Forty of the Britain's most influential journalists over the past 40 years, including 92-year-old former Daily Telegraph editor Bill Deedes and former Guardian editor Peter Preston, have been named by journalists' trade paper Press Gazette in its Newspaper Hall of Fame.
A veritable roll call of Fleet Street past and present attended a photographic exhibition of the 40 honourees, which was held to mark the 40th anniversary of Press Gazette. Past and present editors compiled the list, which includes 14 editors, three cartoonists and an agony aunt.
'Press Gazette Hall of Fame' honours the men and women who have shaped the modern era of British journalism. Established in 1965, Press Gazette is the only weekly paper for those in the business and practice of journalism in the UK. Each edition brings together vital news and developments from the worlds of newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and the Internet.
The oldest living honouree is 92-year-old former Daily Telegraph editor Lord (Bill) Deedes, who began his journalist career in 1931 on the Morning Post, and has been a contributor to the Telegraph for more than 60 years. The youngest member of the Hall of Fame is also a Daily Telegraph contributor. Pocket cartoonist Matt Pritchett, 41, has been contributing to the paper since 1988. He is one of three cartoonists on the list, the others being the late Carl Giles of the Express and the Sunday Times's Gerald Scarfe.
Fifteen names on the list – or 37.5 per cent – are still working in newspapers today, including Daily Mail columnists Keith Waterhouse and Ian Wooldridge, Sun political editor Trevor Kavanagh, Observer columnist Peter Preston and Gerald Scarfe, who has contributed the editorial page cartoon to the Sunday Times for the past 37 years.
Only one photographer features on the list: Don McCullin, whose work over the past four decades has charted conflict and change throughout the world, from the Vietnam war and the AIDS crisis is Africa.
There are 14 editors on the list, including such legendary figures as Hugh Cudlipp (Mirror), John Junor (Sunday Express), Larry Lamb (the launch editor of the Murdoch Sun), Simon Jenkins and William Rees-Mogg (The Times) and Charles Wintour (Evening Standard).
Only five honourees are women, a Press Gazette press release said, perhaps reflecting the inequities that existed in newsroom practices of the past. Nevertheless, strong female role models include foreign correspondent Ann Leslie, columnists Lynda Lee Potter and Marje Proops and feminist writer Jill Tweedie.
Ian Reeves, Press Gazette editor, said the Newspaper Hall of Fame would continue to expand in the coming years. "What distinguishes the names that make up the Press Gazette Newspaper Hall of Fame from their contemporaries is that these are journalists who have produced work of an extraordinary standard, year after year, in the most competitive industry in the world."
Reeves said, "Week in, week out, they have informed, entertained and provoked tens of millions of readers right across the country and right across the social spectrum. They have also had – and will continue to have – a profound influence on the generations of journalists that have followed in their wake. They have all displayed a passion and a vision that has ensured that Britain's national newspapers remain the best and most widely-read in the world."
The honourees were chosen by a panel of former and present newspaper editors comprising Paul Dacre, Sir Harold Evans, Sir Max Hastings, Kelvin MacKenzie, Alan Rusbridger, Andreas Whittam Smith, Sir Peter Stothard and Charles Wilson at an editorial conference in London in September 2005. The judges themselves were ineligible for inclusion.
The Press Gazette 40 Hall of Fame
- David Astor, Observer editor 1948-75 & sometime proprietor
- Cyril Connolly, Influential literary critic, notably for the Sunday Times
- Hugh Cudlipp, editor Sunday Pictorial at 24; subsequently editor-in-chief of the Pic and the Daily Mirror, then editorial director and, finally, chairman of Mirror Group and IPC
- WF Deedes, Daily Telegraph writer for more than 60 years & editor 1974-1986. A Fleet Street figure since 1931 and alleged model for Evelyn Waugh's William Boot in Scoop
- Nigel Dempster, Daily Mail diarist 1974-2003
- David English, Editor Daily Sketch 1969-71, then co-creator, with Lord (Vere) Rothermere, of the compact Daily Mail and editor 1971-92. Later chairman and editor-in-chief Associated Newspapers
- Paul Foot, Campaigning journalist and long-time Mirror columnist
- Carl Giles, Daily Express and Sunday Express editorial cartoonist 1943-95
- Felicity Green, Pioneering Daily Mirror women's editor, also the first woman to sit on the board of any Fleet Street newspaper as the Mirror's assistant editor
- Denis Hamilton, Sunday Times editor 1961-67 who presided over the birth of the Insight investigative team and the-then revolutionary colour magazine; also joint Times & Sunday Times editor-in-chief 1967-81
- Alastair Hetherington, Guardian editor 1956-75
- Simon Jenkins, Times editor 1990-92 & influential columnist
- Paul Johnson, New Statesman editor 1965-70, columnist & historian
- John Junor, Sunday Express editor 1954-86. Credited with establishing it as a major journalistic force.
- Trevor Kavanagh, Sun political editor 1983-present
- John Kay, The Sun's chief reporter since 1990 and two-time winner of the prestigious British Press Awards' Reporter of the Year citation
- Larry Lamb, Inaugural editor of the Sun 1969-72, and again from 1975-81, taking the circulation from 650,000 to more than four million, the largest daily sale in the English-speaking world. Also edited the Daily Express 1984-86
- Lynda Lee-Potter, Long-time Daily Mail columnist dubbed the 'First Lady of Fleet Street'
- Ann Leslie, Renowned Daily Mail foreign correpondent, present at many of the 20th Century's major events
- Bernard Levin, Critic and columnist
- Richard Littlejohn, Popular and populist columnist for the Sun and the Daily Mail since 1989
- Matt Pritchett, Daily Telegraph pocket cartoonist since 1988
- Don McCullin, War photographer who covered events of global importance for the Sunday Times Magazine in the 1960s and 1970s.
- Hugh McIlvanney, Observer and Sunday Times chief sports correspondent
- Vincent Muchrone, Award-winning Daily Mail features writer
- Andrew Neil, Sunday Times editor 1983-94; latterly publisher of titles including Scotsman, The Business and the Spectator
- Gordon Newton, Financial Times editor 1950-72, who transformed the paper from a modest eight pages selling 50,000 copies a day to one averaging 40 pages and a circulation of 200,000
- Bruce Page, Australian-born investigative journalist who led the Sunday Times' renowned 'Insight' team and whose scoops included the uncovering of the thalidomide scandal
- Chapman Pincher, Intelligence expert & author
- Peter Preston, Guardian editor 1975-95
- Marje Proops, Doyenne of agony aunts, Daily Mirror columnist 1954-96
- William Rees Mogg, Times editor 1967-81 & political columnist
- Gerald Scarfe, Sunday Times political cartoonist for 37 years
- Mary Stott, Guardian women's editor 1957-72
- Nicholas Tomalin, Legendary investigative journalist & war correspondent
- Jill Tweedie, Influential feminist journalist & writer, Guardian columnist 1969-88
- Keith Waterhouse, Cantankerous Daily Mail columnist, playwright, screenwriter & novelist
- Charles Wintour, Evening Standard editor 1959-76, 1978-80
- Ian Wooldridge, Long-time Mail sports colunmist
- Hugo Young, Sunday Times political editor 1973-84, Guardian columnist & Scott Trust chairman 1990-2003
