Media Proprietor of the Year Award 2010

Peter Preston, The Observer 02-01-2011

The award has gone to figures as varied as Rupert Murdoch and David Montgomery. But this year's winner is perhaps the most colourful of all…

This column's traditional contest for the Newspaper Proprietor of the Year was cut last year, like the staff of most newspapers. But now, in counterintuitive contrast to coalition crunching, comes a bigger and better new year prize-giving ceremony honouring media moguls, exalted editors and celebrity communicators by handing out the plastic Oscar lookalikes we call the Berlusconis. Imagine a packed X Factor auditorium. Imagine Simon Cowell scratching his nose. Imagine Rihanna wiggling her booty and Paul Dacre turning puce...

And now for the big one: Emerging Mogul of 2010. First, the nominees: James Murdoch, for being a good son. His dad, for being a good dad. Sly Bailey of Trinity Mirror, for buying up regional papers as though there were no tomorrow. Sir Ray Tindle, for starting more papers of his own, today and tomorrow. But this year the award belongs to Mr Richard Desmond of Northern and Hell. No, sorry - I've dropped a naughtie. Northern and Shell.

The judges, consulted informally and off-the-record, say: "Richard Desmond was one of the towering figures of the media decade. Never a step back, never an expletive deleted, seldom a bill paid without a bloody good argument. But there can be no argument that 2010 was his annus mirabilis (or, as he puts it, "I played an effing blinder"). How do you argue with buying Five, offering Murdoch £1bn for the Sun, threatening to forswear PCC jurisdiction "because it no longer fits my business needs" and hoping that OK! will be seen as the official magazine of the royal wedding?

Head judge Len says simply: "He's a genuine home-grown, 100% Golders Green boy. He'll tell toffs from the Indy that he's 'got so much money, it's ridiculous' - and laugh. He knows that 'if you eat lobster every days you forget about haddock'. He's 60, but he can still pull a new chick and smile for the cameras. And now he's got more Daily Express ads on Channel 5 than there are CSI repeats. Irrepressible, implacable, insatiable, incontrovertibly loathed by many who compete with him. We can't see him following Silvio as a PM just yet, though. He isn't a coalition type of bloke."

NB: In case it is thought too controversial to honour Mr Desmond thus, the judges have also decided to award an honorary Berlusconi to Rupert Murdoch, 17 times winner of the Citizen Hearst Ashes Vase. It will be presented at a private tea party sometime next year.

So to one of our most closely watched new categories: the Greg Dyke Award for Longest Surviving BBC Director General, which goes, for the sixth year in succession, to the only nominee, Mark Thompson. Our judges write: "This is beginning to constitute a remarkable record. Thompson has put his salary up, then reduced it; added extra channels and services, then reduced them; spoken of the need to put entertainment first, then hymned the need for the highest artistic endeavour; declared that any reduction in the licence fee would be a disaster, then negotiated a 16% drop; and warned of the perils of a Murdoch news takeover, before saying that the time for opinionated news has come. Nevertheless, he remains a formidable, stoic and determined operator who has seen the corporation through menacing times. He is easy to kick but seems much too slow to attract praise. In 10 or 20 years' time, however, we expect all this to change - and Mark Thompson to be hailed as one of the great DGs. Unless, of course, he's still around."

The Editor of the Year contest, by contrast, attracted many more entries: Simon Kelner of the Independent and i, for editing two papers but still managing to get down to his Blenheim cottage most weekends. Dominic Mohan of the Sun, for coping resiliently when Rebekah Brooks is down at her Blenheim weekend cottage. Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, more for emptying a sackload of secrets than for editing anything - but still contriving to seduce at least three women a week. But, after long and earnest discussion, the prize went to an editor whose gritty efforts over almost seven years in the chair have won him admiration for persistence and often brilliance in the face of consistent economic adversity: Richard Wallace of the Daily Mirror.

"He fights a good fight day after day with little in the way of resources," the judges declare. "The Mirror needs investment as well as belief, for without it no editor can make real gains: but Wallace brings a sackful of grit and inspiration with him to the office. He may not be the most fashionable top hack down the Street, nor by any means the most feted: but he carries what's left of the Mirror's reputation on broad shoulders."

Runner-up and mentioned in the "heedless bravery" dispatches: John Mullin at the Independent on Sunday for turning out a weekly tour de force with two people and an (untrained) dog, and daring to tell the best joke of the year about his editor-in-chief: "With Simon it always used to be me, me, me... but now it's just i, i, i."

So to the award we can all look forward to: Ex-Editor of the Year. And the nominees are: Kelvin MacKenzie, for being the public schoolboy the BBC calls for whenever it wants a "man of the people" for Question Time. Andrew Neil, for threatening to become the "next David Dimbleby". Sir Max Hastings - ubiquitous, prolific, unquenchable, still the longest knight of the year. But the judges needed only five seconds to decide that Piers Morgan, the "man who cleaned up once he'd cleaned out his desk", was the only true contender. "Is he the new Larry King, the new Simon Cowell, the new Max Miller?" writes head judge Len. "Maybe a bit of all of them - but living proof that getting the sack can be the best present Santa ever brings."

Transfer of the year: Jay Hunt, from controller of BBC1 to head of virtually everything at C4. She left with BBC1 - a revived Strictly Come Dancing, a vintage series of The Apprentice - dominating the last weekend before Christmas, just as BBC viewing dominated Christmas itself. Does she, as alleged, harbour a bizarre prejudice against women over 40? Not that Pamela, Felicity, Ann or indeed Karren would say so. But watch out Kirstie Allsopp, hitting four-oh next year, once her toe-curling Yuletide specials are finished. Relocation, relocation?

Irritant of the Year. Nominees: Richard Littlejohn, for remaining true to himself. Richard Desmond, seeking his second big win of the night. Andy Coulson, for still being there. But this year, after 17 hours of irritable discussion, the judges still couldn't agree on any single winner - so the prize is divided between Melanie Phillips and John Pilger, with inter-round summaries from Janet Daley.

And thus, after a mimed song from Cheryl Cole and a squeak from Stacey Solomon, queen of the media jungle, we move to the matching award of the night. Best wheeze of the year goes to Alexander Lebedev, for backing his i, a 20p digest of all the Independent news you can fit into 52 pages. "Innovative, imaginative and cheap," say the judges. And the Worst Wheeze of the Year? A simultaneous triumph for i, rules head judge Len. "A launch so cheap and unpublicised that even some newsagents don't know it exists. But we'll try to be more optimistic about its promised relaunch in January."

Two final special awards: the Judges' Full House Trophy for a killer scoop and a quick resignation goes to the Daily Telegraph. One minute David Laws was Chief Secretary of the Treasury, the next he was (at least temporary) history as the curse of the expense account struck again. "A clean hit from the paper that knows how to make them," says Len.

And the Judges' Duck House Trophy for shots in the foot goes to - um! - the Daily Telegraph. Was it fearless, frank and free for a paper that wants to block total Murdoch ownership of Sky to make a mug out of the secretary of state responsible for the decision? And fearless, frank, free and intelligent to get him bumped off the case and replaced by a minister notably warmer to News International? Next year, perhaps, a couple of fragrant young Tel reporters might pose as property speculators, telling the Barclay brothers they want to buy the Ritz.

The Guardian

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