If it’s for Femail then the women have got to look nice and the editor feels that women don’t often get their hair

If it’s for Femail, then the women have got to look nice, and the editor feels that women don’t often get their hair looking nice.”Too right they don’t! I was green with envy when I heard that Anna Furse had been sent a make-up girl But that’s not how Anna felt. “I say I’m 48 and a lecturer,” Anna says, “and they translate that into frumpy academic, so they feel they have to send a make-up artist to make me look presentable.” Well, that’s one way of looking at it. Another is to recognise that all newspapers have Dacre Rules of some sort.I call The Times, which has become noted for carrying at least one photo of a child, an animal or an attractive young female on every page Let’s call it the Pet or Totty Rule. A lady on the picture desk ums and ahs when I ask her whether the Thunderer expects women who appear on its pages to be groomed first. “We wouldn’t send a stylist for a news story, but we might well for a feature,” she says. “But we do find that women often don’t want one.”But it matters little what women want.

What matters is shifting copies, and, as the broadsheets and the tabloids are now competing not only against each other but Hello! and OKTV, it matters very much what the people in the photographs look like. If the subjects of the article are female, it helps if they have what the feminist Naomi Wolf calls a BQ – Beauty Quotient.”The photographers used to hate doing golden weddings when I worked on the Sheffield Star,” says Kim Fletcher, media columnist for The Daily Telegraph “They said pensioners made really bad pictures. If it’s a choice between running a picture of a fluffy pet, a girl or a politician,” he adds, “you tend not to choose the politician.” But if the subjects don’t have a high BQ already, our quotient must clearly be upped by whatever means possible. Which is fine, except all this confirms – if any confirmation were needed – that newspapers are more troubled by how women look than by what we think, or say.I don’t suppose this obsession with youth, beauty and nice hair is anything new But it seems to be being carried to extremes.

But who am I to complain? To adapt a phrase used of my mother, it is nice to be important, but it’s more important to look nice. I’m ready for hair and make-up now!This article first appeared in ‘The Spectator’. Leading figures from politics and journalism gathered in Westminster yesterday for a memorial service to Anthony Bevins, the first political editor of The Independent. Leading figures from politics and journalism gathered in Westminster yesterday for a memorial service to Anthony Bevins, the first political editor of The Independent.
More than 300 people attended the service at St John’s, Smith Square. Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mo Mowlam, the BBC political editor and former Independent editor, Andrew Marr, backbench MPs Robert Marshall-Andrews and Richard Shepherd, the historian Professor Peter Hennessy, and The Times feature writer Ann Treneman spoke and gave readings, along with Bevins’ children, Rabi and Nandini.Bevins died in March, aged 59, just three days after the equally sudden death of his wife Mishtu, whom he met while doing voluntary service in India.Ms Mowlam said she trusted Bevins as a friend and consulted him before deciding to leave Parliament.

She said his dedication and tenacity led to exclusives, such as the news that the last Tory government had begun secret talks with the IRA, which she said had helped the peace process.”That did not please the establishment at the time one little bit, but in the end it did make a difference in Northern Ireland,” she said.Mr Prescott praised Bevins’ independence, thirst for facts, and “insatiable appetite for mischief”. He recalled how when he was in trouble politically, his friend would telephone with encouragement, although he added that Bevins would not hesitate to ask difficult questions.Mr Marr described Bevins as “one of the century’s most remarkable political journalists”, while Mr Marshall-Andrews said his professional courage was blended with “humanity and astonishing generosity”. Mr Shepherd said he would puncture pretension with his blunt questioning.. Matthew Freud, the golden boy of public relations, was celebrating yesterday after buying back his company for the same £10m price tag he received when he sold it seven years ago. Matthew Freud, the golden boy of public relations, was celebrating yesterday after buying back his company for the same £10m price tag he received when he sold it seven years ago.
Mr Freud, whose clients include Chris Evans and Geri Halliwell, assumed control of Freud Communications from the advertising agency Abbott Mead Vickers (AMV) in what was described by both sides as an amicable split.The move represents a new lease of life for Freuds, the agency that turned celebrity spinning into an art form.

Industry insiders said they believed Mr Freud had felt restricted by having to deal with AMV and its American parent company, Omnicom. Some observers believe the arrangement had undermined his effectiveness.”The feeling was that the company couldn’t be as fast on its feet as it once was – Omnicom perhaps wouldn’t have put up with some of the stunts Matthew would have pulled off in the early ’90s,” said Gidon Freeman, news editor of PRweek.”When people sell their companies, they are often required to work on for a couple of years, but in Matthew’s case it was five and he stayed on for seven. He could have taken his money and started again, but it was quite clear that he didn’t like the idea of someone else running a company bearing his name.”Mr Freud, who is to marry Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of the media tycoon Rupert, will profit from the deal even though the buyback price is believed to be the same as the 1994 sale price. Media sources say that he was the sole shareholder when he sold the company but was backed by money from an 11-strong board of directors when he bought it back.