UFO Info Week-End

New York is important because it is the media capital of the US NBC is just down

“New York is important because it is the media capital of the US NBC is just down the road and CBS is around the corner. And this captured the imagination of a good section of the media.”He also suggests the Post is watched by rivals more than it used to be. While certainly having none of the clout of The New York Times, The Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal, the title has been the fastest growing newspaper in the US in the last couple of years, with a circulation of about 600,000 a day.The growth coincides with Allan’s appointment as editor-in-chief after working on Australia’s Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, Sydney’s biggest selling newspapers, though there were other factors: “The Post moved from a printing press that Charles Dickens would have been familiar with to a very modern colour printing facility that has played a significant role in the newspaper’s growth And the paper has also been through a period of change Without being too grand, it has been embracing modernity The design is somewhat more contemporary than it was. It was always wonderfully written, but we’ve just made it a little bit easier to read.”When you note that the attack on the French is reminiscent of vintage Sun, he says he has not seen that title, now edited by his good friend Rebekah Wade, for a couple of weeks. He goes on to defend the tabloid approach: “I’ve always believed that you need to be unambiguous. I feel that there are plenty of places where people can go where the news is presented in a relatively dull fashion But politics lends itself to position-taking.

Newspapers like ours, that are able to attack an issue with some humour and wit and attitude, are, frankly, more likely to bring politics to life in the public eye than these rather more worthy presentations of the same stuff.”Allan, 49, was sometimes described as a dominating and ruthless newspaper man in his native Australia, putting him firmly in the mould of his proprietor, Rupert Murdoch. Allan says Murdoch, and his son Lachlan, who live in New York, were both very helpful in updating his knowledge of the city when they appointed him to the Post two years ago. He had last worked in the Big Apple as a correspondent in the late Seventies, prior to a couple of years in London.But Allan insists that does not mean it is Murdoch who is dictating the fierce anti-French tone and pro-Bush sentiments of his newspaper, even if the evidence of Murdoch titles worldwide would suggest otherwise. “I’m dealing with my own values and the newspaper’s history rather than the day-to- day desires of my proprietor,” he maintains.None the less, you can sense those values are firmly in tune with the boss’s – and just as robust. “Publishing a daily newspaper is not having a quiet drink at the Harvard club,” he says. “Newspapers need to be boisterous, creative, energetic and driven by ideas and a sense of purpose.

You don’t get those kind of dynamics if you try to run a nursery.”. A television advertisement that showed an elderly woman staring at an empty plate while a meals-on-wheels driver read a magazine outside her home was criticised by an advertising watchdog yesterday. The voiceover said: “Whatever you’re doing it can wait – while you Take A Break.”Charities and care workers were among 318 viewers who found the advert offensive. The ad agency withdrew it because of the volume of complaints.The Independent Television Commission judged it had “made light of the fear and loneliness of some of society’s most vulnerable members”.

An elderly woman, with whom others could identify, was shown “in a degrading light”.However the commission rejected complaints about a kiss between men in an advert for Marmite that viewers said portrayed a gay kiss and was screened at a time when children might be watching.The kiss was a “clearly jokey scenario” and did not portray “homosexual intimacy or indeed sexual or romantic activity of any sort”, the ITC ruled.. The BBC blocked a British National Party representative yesterday from appearing on an episode of Question Time to be recorded in the party’s stronghold of Burnley. He said: “The politicians tend to come from parties in Westminster, the European Parliament or the devolved governments of the regions. They don’t seem to go down to local councillors.”A BNP spokesman said the decision was “offensive and upsetting” He said: “Ten thousand people in Burnley voted for the BNP. They represent part of the electorate.”Meanwhile, a government minister predicted yesterday that the party would capitalise on its support in east Lancashire to win a seat in the European elections in 2004.The BNP has used a mixture of pavement politics and hard-right rhetoric to achieve a breakthrough in Burnley and in nearby Blackburn, where it has one councillor.