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There is a crisis in British journalism

Experts gathered at last weekend's Byline festival and expressed their frustrations

The Daily Mail's take on Brexit. Photo: Montage by The New European

It was hard to know where to begin when I was asked – along with Boris Johnson’s biographer, Sonia Purnell, Brian Cathcart of Hacked Off and Rebecca Vincent of Reporters Without Borders – to talk about the crisis in British journalism at last weekend’s Byline festival in Notting Hill, west London.

I whinge incessantly about my lot during these McCarthyite times, but Purnell – who worked at the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Times – has had it a lot harder than me. She recounted the personal abuse and harassment she had from Johnson’s cheerleaders after her all-too-honest book about him came out. She later had to cope with the trauma of learning via an email from a nursing home that her mother had died alone of Covid during the lockdown of May 2020, when the subject of her biography was enjoying cheese and wine with pals in the No 10 garden.

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See inside the Politicians and the Press edition

 Isaac Levido, Australian political strategist looks towards the camera. Photo: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Isaac Levido has the Midas touch

Downing Street’s political strategist for the 2019 general election appears to make money out of anything he touches

Geoffrey Cox in the House of Commons. Photo: House of Commons. - Credit: Archant

Cox sets his sights on millions

The latest payments take his earnings from the Bar to around £6.3m for the period he has been an MP