of Modern Britain , focusing on the period between 1901 and 1945. In 2010, he presented a series, Andrew Marr's Megacities (the title distinguishes it from another Megacities series), examining the life, development and challenges of some of the largest cities in the world. In early 2012 he presented The Diamond Queen , a three-part series about the reign of Queen Elizabeth II . [3] In late September 2012, Marr began presenting Andrew Marr's History of the World , a new series examining the history of human civilisation. Following a stroke in January 2013, Marr was in hospital for two months. He returned to presenting The Andrew Marr Show on 1 September 2013.

[4] Contents 10 External links Early life Marr was born on 31 July 1959 [2] in Glasgow , Scotland, [5] to Donald and Valerie Marr, his father being an investment trust manager. He described his upbringing thus: "My family are religious and go to church... [a]nd I went to church as a boy". [6] Marr was educated in Scotland at Craigflower Preparatory School , the independent High School of Dundee and at Loretto School , [2] also an independent school in Musselburgh , East Lothian , where he was a member of Pinkie House . He went to read English at Trinity Hall, Cambridge , graduating with a first class honours degree. [5] [7] He was once a member of the Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory (an off-shoot of the International-Communist League, now known as the Alliance for Workers' Liberty ). At Cambridge, Marr says he was a "raving leftie ", and he acquired the nickname ' Red Andy'. [8] [9] Newspaper career Marr joined The Scotsman as a trainee and junior business reporter in 1981.

He became a parliamentary correspondent for the newspaper in 1984, moving to London at this time, and then a political correspondent in 1986. During this period, Marr met the political journalist Anthony Bevins , who became Marr's mentor and close friend. Bevins was responsible for Marr's first appointment at The Independent as a member of the newspaper's launch staff. Marr left shortly afterwards, and joined The Economist , where he contributed to the weekly "Bagehot" political column and ultimately became the magazine's political editor in 1988. Marr has remarked that his time at The Economist "changed me quite a lot" and "made me question a lot of my assumptions". [10] Marr returned to The Independent as the newspaper's political editor in 1992, and became its editor in 1996 during a particularly turbulent time at the paper. Faced with price cutting by the Murdoch -owned Times , sales had begun to decline, and Marr made two attempts to arrest the slide.

He made use of bold 'poster-style' front pages, and then in 1996 radically re-designed the paper along a mainland European model, with Gill Sans headline fonts, and stories being themed and grouped together, rather than according to strict news value. This tinkering ultimately proved disastrous. The limited advertising budget meant the paper's re-launch struggled to gain attention, and when it did, it was mocked for reinterpreting its original marketing slogan 'It Is – Are You' to read 'It's changed – have you?'. At the beginning of 1998 Marr was sacked. According to one version of events he was sacked after refusing to implement redundancies that would have reduced the newspaper's production staff to just five subeditors. [11] The author and journalist Nick Cohen writes that Tony Blair 's director of communications, Alastair Campbell , demanded that David Montgomery , The Independent 's publisher, sack Marr over an article which compared Blair with his predecessor John Major .

Blair, in an article in The Sun , had written "On the day we remember the legend that St George slayed a dragon to protect England, some will argue that there is another dragon to be slayed: Europe." Marr's response asserted that Blair spoke in bad faith (championing Europe to pro-EU audiences, and criticizing it to anti-EU ones) and that the phrase "some will argue" used weasel words to create distance from an otherwise xenophobic article. [12] Three months later he returned to The Independent. Tony O'Reilly had increased his stake in the paper and bought out owners Mirror Group . O'Reilly, who had a high regard for Marr, asked him to collaborate as co-editor with Rosie Boycott , in an arrangement whereby Marr would edit the comment pages, and Boycott would have overall control of the news pages. [11] Many pundits predicted the arrangement would not last and two months later, Boycott left to replace Richard Addis as editor of the Daily Express . Marr was sole editor again, but only for one week. Simon Kelner , who had worked on the paper when it was first launched, accepted the editorship and asked Marr to stay on as a political columnist.

Kelner was not Marr's "cup of tea", Marr observed later, and he left the paper for the last time in May 1998. [13] Marr was then a columnist for the Daily Express and The Observer . Marr presented a three-part television series shown on BBC Two from 31 January to 2 February 2000 after Newsnight. A state-of-the-nation reflection, The Day Britain Died (2000) also had an accompanying book. Among Marr's other publications is My Trade: A Short History of British Journalism (2004). At the BBC Political editor Marr was appointed BBC Political Editor in May 2000. Among his personal scoops as Political Editor were the second resignation of Peter Mandelson , and the interview in late 2004 in which Tony Blair told him that he would not seek a fourth term as Prime Minister should he win the forthcoming general election. During his time as political editor Marr assumed various presentational roles, and announced in 2005 that following the 2005 General Election , he would step down as Political Editor to spend more time with his family. He was succeeded as Political Editor by Nick Robinson .

Programmes 2005–09 File:Συνέντευξη στον δημοσιογράφο Andrew Marr του "BBC One".jpg Andrew Marr meeting Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou in 2010 In September 2005, he moved to a new role presenting the BBC's Sunday morning flagship news programme Sunday AM, known as The Andrew Marr Show since September 2007; [14] the slot was previously filled by Breakfast with Frost and hosted by Sir David Frost . Marr also presented the BBC Radio 4 programme Start the Week until his illness in 2013, but may return as the programme's regular host. [15] In May and June 2007, the BBC broadcast Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain . He presented the series of five one-hour documentaries chronicling the history of Britain from 1945 to 2007.

Unsold copies of the book of the series, a best-seller, were recalled in March 2009 by publishers Macmillan when legal action was taken over false claims that domestic violence campaigner Erin Pizzey had been a member of The Angry Brigade terrorist group. [16] [17] According to her own account, in a Guardian interview in 2001, Pizzey had been present at a meeting when they discussed their intention of bombing Biba , a fashion store, and threatened to report their activities to the police. [18] [19] Damages were paid to Pizzey and Marr's book was republished with the error removed. [20] [21] In 2008, he presented the prime time BBC One series Britain From Above . The following year, he contributed a three-part series called Darwin's Dangerous Idea to the BBC Darwin Season , celebrating the bicentenary of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his theory of evolution .

BBC programmes since 2009 Andrew Marr interviewing Vladimir Putin ahead of the Sochi Olympics In late 2009, BBC Two broadcast his six-part television series on British politics in the first half of the 20th century Andrew Marr's The Making of Modern Britain . [22] In September 2009 on the Sunday before the Labour Party conference in Brighton , Marr interviewed Prime Minister Gordon Brown . Towards the end of the interview, Marr told Brown he wanted to ask about: [23] “ Something everybody has been talking about in the Westminster village... A lot of people in this country use prescription painkillers and pills to help them get through. Are you one of them? ” The Prime Minister responded: "No. I think this is the sort of questioning which is all too often entering the lexicon of British politics." Marr was later heavily criticised by Labour politicians, [24] the media and fellow political journalists for what was described as a vague question which relied on its source being a single entry on a political blog.

[25] In a later interview with Krishnan Guru-Murthy of Channel 4 News , John Ward, the author of the Not Born Yesterday blog, admitted that he has no proof to back up the claim. [26] In early 2012, Marr presented a three-part TV series on BBC One looking at the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II in the run-up to the main celebrations of her Diamond Jubilee . [27] Following the death of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on 8 April 2013, Marr narrated a memorial documentary, Margaret Thatcher: Prime Minister. [29] Politics Wikinews has related news: Andrew Marr angers bloggers, describing them as 'inadequate, pimpled and single' Marr has written about the need to remain impartial and "studiously neutral" whilst delivering news reports and "convey fact, and nothing more". [30] In the Daily Telegraph , he claimed to be a libertarian when discussing his conflicting views on smoking bans. [31] However, writing in The Guardian, he said "And the final answer, frankly, is the vigorous use of state power to coerce and repress.

It may be my Presbyterian background, but I firmly believe that repression can be a great, civilising instrument for good. Stamp hard on certain 'natural' beliefs for long enough and you can almost kill them off. The police are first in line to be burdened further, but a new Race Relations Act will impose the will of the state on millions of other lives too." [32] At an October 2006, BBC seminar discussing impartiality, Marr highlighted alleged bias within the BBC. He stated: "The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities, and gay people. It has a liberal bias, not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias." [33] [34] Marr spoke at the Cheltenham Literary Festival on 10 October 2010 about political blogging. He claimed that "[a] lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed young men sitting in their mother's basements and ranting.

They are very angry people." [35] In March 2014 Marr was criticised for expressing his own opinion on an independent Scotland's membership of the EU while interviewing Alex Salmond on BBC TV. [36] Other work Marr has helped support the Sense-National Deafblind and Rubella Association , and was the face of a Sense direct marketing appeal. He was President of the Galapagos Conservation Trust until 2013. [37] In 2007 and 2014 Andrew Marr supported the charity iDE UK in the BBC Radio 4 Appeal and subsequently became a patron. [38] Personal life Marr lives in East Sheen , London, with his wife, the political journalist Jackie Ashley of The Guardian, whom he married in August 1987 in Surrey . [7] She is a daughter of the Labour life peer , Lord Ashley of Stoke (1922–2012). The couple have a son and two daughters. [39] On 8 January 2013, Marr was taken to hospital after suffering a stroke at home.

[40] He left hospital on 3 March and said he hoped to return to work later in the year. [41] He appeared as a guest on The Andrew Marr Show on 14 April [42] and returned twice to interview David Miliband and the prime minister , David Cameron , before it was announced that Marr would return to presenting The Andrew Marr Show on 1 September 2013. Marr has described his religious views: "Am I religious? No. Do I believe in anything? No. I just don't have that bump." He also stated "I'm an irreligious Calvinist". [6] Privacy injunction On 28 June 2008, Richard Ingrams reported in The Independent that Marr had been granted a High Court ' super-injunction ' preventing disclosure in the media of "private" information, or the existence of the injunction. Private Eye had revealed the existence of the injunction earlier in the week, having successfully challenged the need for its existence to be kept secret.

[43] On 26 April 2011, following legal action by Private Eye editor Ian Hislop , an interview with Marr was published in the Daily Mail , in which he revealed that the super-injunction had covered the reporting of an extra-marital affair with a female journalist. [44] Hislop had filed a court challenge earlier in April 2011, and described the super-injunction as "pretty rank". [45] Awards In 1995 he was named Columnist of the Year at both the What the Papers Say Awards and the British Press Awards , and received the Journalist Award in the Channel 4 Political Awards of 2001. [46] He was considered for honorary membership of The Coterie for 2007. [47] [ clarification needed ] Marr has received two British Academy Television Awards : the Richard Dimbleby Award at the 2004 ceremony [48] and the award for Best Specialist Factual Programme (for his History of Modern Britain) at the 2008 ceremony . [49] Marr and his wife were both awarded honorary doctorates from Staffordshire University in July 2009.

[50] Books The Independent Biography : : Bihar Urdu Youth Forum Typical front page of The Independent The Independent is a British newspaper published by Alexander Lebedev's Independent Print Limited. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily newspapers. The daily edition was named National Newspaper of the Year at the 2004 British Press Awards. Originally a broadsheet newspaper, since 2003 it has been published in a tabloid format. The Independent is regarded as leaning to the left politically although it has not affiliated itself to any political party and a range of views can be found on its editorial and comment pages. The paper had a certified average daily circulation of 183,547 copies in February 2010, down 10.88% from the previous year. The Independent was first published on 7 October 1986 as a broadsheet. It was produced by Newspaper Publishing plc and created by Andreas Whittam Smith, Stephen Glover and Matthew Symonds.

All three were former journalists at The Daily Telegraph who had left the paper towards the end of Lord Hartwell's ownership. Marcus Sieff was the first chairman of Newspaper Publishing and Whittam Smith took control of the paper. The paper was created at a time of tension in British journalism. Rupert Murdoch was challenging long-accepted practices and fighting with the print unions. In this atmosphere the new paper attracted staff from Murdoch broadsheets who preferred not to move to Wapping. Launched with the advertising slogan "It is. Are you?", and challenging The Guardian for centre-left readers, and The Times as a newspaper of record, it reached a circulation of over 400,000 in 1989. Competing in a moribund market, The Independent sparked a general freshening of newspaper design as well as a price war. The market was tight and when The Independent launched an independent Sunday edition in 1990, sales were less than anticipated (partly due to the launch of the ill-fated Sunday Correspondent some months earlier). Some aspects of production merged with the main paper, although with a largely distinct editorial staff.

In the 1990s, The Independent started an advertising campaign accusing The Times and The Daily Telegraph of reflecting the views of their proprietors, Rupert Murdoch and Conrad Black. It featured spoofs of their mastheads with the words 'THE RUPERT MURDOCH', 'The Conrad Black', and below, 'THE INDEPENDENT'. By the 1990s, Newspaper Publishing had financial problems. Several other newspapers launched in the 1980s, including the Sunday Correspondent had collapsed without enough readers to ensure profitability, and The Independent was experiencing similar problems. Two European media groups took small stakes. A number of other media companies were interested in the paper. Sir Tony O Reilly's media group and Mirror Group Newspapers developed substantial stakes by mid-1994. In March 1995 Newspaper Publishing was restructured with a rights issue, splitting the shareholding into Independent News & Media (43%), MGN (43%), and Prisa (El Pais, 12%).

In the same month, Whittam Smith left the paper.[citation needed] In April 1996 there was another refinancing and in March 1998 O'Reilly bought the other 54% of the company for £30 million, and assumed the company's debt. Brendan Hopkins headed Independent News while Andrew Marr was appointed editor of The Independent and Rosie Boycott of The Independent on Sunday. Marr introduced a dramatic if short-lived redesign which won critical favour but was a commercial failure, partly as a result of a limited promotional budget. Marr admitted his changes were foolhardy in his semi-autobiographical, My Trade Boycott left in April 1998 to The Daily Express and Marr in May 1998, later to join the BBC as political editor. Simon Kelner was made editor. By this time the circulation had fallen below 200,000. Independent News spent heavily to improve circulation and the paper had a number of redesigns. While circulation improved it did not approach 1989 or restore profitability and job cuts and financial controls took their toll on the journalists and their morale.

Ivan Fallon, on the board since 1995 and once a key figure at the Sunday Times, replaced Hopkins as head of Independent News & Media in July 2002. By mid 2004, the newspaper was losing £5million a year. A gradual improvement meant that by 2006, circulation was at a nine-year highOn 28 November 2008, following staff cuts, a move of production was announced to Northcliffe House, headquarters of Associated Newspapers The two newspaper groups' editorial, management and commercial operations remained separate but shared services including security, IT, switchboard and payroll. On 25 March 2010 Independent News & Media sold the newspaper to a company controlled by Alexander Lebedev. Alexander Lebedev had bought a controlling stake in London's Evening Standard, a newspaper based in the same building, in 2009. Two weeks later, editor Roger Alton stood down. The Independent was originally published as a broadsheet but from September 2003 was produced in both broadsheet and tabloid versions, with the same content in each.

The tabloid edition was termed “compact” to distance itself from the more sensationalist reporting style usually associated with "tabloid" newspapers in the UK. After launching in the London area and subsequently the northwest, the smaller format appeared gradually throughout the UK. Soon afterwards Rupert Murdoch's Times followed suit and introduced its own tabloid version. Prior to these changes, The Independent had a daily circulation of around 217,500, the lowest of any major national British daily, climbing to claim a 15% rise by March 2004 (to 250,000). Throughout much of 2006, circulation stagnated at a quarter of a million. On 14 May 2004, The Independent produced its last weekday broadsheet, having stopped producing a Saturday broadsheet edition in January. The Independent on Sunday published its last simultaneous broadsheet on 9 October 2005, and has since followed a compact design. On 12 April 2005, The Independent redesigned its layout to a more European feel, similar to France's Libération. The redesign was out by a Barcelona-based design studio.

The weekday second section was subsumed within the main paper, double-page feature articles became common in the main news pages, and there were revisions to front and back covers A new second section, Extra, was introduced on 25 April 2006. It is similar to The Guardian's G2 and The Times' Times2, containing features, reportage and games, including sudoku. In June 2007 The Independent on Sunday consolidated its content into a news section which included sports and business, and a magazine focusing on life and culture. On 23 September 2008 the main newspaper became full-colour and "Extra" was replaced by a "Independent Life Supplement" focusing on different themes each day. Following it Three weeks after the acquisition of the paper by Alexander Lebedev in 2010, the paper was relaunched with another redesign on 20 April. The new format featured smaller headlines and a new pullout "Viewspaper" section, which contained the paper's comment and feature articles.

On 23 January 2008, The Independent relaunched its online edition independent.co.uk The relaunched site introduced a new look, better access to the blog service, priority on image and video content and additional areas of the site including art, architecture, fashion, gadgets and health. The paper launched Podcast programmes such as The Independent Music Radio Show, The Independent Travel Guides, The Independent Sailing Podcasts, and The Independent Video Travel Guides. Since 2009, the website has carried short video news bulletins provided by the Al Jazeera English news channel When the paper was established in 1986, the founders intended its political stance to reflect the centre of the British political spectrum and thought that it would take readers primarily from The Times and The Daily Telegraph.

However it is now seen as tending towards left-wing views, more a competitor to The Guardian, even though it still features conservative columnists such as Bruce Anderson and Dominic Lawson and tends to take a classical liberal, pro-market, stance on economic issues A 2004 poll by MORI showed 39% of readers were Liberal Democrat voters while 36% supported the Labour party The paper took a strong editorial position against the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and aspects of US and UK foreign policy related to the War on Terrorism following the September 11 attacks. It has also been critical of Israeli government policies and highlighted what it refers to as “war crimes” being committed by pro-government forces in the Darfur region of Sudan. A leader published on the day of the London Mayoral election of 2008 which compared the candidates said that, if the newspaper had a vote, it would vote first for the Green Party candidate, Sian Berry, noting the similarity between her priorities and those of The Independent, and secondly, with "rather heavy heart", for the then incumbent, Ken Livingstone.

The paper has also taken strong positions on environmental issues, and has run campaigns for electoral reform, against the introduction of ID cards and against the restriction of mass immigration to the UK. In 1997 The Independent on Sunday launched a campaign for the decriminalisation of cannabis, however ten years on it reversed that position, writing that it had underestimated the harm caused by the latest strains of the drug Originally it avoided royal stories, with Whittam Smith later saying he thought the British press was “unduly besotted” with the Royal Family and that a newspaper could “manage without” stories that focused on the monarchy. The Independent sponsors The Longford Prize, in memory of Lord Longford.

Sections The weekday, Saturday and Sunday editions of The Independent all include supplements and pull-out subsections - Editors Former Independent editor Simon Kelner: ‘The paper had a real soul' | Media | The Guardian Independent News & Media Former Independent editor Simon Kelner: ‘The paper had a real soul' As its final print run goes to press, the paper’s longest-serving editor recalls the highs and lows of its 30-year life – including his ‘proudest moment’ when it was attacked by Tony Blair – and ponders the future of a beleaguered industry ‘The Independent, unburdened by tradition and conservative thinking, was always light on its feet’… Simon Kelner, centre, with staff in the newsroom in 2006. Photograph: The Independe/REX/Shutterstock Saturday 26 March 2016 02.00 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 20 September 2016 10.03 EDT Share on Messenger Close On the day the Independent announced it was to cease publication , I went to see Spotlight, the Oscar-winning movie about the Boston Globe’s investigative unit.

At the climax of this film, which traces the exposure of systemic abuse in the Catholic church, we see the newspaper vans leaving the printing works. It’s a symbolic scene, illustrating the very moment when a piece of news reaches a wider public. Its symbolism would not be lost on anyone who cares for the future of independent, not to mention Independent, journalism. Independent prints souvenir pullout as it moves to online only Read more Printing presses? Vans? For the Independent, a paper I edited for a total of more than 12 years, these physical manifestations of a traditional newspaper are obsolete. From now on, the paper will exist only in an online form, and the idea that there is a moment – perhaps over breakfast or on the way to work – when a loose community of like-minded people would be having the same experience, will become just a memory. The Independent, which came into being in 1986 as a bulwark against the hegemony of the UK’s press barons, has succumbed to economic gravity, and its 9,193rd edition will be the last on sale at newsagents.

It’s little short of a miracle that the paper lasted almost 30 years and, ironically given its origins, it has done so only through the indulgence of a devoted, benevolent and very wealthy proprietor: first Tony O’Reilly, and latterly Alexander Lebedev . Pinterest The front page of the Independent’s final print edition. Photograph: The Independent/PA O’Reilly, a self-made billionaire who had a profitable chain of newspapers in Ireland, South Africa and Australasia, had owned the paper for two months when he appointed me as editor in May 1998. At the time, I was editing Night & Day magazine for the Mail on Sunday, although I had been at the Indy at launch (as deputy sports editor) and had another spell at the paper in the mid-1990s as night editor and features editor. The paper had gone through some choppy waters when I took over the editorship from Andrew Marr, and it’s safe to say that my appointment was a surprise to some people, and a disappointment to others.

I was told that the saintly Andreas Whittam Smith had called the newsdesk to say it was “a disaster”, and his fellow founder Stephen Glover, in a characteristically high-handed piece in the Spectator, said I was someone “who had not set foot in a decent educational establishment”. Even my own mother was nonplussed. When I phoned to tell her of my elevation, she asked: “What happened to that woman who was the editor?” “Rosie Boycott?” I responded. “She went to the Daily Express.” “Oh,” my mother said, “She’s done very well.” This may be an exampleof a classic Jewish mother’s reaction but, in the eyes of people even more informed than my mum, I had taken on a nigh impossible task. Pinterest Journalists including Chris McKane (centre, seated) during the launch of the Independent in 1986. Photograph: Herbie Knott / Rex Features It seems incredible to reflect now that one of the ominous portents that greeted me on assuming the editor’s chair was that daily circulation had just fallen below 200,000.

Even more incredibly, the paper once sold more than 400,000 (in 1989). The last recorded circulation figure for the Independent is likely to be around 55,000. The story of the Independent might appear one of steady, inexorable decline. Not so. Its history includes so many peaks and troughs, so many triumphs and disasters, so much time looking over the precipice, that little was ever steady. But from the necessity of staying alive came the invention that was a hallmark of the paper throughout its history. The Independent, unburdened by tradition and conservative thinking, was always light on its feet, and its reputation for innovation – marked by the introduction of a tabloid edition in 2002 and the launch of the i eight years later – was well-deserved. In 1986, the Independent was born looking established and serious, but that masked a buccaneering spirit that was embodied by Whittam Smith. He inspired a journalistic culture in which the received wisdom was challenged, and in which ideas – however barmy – were encouraged. It was a bracing environment, and we really did feel like we were redrawing the landscape.

Pinterest The Independent’s ‘devoted and wealthy’ proprietor since 2009, Alexander Lebedev. Photograph: Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters There was a sense of collaborative endeavour that pertained to the end. In the beginning this was manifest in the awarding of share options to every member of staff (some even made money out of them). We were stakeholders, in every sense of the word, and each morning, the late Elkan Allan, editor of the listings section (another Independent innovation), would walk up and down his commuter train and count the number of Independents being read. He would later circulate the figures in an email to all staff. They provided an astonishingly accurate picture of the traction the nascent paper was getting in the quality market. Private Eye liked to lampoon the paper as the “Indescribablyboring”, but in its formative years it had an impressively eclectic mix of commentators and reporters: names such as James Fenton, Tony Bevins, Sarah Hogg, Peter Jenkins, Tom Sutcliffe, Andrew Marr, Isabel Hilton, Alexander Chancellor, Rupert Cornwell, Ken Jones. The foreign desk had an editor for every continent. There was an array of talent in each department.

Bill Bryson was a subeditor, Sebastian Faulks was literary editor and Henry Winter, now the doyen of football writers, was on work experience with the sports department. Some time later, Bridget Jones was let loose on the world. It was, in truth, anything but dull. This week, at the British Press awards, the editors of the Independent, the Independent on Sunday and the i were given a standing ovation as they made their way to the stage to take the Chairman’s award. There was a genuine affection in the room, a recognition of the papers’ achievements, and a salute to the indefatigability of its journalists. But those who applauded generously could be forgiven for feeling anxious about their own future, wondering when the unstoppable tide will engulf them. Pinterest Tony O’Reilly, the ‘conservative, mildly Eurosceptic supporter of George Bush and proponent of the Iraq war’ who also bankrolled the Independent. Photograph: David Levenson/Getty Images “It’s the only award we get all night, and it’s for shutting a newspaper,” Amol Rajan, current editor of the paper, noted as he accepted the award.

It was only half a joke, and his comment resonated for the many us who had spent a large part of our careers trying to keep the paper alive. It was a battle that was to prove, for the unfortunate Rajan and his dedicated staff, increasingly unequal, and now the story has reached an inevitable conclusion. Early in the morning of Tuesday 5 May 1998, I met my new lieutenants, Ian Birrell (deputy editor) and Tristan Davies (assistant editor), at a Canary Wharf coffee shop. Tristan and I had worked closely together at the Indy previously, and were steeped in the paper’s traditions. We knew what to expect. The previous Sunday, David Aaronovitch, one of the Independent’s star columnists, had written, in his Sunday TV review, something like this: “The plot was so far-fetched, it was like the editor of a lifestyle magazine taking over a quality newspaper. No, that’s just too ridiculous.” We emerged on the 18th floor of One Canada Square, and I walked to the editor’s office. “Good morning,” I said to the woman who was to be my secretary. “What’s good about it?” she shot back.

The primary sense I got from my re-acquaintance with the Independent was that anarchy had broken out. Later that morning, I addressed the staff, who had the demeanour of the traumatised victims of psychological warfare. They wanted to know, above all, whether there would be another round of redundancies – under the paper’s previous owners, the Mirror Group, there had been significant job cuts – and whether O’Reilly was committed to funding the papers. Morale was extremely low, and it was easy to understand why. The papers had been through a turbulent few years under a Mirror Group led by arch slash-and-burner David Montgomery, and circulation was falling alarmingly. The Independent we took over had been bequeathed to us by Andrew Marr , whose bold experiment to create a new kind of paper had failed the test of the newsstand. Marr might have just been a few years ahead of his time. He introduced poster-style front pages (a feature of the paper’s successful transition to the tabloid format in 2003) and changed the design to mirror the upmarket European titles (like the Guardian’s transformation to the Berliner size in 2005).

Pinterest The Independent’s founders, (from left) Andreas Whittam Smith, Stephen Glover and Matthew Symonds. Photograph: Jane Bown for the Guardian But it was his idea to break up the rigid hierarchy of traditional newspapers – by grouping news stories together by subject – that proved a step too far, and confused readers and journalists alike. Andrew Marshall, the paper’s laconic foreign editor, told me later that this approach hit its nadir when, having filed a piece about new revelations concerning the Graf airship , he saw Marr advancing, asking whether anyone had any other stories about Zeppelins. We set about re-engineering the paper along more traditional lines, with more than a nod to its origins. Together with Tristan, a creative powerhouse – and Ian, who performed the invaluable role of challenging every decision by asking: “Why?” – we produced a handsome broadsheet newspaper full of attitude and vigorous journalism. It was the umpteenth redesign in the Indy’s short life, but it seemed to work. In 1999, I was given the Edgar Wallace award by the London Press Club for “reviving the paper’s fortunes”, and was also named editor of the year at the What the Papers Say awards.

The renewed confidence that was apparent both inside and outside the paper, however, was made possible only by O’Reilly, who increased the editorial budget, backed our changes, invested in a marketing campaign and gave us the freedom to operate without editorial interference or prescription. One illustration of that came at a lunch held in our Docklands offices in the run-up to the Iraq war in 2003. Alastair Campbell was the guest, and also present were a number of senior journalists, as well as Chryss O’Reilly, Tony’s wife, Ivan Fallon, the chief executive, and Terry Grote, managing director. At the end of a robust lunch during which the war was the only topic of conversation, Campbell asked for a show of hands: who supported the war and who didn’t? All the journalists, defending our emphatic anti-war stance, raised their hands in opposition. O’Reilly, his wife, and his executive team put their hands up in support. Pinterest The final editor of the Independent, Amol Rajan, right, with Oliver Duff, editor of the i.

Photograph: Justin Sutcliffe When I next saw Campbell, he said how impressive it was that we had a proprietor who had no influence on editorial policy. “Tell that story to anyone who doubts your independence,” he said. And so it was that O’Reilly – a conservative, mildly Eurosceptic supporter of George Bush, proponent of the Iraq war – bankrolled a newspaper that was vehemently none of those things. What’s more, he withstood multimillion-pound losses every year to ensure that it flourished. In the end, his loyalty to the Independent titles played a large part in the unravelling of his empire, once it came under attack by Denis O’Brien, who had little interest in this luxury item. In the recent encomia about the Independent, far too little credit has been given to O’Reilly. The Guardian view on the end of the Independent in print: we mourn a class act | Editorial Read more In 2002, desperate to find a big idea and halt the circulation slide that was by then endemic in the industry, Fallon and I discussed the idea of turning the paper into a tabloid. It was a highly risky strategy, because there would be no turning back.

We called it a “compact”, in case association with the word tabloid would frighten the horses. After a couple of false starts – I even got the renowned architect and designer John Pawson to attempt a radical remaking of the paper (a bit too radical, sadly) – we had finally settled on a sober approach that would not leave us open to the accusation that we’d dumbed down. And as a further insurance, we gave our readers a choice, by putting both broadsheet and tabloid on the newsstand together . No contest – by the end of 2002, we were able to cease publication of the broadsheet. In its new guise, the paper’s circulation went up by almost a third. The Iraq war gave us a cause by which to define ourselves, and we began to use the tabloid canvas more inventively. We developed a more campaigning edge to our journalism. Our opposition to the situation in Iraq, led by the peerless reporting of Robert Fisk and Patrick Cockburn, made us stand out in a market in which news had become a commodity. We were named newspaper of the year in 2003. Pinterest Simon Kelner in 2007.

Photograph: REX/Shutterstock Tony Blair left office in 2007, but not before he had excoriated us in his valedictory “feral beast” speech . In a treatise on the media’s shortfalls, he singled out the Independent for particular criticism. We were the “metaphor for [the] genre of modern journalism” that presented news as comment and thereby failed to provide balanced coverage. Watching him on television, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was one of the proudest moments of my career: it was manifestly unfair, but it was also a validation of what we had done those past few years. We had made our point, and it had hit home. The Independent had always had an impact disproportionate to its reach. I had spent two years as managing director , during which I helped sell the papers to the Lebedev family, and then returned for a brief spell as editor in 2010. They have proved to be proprietors in the best traditions of the Independent, and, notwithstanding Evgeny Lebedev’s frequent appearances in its pages , they deserve a great deal of respect for supporting the paper through the toughest economic climate.

Even now, as they bow to the inevitable, they are migrating the most eminent journalists – Fisk, Cockburn, Grace Dent – to the digital edition. Whether the revenues available online will sustain quality journalism is a huge question, and one with which most newspaper organisations are grappling. Newspapers are still warhorses. But their owners are riding them to the grave Read more There has been some hyperbole in the reporting of the Independent’s demise. One piece in this paper compared the paper’s staffers with Vietnam veterans ; er, not quite. Instead of crawling through the Mekong Delta avoiding the Viet Cong, we were in centrally heated offices having a rather nice time. And there have been a few crocodile tears shed. Rupert Murdoch bemoaned the “loss of diversity”. This, remember, was the man whose pricing policy in the 1990s could have driven the Indy out of business. Nevertheless, the paper will be mourned by many within our beleaguered industry, and certainly by its intensely loyal community of readers, many of whom had an almost proprietorial interest in the paper. In some ways, the Independent always was a virtual newspaper. It never had its own vans, it never had printing presses.

But it had a soul that was real, and a spirit that was tangible. The Independent’s greatest challenge is to ensure these survive its latest transition.

Question: Andrew Marr, Rosie Boycott and Simon Kelner have been editors of which daily newspaper?
Answer: The Independent