Interview: Emma Soames, Saga magazine (Evening Standard)

By David Rowan

IT WAS, at the time, widely seen as a bizarre career move. Emma Soames, the magazine highflier who had edited Tatler, ES and latterly the Telegraph Magazine, was moving to Folkestone to run a subscription-only monthly read by pensioners. Sure, her £150,000 reported salary would put her among Britain's best-paid magazine editors. But why, colleagues asked, would such a well connected live-wire want to swap her glamorous London life to promote stairlifts?

Two years on, they have just received their answer. This week, the Saga Group was valued at up to £1.4 billion after its founder's son decided it was time to sell. And although Soames, as editor of Saga Magazine, will not discuss how she personally will benefit, she is in no doubt that she made the right call.

"We're storming ahead," she says of what is now the country's largest-circulation ("and very profitable") subscription monthly - at 1.24 million, of which half are paid for, it is 400,000 ahead of Reader's Digest.

While most editors have been courting the fashionably young, Soames believes that she has identified the next publishing boom.

"If men's magazines were the hot publishing strategy in the Eighties, and celebrity magazines in the Nineties, I think this demographic is set fair for more magazines to start taking it very seriously indeed," she says in the company's glass-and-steel headquarters overlooking the English Channel.

"Ignore the over-fifties at your peril."

SAGA estimates that 19 million people in Britain fit into this demographic, controlling 80 per cent of the country's wealth. The company's own database includes 7.6 million of them, to whom it provides everything from pet insurance to holidays and financial services, which are relentlessly cross promoted throughout the magazine.

Soames hopes the vast valuations being mentioned this week serve as a wakeup call to a "pretty ageist" media industry to stop neglecting an often marginalised group.

"Our readers are interested pretty much in what everybody else is interested in - books, film, arts, even if health and money are higher up their list of worries," she says. "People don't suddenly have a brain bypass when they hit 50." If anything, they are more inquiring than younger readers, and - to Soames's clear relief - less obsessed by the passing fashions on which her earlier journalism flourished. "Someone said to me last week, 'You really must do a piece about Kabbalah'. I explained that the joy of editing this magazine is that you don't need pieces about passing fads."

Since arriving in March 2002, Soames has been having "a fantastic time", adding what she calls "pizzazz" to enliven the magazine.

Her initial proclaimed goal was to "put the hip into hip replacement", which in practice has meant bringing in fresh voices and features that "push the envelope" - such as Marcelle d'Argy Smith on sex in later life (prompting complaints from outraged readers).

She also admits that some readers "left in a huff" when she dropped columnists such as Clement Freud in favour of Alexander Chancellor, Val Hennessy and Michael Brunson. "But that," she says, "is what new editors are for."

Saga Magazine has inevitably succumbed to the prevailing celebrity obsession. This month, Soames introduces her readers to a new photo-led montage of "cavorting celebrities" called The Mix, not entirely dissimilar to the Telegraph Magazine's opening Wildlife spread. "We might not always like what's on it," Soames explains in her editor's letter, "but the red carpet is now part of the zeitgeist."

Still, the relationship works both ways. Celebrities will talk to Saga Magazine. "I spent five years at the Telegraph trying to get Carly Simon and did not succeed," Soames says. "Now she's on our October cover. She's fine talking about being over 50."

But Soames is no campaigner for older people's rights. "If grey power gets itself organised, they'll be the most fantastic force in the land," she says.

"But we're a brand and a company so it's difficult to campaign. If Saga had wanted a Rosie Boycott type, they wouldn't have hired me."

Surely a pensions campaign would be popular? "I have a personal view that we should go for a universal £105 pension," she says carefully, "but that's not the magazine's view." She seems a little disappointed with her readers for not taking more action themselves.

"They get all furious, then the Government gives them an extra £100, and most of them got back in their baskets." She prefers "feisty": "Old age isn't for wimps."

So how does Soames, 55 this month, feel about getting older?

"Surprisingly relaxed," she says.

"As long as I can keep my grey cells in place, my stomach muscles working, my chin up and possibly my hemlines slightly longer.

Hemlines are my one concession to fiftydom."

Turning 50, she adds, is "like swimming in England in August.

It's a bit of a shock initially, but lovely once you're in."

BESIDES, 50 is no longer old. "It so isn't. We used to say that 50 was the new 40, but I now wonder if it's not the new 32 and a half." It is now the age at which her readers are "hitting their stride careerwise, moneywise, getting their lives back post-children". They also have the spending power that is attracting advertisers such as L'Oreal alongside the bunion treatments.

Soames's Chelsea accent - talking about a "frightfully good book" or an "adorable man" - is a stark reminder that this is the granddaughter of Winston Churchill and the sister of Nicholas Soames.

So how is she coping with lessthan-posh Folkestone, where she lives for half the week?

"There isn't much groove in Folkestone," she admits. "Moving here was tricky to start with, for all sorts of reasons, but it's fine, absolutely fine."

These reasons included the death, three weeks after arriving, of her long-term boyfriend, Christopher Bowerbank, whose marriage proposal she had just accepted.

"Look, life gets boring if you stay in the same place," she says firmly.

"There are people still breathing outside London, you know. And I still go to lots of parties in London - people very sweetly don't seem to have forgotten about me."

Besides, she works long days in Folkestone so that "when I go to London I can make up for lost time socially and cosmetically.

I'm a VBW, you know. A Very Busy Woman."

When she took the job, Soames declared that HRT was "the new cod-liver oil".

Has she revised her view at all? "Actually, cod liver oil is the new HRT," she says. "You need both nowadays." And what of the elegant blonde-tinted hair treatments that she so forcefully recommended? "Oh, Knightsbridge blonde is still the new grey," she says. "That's a definite."

(Evening Standard, September 29, 2004)

Read more!

Trendsurfing: Freecycling (The Times)

By David Rowan

Fancy a free computer? How about a leather sofa, some Bauer roller-skates or a working DVD recorder? If you're interested, their current owners will be delighted to hear from you to arrange collection. Just one condition, though: say thank you, but under no circumstances offer any payment.

Welcome to the "freecycle" economy, in which unwanted consumer goods are found appreciative new owners. From New York to Nottingham, energetic neighbourhood networks are emerging to recycle surplus property among their members without a penny changing hands. The goal is to cut back on waste heading for landfill, but a pleasant side effect is to build a sense of local goodwill. As the movement's slogan has it, freecycling is all about "changing the world one gift at a time".

Since the first local network emerged in Tucson, Arizona, 16 months ago, the concept has taken off globally. At the last count there were 1,418 cities freecycling, with almost half a million members now signed up. Three of them live in Baku, Azerbaijan; Portland, Oregon, has 9,800. The biggest UK community, naturally enough, is in London, where everything from televisions to trees have been freecycled since business began last Halloween.

Ashley Hooper, the 30-year-old software engineer who founded the London branch, has just closed the door to a woman collecting his unwanted ski boots when The Times calls. Hooper has also just found a home for his extra-long black Levi jeans. His fax and phone answering machines are still up for grabs, as is the pink Modern Classics blouse left behind by a previous flatmate, and any day now he will offer the various computers found in skips that he has painstakingly restored. "I don't want them, though I can see their potential," he says in a perky New Zealand accent. "I guess I'm a bit of a greenie at heart. If I have to take something down to the dump, I feel very disappointed with myself. This gets rid of the guilt."

Items are advertised on Yahoo mailing lists specific to each local group, which are indexed at the main freecycle.org website. As well as offers, you can also post "wanted" ads - again, the only rule being no cash or trades in return. Deron Beal, a 37-year-old MBA graduate who launched the first group in Tucson, says he was taken aback by the network's booming membership. Beal, a self-confessed "tree hugger", came up with the idea after the recycling charity he works for needed to clear away some unwanted office supplies. He found plenty of takers just from making a few phone calls to other non-profits; why not, he thought, open up the system via an online message board?

Already the network claims to keep 20 tons of potential waste out of landfill every day. Freecycle has its rivals - Gumtree.com has been around for longer - but its vast growth makes it the eBay of the recycling movement (or "Freebay", as some members insist on calling it). The London offers alone in recent weeks suggest how eclectically useful Beal's dream has proved: Ali in Enfield gave away a Russian railwayman's pocket watch that commemorates the revolution's 70th anniverary; Matt in Camberwell offered an unused toilet and cistern; and if you want three mature yucca trees, talk to Alcina before she finishes her garden redesign.

Yet in this cynical world, won't such generosity be abused? "There's always the possibility that someoene uses Loot to sell things on, and thinks, 'Suckers!," Ashley Hooper admits. "But if it was going to be binned anyway, that doesn't actually matter, does it?"

(The Times, London, September 25 2004)

Read more!

Interview: Andrew Marr, BBC political editor (Evening Standard)

By David Rowan

THE British press is in dire trouble. From its "slimy misrepresentation" and "hackneyed emotionalism" to an arrogant failure to correct errors, print journalism, in Andrew Marr's view, faces "serious problems that everybody needs to talk about". Lazy and untrusted, its practitioners are seen as "voyeurs, liars, drunks and cynics". Is it any wonder circulations are plunging?

After BBC journalism's recent traumas, you might understand its political editor wanting to point fingers elsewhere. But Marr, a former editor of The Independent, speaks as a media historian rather than a corporation man. His new book, a selective history of his trade, has convinced Marr that the prognosis for newspapers - in fact, journalism in general - is the bleakest for decades. And that, he suggests, is not the politicians' fault.

"The evidence is pretty horrible, with circulations falling dramatically," he says. Much of the decline is because "people just don't believe what they read" - a "disservice" he traces to Kelvin MacKenzie's Sun.

He also blames today's office-bound culture. "It's about idleness and sloth, and not getting out there and bringing in fresh, exciting stories," he says. "We're all quoting each other. Everything feels the same."

Still, he believes that political journalism "has come back from the brink" since Alastair Campbell quit. "Downing Street is certainly less hysterical, and though we still have arguments, there isn't that edge of wildness," he says.

Although Campbell tried to have Marr sacked from The Independent, the two avoided direct conflict in Marr's current job. "Other people told me No 10 was saying I'd lost it, or that I was just knee-jerking as I was frightened the Daily Mail would call me a Leftie," he says. He raises his eyes at reports that Campbell will return for the election.

The book tiptoes over the Hutton inquiry, although Marr clearly detects an injustice. "I was astounded when I read the report," he says. "Whenever somebody from Government or the Establishment said something, [Hutton] believed them; whenever a journalist said something, he disbelieved them."

HE denies The Observer's suggestion that he threatened a "walkout" over the BBC's subsequent internal inquiry, although he still considers the disciplinary process to have been " completely inappropriate" and "not conducted adroitly … But I don't want to reopen the war over Hutton, as Greg [Dyke] is doing."

Was Dyke's Channel Four documentary a misjudgment? "I think he has got every right to come out fighting," Marr says, suddenly strident. "It may be convenient for the BBC and the Government to say, 'Oh, we've moved on.' But to then say that those individuals involved - and Greg lost the job he loved - should just shut up … why?"

Has Marr faced pressure to "soften" towards Labour? "I don't think anything's different," he replies. "I don't listen to John Humphrys or watch Jeremy [ Paxman] and think, 'There are people who are going soft.'" Reporting on Hutton, he feels he managed to remain scrupulously neutral. "I got one call from a BBC news manager about my coverage, to say you're not being quite hard enough on the BBC. That was someone who then faced disciplinary proceedings. I felt particularly proud about this place - even with their own positions under attack, they were concerned to see the Government received a fair hearing."

There have been embarrassing moments - such as having to report last week the BBC's failure to act on a tip about the Chamber being stormed. "I was more or less told to go on and say it, but I probably did offend some colleagues by making it so clear it was a bog-up," he says. "The only thing I regret is not adding that the BBC gets an extraordinary number of tip-offs, most of which are rubbish."

As for the BBC playing down Lord Bragg's comments that Blair considering resigning over "personal and family" stress, Marr explains that his judgment suggested otherwise.

"I believe Blair went through a long dark night of the soul about whether to stay on, but I'm as sure as I can be that it was to do with Iraq, his opinion-poll standing, and his concern about whether he remained an asset to the party. I don't think it was personal."

He admits in the book that vanity and greed led him to accept the Independent job, but that he was "never a top-notch editor". "I have a very short attention span, am catastrophic at office politics, and I don't enjoy achieving things second-hand," he explains. "You spend a lot of time nurturing other people's careers. I'm not very good at that."

The book settles a few scores - Janet Street-Porter is "dreadful", David Montgomery a "liar", Simon Kelner "not my cup of tea". Marr also stakes his claim to have conceived the Independent's tabloid strategy, scuppered by management inertia and lack of money.

HAS he revised his view of Kelner? "Yes," he says. "I felt quite sore at the Independent management when I left. There was an airbrushing of history, and everything that happened when I was there was deemed a terrible failure.

Simon's done brilliantly. The launch of the tabloid alongside the broadsheet was a masterstroke. If it's moving towards taking on the Daily Mail, or becoming the Daily Mail of the liberal classes, which seems to be where it's going, that could well be the saving of it."

He is endearingly open about his insecurities. His vast workload, only marginally diminished since dropping the News at Ten (to see more of his journalist wife, Jackie Ashley, and children), is driven by fear of unemployment. "There's a lot of insecurity, a feeling that they may want me now but I'll become unfashionable. I'm 45. An awful lot of folk have gone as far as they're going to go by their forties."

His appearance, too, is "yet another source of neurosis". He compares his ears to "large red satellite dishes", and still winces when he sees himself on screen. He has not adjusted to being recognised in Waitrose. "It is very weird, quite disconcerting and not particularly pleasant," he reflects.

What's his next move? "I just don't know," he says. "I keep reading that I'm about to move on, but no, the assumption that I'd like to do the election and just waltz off is not the way I'm thinking. It's perfectly possible that politics will become even more interesting after the election." Besides, "nobody has approached me in the BBC about any other job".

(Evening Standard, September 22, 2004)

Read more!

Trendsurfing: In-game advertising (The Times)

By David Rowan

For the world's bravest anti-terrorist crusader, secret agent Sam Fisher is awfully prissy about his brands. Each new assignment has to be spelled out on a Palm handheld computer. He will drink nothing but SoBe Adrenaline Rush. And forget about using a Nokia phone in his presence - anything but a Sony Ericsson he will shoot straight from your hand.

Fisher is no fool. As the star of Ubisoft's bestselling computer game Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, his carefully negotiated product loyalties place him in the vanguard of a powerful new industry. Desperate to reach the young, high-spending crowd that is switching off television for consoles, advertisers are clamouring to have their products written into the virtual action. "Things started going crazy a few months ago, when a Nielsen study blamed games for a TV ratings slump among young men," recalls Michael Oxman, once a mere adman but now what's called a "brand in-game integration" agent. "That woke up the ad industry overnight," Oxman reflects. "When we started two years ago, there were an awful lot of sceptics. Suddenly this is the fashionable medium to be in."

From offices in London, New York and Chicago, Oxman's agency, JAM International, represents big-name games producers and the advertisers who want to be part of their plots. It costs from £50,000 to well over £500,000 for Oxman, 44, to have your product written into the next blockbuster. But for that, he points out, its brand values will be active in players' minds for literally millions of hours. Last year, for instance, his team had a Suunto hi-tech wristwatch placed within Microsoft's golfing game, Links 2004. "Suunto makes a GPS golf watch that measures the distance a ball has gone, so we made sure that every time the player's golf character hit the ball, the watch's distance meter would come on screen," Oxman says excitedly. "That made it a meaningful part of the game play." He has just been negotiating Ubisoft's latest deal for the Splinter Cell franchise. Its script was rewritten to give a starring role to a well-known make of gum.

In-game advertising has been around for a while. But what is new is the number of household names diverting marketing money from TV ads. McDonald's is paying to include Happy Meals in storylines; Procter & Gamble's Mr Clean character changes tyres in a Nascar race game. Sensing a long-term shift, traditional ad agencies such as Starcom and Young & Rubicam have launched dedicated games units. Even Viacom, which owns MTV, wants to start selling in-game placements. Not that Oxman cares for the phrase. "'Product placement' gets a bad rap with consumers," he says. Besides, today's cash buys far more than static Coke machines or Nike posters.

Evidence of the medium's effectiveness remains largely anecdotal. DaimlerChrysler, for instance, credits a custom-built game as having influenced one in three buyers of its Rubicon Jeep. But now technology is promising accountability. New systems can track the number of brands a player encounters. Advertisers can even update a character's clothing or dialogue automatically via the internet.

Not everyone is happy. The campaign group Commercial Alert denounces paid-for props as deceptive. Games purists also fear for developers' creative integrity. But Charlie Barrett, who puts together deals for Ubisoft, insists that the writers can always veto sales pitches they find too intrusive. "Sure, we can rescript a game if there's six figures at stake, but you always need to retain credibility," Barrett says. "Sam Fisher is a very rugged, moody guy. He's just not going to start drinking Babycham."

(The Times, London, September 18 2004)

Read more!

Interview: Helen Johnston, Bliss magazine (Evening Standard)

By David Rowan

IT GIVES away makeup to children, shows 14-year-olds how to look 19, and entices pocket money with the promise of a "hot new body". In a sector renowned for controversy, Bliss, the fastest growing magazine for teenage girls, is attracting particular criticism this month over its overtly sexual content.

With headlines such as "Be sexy, be sussed", and a girl's account of her lapdancing career, the magazine stands accused of glamorising sex among the under-16s. And much to its critics' delight, nine out of 10 adults in a BBC poll want the Government to toughen controls on children's publications seen to be promoting sex.

But if Bliss is corrupting a generation's morals, its editor does not appear unduly concerned. "We're providing a service to teenage readers that's absolutely essential," Helen Johnston asserts. "The people who criticise us never actually read it. Maybe they get as far as the coverlines, which are of course the most salacious element of a magazine - but if it read like Enid Blyton, teenagers wouldn't buy it."

Coverlines this month relate to a "pervy sex cult" and an enticement to 21 pages of "sexy secrets".

But Johnston, 37, dismisses them as simply a "sell" to hook readers into what she insists are serious articles inside - "supporting" readers, as she sees it, by addressing issues such as bullying, selfharm and sexual ignorance.

"You've only got to look at Big Brother on TV to see live sex," she explains. "It's all around them.

Bliss puts it in a really responsible context. Yes, there's makeup, but wearing a bit of makeup doesn't mean you're going to rush out and have sex, which is what we're being accused of."

Popular newspapers have also taken issue with a regular Bliss feature, "Look five years older in five minutes". A 14-year-old from Yorkshire undergoes a makeover which convinces an older boy that she is 25. How can it be " responsible" for a teen magazine to emphasise children's cleavage?

"We do makeovers because our readers say they don't feel confident in themselves," Johnston replies. "The girls want help in feeling good about themselves.

There is nothing provocative about the pictures, we've given readers a good ego boost, and it's absolutely patronising and wrong to say that because they're dressed a bit more sophisticatedly they're going to rush out and have sex."

On the contrary, she insists, Bliss is serving a valuable social purpose to its 257,000 buyers, more than half of whom are under 15. "Bliss is one of the few places where teenagers can get support and clear, unprejudiced information that can help them weave their way through the maze of adolescence," she says.

She points to an email received this week in response to the latest newspaper attacks: "When I started reading girls' magazines, I was fairly popular, and everyone thought I was happy, but really I was sad and had self-harm problems," writes 14-year-old Jodie from Cardiff. "After reading an article in Bliss about self-harm, I realised I wasn't alone and sought help."

Had she not, Jodie suggests, she might now be dead.

A recent Bliss survey of 5,000 readers certainly suggests a troubled generation. Their concerns - depression, bullying, drugs, a lack of sex education - led to a meeting in Downing Street between a group of readers and the Prime One girl, now 16, told him that she had only recently had her first sex education lesson at school, but that four years ago, three fellow pupils had become pregnant at 12.

"The reality is, some children are having sex at that age," Johnston says.

"It's not Bliss that's making them have sex. We're not ' perverting' a future generation, we're trying to support them, just being realistic about what's going on out there. Somehow parents become blind to what's going on when their children reach their teens.

Whereas we have their ear, and they are willing to open up to us."

Was Sugar magazine right to help readers order free condoms?

"I'm not in the business of defending Sugar," she says, "but I think it's absolutely vital that teenagers have access to free contraception, Minister.

because it's much better that they're having protected sex than unsafe sex. Of course, the best case of all is that they're not having sex at all until they're well over 16."

She seems to speak with conviction: her latest editor's letter reveals that she was almost 20 before she lost her virginity. "I can't believe I told my readers that," she reflects, "but I really do want to convince people there isn't any hurry. It's what we say in the magazine all the time, which the media don't bother reading. They flick through, see 'Be sexy, be sussed', and say, 'That's just sexualising teenagers' - whereas it's actually a campaign that says do not have sex, be sussed about it.

But if we simply said it's illegal to have sex under 16, everybody would turn off."

The advice pages, certainly, take their responsibilities seriously, reminding a 15-year-old that it is illegal for her boyfriend to have sex with her, and telling another that "14 is too young for sex".

"There was a time when teen mags could be outrageous and provocative," Johnston accepts, but that was before the sector agreed in 1996 to regulate itself through the Teenage Magazine Arbitration Panel.

THE guidelines on sexual content are stringent: "Where underage sex or sexual abuse is discussed, it will be clearly stated as illegal," the rules state. Problem-page letters must be genuinely written by readers, the replies "provided by relevant, professionally qualified advisers".

Yet something must be leading a stream of critics, from the ATL teachers' union to Bob Geldof, to identify a problem. Geldof cannot have read the magazine, says Johnston.

"I was so shocked, as he was effectively calling me and my team paedophiles.

That was outrageous, and even his daughter, Peaches, wrote in her newspaper column that it was utterly patronising to suggest that because teenagers read a magazine they'll go out and shag around."

As for the ATL's concerns, Johnston responds that they were more about eight- and nine-year-olds reading the magazine, "and I do think there needs to be a degree of parental responsibility".

Johnston herself is the parent of a two-year-old boy; she is separated from her husband and lives in Islington. She grew up in Norfolk and after working on newspapers in Hong Kong, rose to be deputy editor of British Marie Claire.

After a spell on the Daily Mail, she became number two on Cosmopolitan. She has been at Bliss for two and a half years.

But as well as a job, she now has a cause to believe in. "Teenagers are ignored and patronised so much of the time, and I want their voices to be heard," she says. "I really believe we're doing a good job to support them when they're being attacked from all sides."

That is a position Johnston can well understand.

(Evening Standard, September 15, 2004)

Read more!

Trendsurfing: The nutrigenomic diet (The Times)

By David Rowan

George Fleming sees little point in diets like the Atkins. Our individual genes, he explains, determine the nutrients each of us needs to stay fit and disease-free, so it makes far more sense to customise diets according to a person's DNA. Send Fleming a swab of your saliva, and his company will analyse which foods to avoid, and which supplements to take, according to your body's genetic secrets. This year his Canadian company, One Person Genetics, has been issuing £185 tailor-made prescriptions by the hundred. For £500 more, it will even send a year's supply of "custom-made" food supplements, designed to offset your personal genetic risks.

Since mapping the human genome three years ago, biotechnologists have raced to understand how genes react with diet to determine why some people develop osteoporosis, Alzheimer's, even cancer. This fast-growing field - called nutritional genomics, or nutrigenomics - is attracting serious research funding, and dieticians are predicting a "revolution" in preventative health. It will be a while before nutrigenomic foods hit the supermarkets, but there is already a booming market in tailor-made nutrigenomic diets.

"We test for your antioxidant activity, genes that control detoxification, factors affecting bone health, and aspects of cardiovascular diseases," Fleming explains. "If your genes show a raised risk of developing heart disease, say, we'll recommend a specific nutritional programme. We also provide a customised formulation of supplements with personalised dosage levels." His web and mail-order clients, who also receive "lifestyle advice", are mainly baby-boomers - "people who are already spending money on their health, maybe using personal trainers, going to spas and taking supplements". Demand is growing rapidly.

Still, at this early stage of genomic investigation, are such tests scientifically valid? Not everyone in the field is convinced. "Companies out there are testing for a few genes and giving dietary advice that's not credible yet," insists Jim Kaput, a biochemist whose own company, NutraGenomics [CORRECT:NutraGenomics], is investigating genetic linkages between diet and diabetes. "They might show that you have a gene variable that reacts badly with vitamin E, but we don’t yet know what to do with it." We must wait another decade before scientists know enough, Kaput believes - although eventually babies will be tested at birth to determine their optimum diet.

Consumer watchdogs are also raising objections. The Body Shop dropped a nutritional testing kit made by Sciona, a Hampshire-based biotech firm, after facing protests that an unhealthy lifestyle and a poor overall diet mattered more than genes in determining health. There are also ethical concerns. If these linkages are proven, could the state compel us to alter our diets? Could health insurers demand our test results? And would you really want to know that you have an increased risk of developing a terminal illness?

"Who controls this data will be the big story," George Fleming accepts. "But our approach is to put consumers in control of their own genetic information. By providing tests, we're helping them take control of their health. It's hard to see why wanting to understand your health and risks is unjustified." Over the next five years, he adds, research will confirm dietary linkages with a growing number of genes. "And as that number rises," he continues, "so does the validity of these tests."

But as Jim Kaput sees it, although we now have the tools to create the personalised nutrigenomic diet, we are still some way from understanding how to use all the raw data. It's a little soon, then, to ask your GP to prescribe a customised diet. "In the meantime," Kaput suggests, "eat less, exercise more, and chose your grandparents wisely."

(The Times, London, September 11 2004)

Read more!

Interview: Clive Hollick, United Business Media (Evening Standard)

By David Rowan

HE MAY have announced his retirement, but Clive Hollick still has unfinished business. By the time he collects his £726,000 pension next May, the Labour peer intends to drop Channel Five from his United Business Media empire for the highest possible price.

He will not say so directly, of course; Lord Hollick of Notting Hill is far too politically astute for that. But why else, Channel 4 insiders are asking, is the former merchant banker talking up a merger between Five and Channel 4, even as the latter's new boss, Andy Duncan, appears to have gone cold on the prospect?

Hollick, 59, insists that UBM's 35 per cent stake in Five is "not for sale". Yet in an exclusive interview after announcing his leaving plans, he seems determined to push a tieup that City analysts say could significantly enhance Five's value.

"I think both Five and Four - under Mark Thompson's leadership and now Andy Duncan's - can see the considerable benefits of working together," Hollick says in his smooth corporate patter.

A merger would offer "significant gains" to both. "We have a lot of duplicated costs, we compete ferociously for bought-in material, we'd have the opportunity for cross-promotion. Where the ball lies now, under Four's new leadership, is to engage and discuss this in great detail and come forward with concrete proposals. We both think it's a sufficiently attractive and interesting opportunity to devote quite a lot of time to it."

After all, he explains, the tie-up is not exactly new. Even before Five was on air, he had talked to Channel 4 about working together. "Michael Grade [then Four's chief executive] was really rather keen," Hollick says. Only a cautious board vetoed the idea. This is not, he insists, "a bright idea that I woke up in the bath with".

Hollick is a formidable operator, charming and persuasive when necessary, although criticised by former staff as abrasive, manipulative and ruthless ("I respect their views," he responds unemotionally). In three decades, he has built a media company with a £750 million turnover, for which last year he took a £1.3 million pay package, and in which he intends to "continue to play my part".

His main loyalty, he insists, is to his shareholders. But should publicly owned Channel 4, with its special innovative remit, really be entering deals intended to boost Five's value?

"It's very important that Four's unique output, its unique brand is sustained and strengthened," Hollick replies. "That's about setting in place a [regulatory] regime, and making sure that the economic strength of the combined entity continues to foster that. There will be a stronger economic base to support its very unique contribution to the diversity of British broadcasting."

The Government, he suggests, would not block a deal. "I'd characterise their view as understanding the dynamics of single television stations which essentially have fixed costs, but an advertising pool growing less fast than the number of mouths round the table. There are inexorable trends here that the Government understands." He should know: as a close ally of Tony Blair, he is expected to play a role in writing the election manifesto.

Channel 4 would not comment on Hollick's latest pitch. But Andy Duncan is known to be less fixated on a merger than his predecessor, Mark Thompson.

Although Duncan has carefully avoided ruling out a deal with Five, a more likely outcome, his colleagues suggest, is a range of smaller partnerships, with the BBC a significant ally.

SOME Four executives believe Hollick's real agenda is to talk up such a potentially groundbreaking deal for a shortterm boost in UBM's share price.

Even if Hollick's political friends were to nod a deal through, there remains Five's major shareholder, the German media group RTL. Last week, its chief executive, Gerhard Zeiler, said Five was in "no hurry" to commit to any partnership. Doesn't that leave Hollick's plan at the starting blocks?

"Gerhard and I look at these reports of our differences and smile," he says. "His point was that we have a whole range of options, and this is just one. We take exactly the same view."

Still, Five's joint owners have not always seen eye to eye. Four years ago, an argument over Five's budget reached court, after Hollick refused to buy in a package of Warner Brothers films. It was, he says now, simply "a different read on the marketplace". But doesn't the dispute suggest that Hollick's cost-cutting instincts could damage Four's programming?

"It was a very small row, about whether we buy more Hollywood films," he insists. "It was not about programming quality. Look, I got into broadcasting on the back of the Campaign for Quality Television. Quality programming delivers viewers. We've surprised a few folk in the last year, coming up on strictly commercial grounds with arts programming to give viewers an alternative. We've shown that there are audiences interested in arts programmes at 7.30pm and, yes, you can still have a bit of porn late at night."

Ah, the channel's famous defining "three F's". Wasn't he ever embarrassed by Five's late-night shows?

"No, I've never found pornography embarrassing," he replies. Not even when prominent friends raised dinner-party eyebrows? "Not at all. They wanted to know the schedule."

Nor did he appear to have any qualms when selling Express Newspapers four years ago to Richard Desmond. Rivals condemned the sale of Beaverbrook's once-great title to a "pornographer"; the Daily Mail's editor called it one of Fleet Street's "shaming moments".

Today, Hollick deflects all responsibility. "It's for the Secretary of State to judge whether any buyers are fit and proper," he says. "We have to abide strictly by the law and look after shareholders' best interests."

Still, the £125 million sale has caused Hollick subsequent difficulties: his lawyers stepped in after Desmond failed to pay bills for space he has rented in Hollick's building. Now, Hollick says, he gets on "fine" with his tenant - although Desmond is about to fulfil a long-threatened move elsewhere. Hollick seems to regret losing control of the papers before he could revive them.

MY disappointment about the Express," he says, "is that it was beginning to attract new readers who saw it as a paper with some good journalistic standards. In [our] last year, we were just at the tipping point, with new, younger readers coming in. If we'd had another few years, and could have put our broadcasting assets behind it ..."

He is "really pleased" that the Star has continued to prosper under Desmond - although it was his own appointee, Peter Hill, he credits with turning the paper around. The Express, he points out, is selling "far fewer papers than it was", though its "much lower-cost model" may yet prove viable.

Without mentioning Desmond, he does warn that only by investing "in people and product" can a media business be run efficiently. "Costcutting by itself," he says, "will not sustain a business."

He claims not to miss being a proprietor, dismissing as "crap" the presumption that it enhanced his prestige. "The power and influence is grossly exaggerated," he says. "It's slightly self-serving of the media to say otherwise."

Still, it allowed him to turn the papers pro-Labour, prompting loud accusations of cronyism. "Frankly, I'm nobody's crony," he says a little impatiently. "I'm a friend and admirer of the Prime Minister. I have my own views; my editors had theirs." Attacks on his political allegiance he sees as "froth". "I have a set of values that inform both, but business and politics are kept firmly apart."

Shareholders, after all, would not expect otherwise.

(Evening Standard, September 8, 2004)

Read more!

The Times: Tech column - DVD format wars

By David Rowan

Typical. Just as you finally alphabetise your sprawling DVD collection, along comes another battle over the Next Big Format.

In just seven years, the DVD has transformed home entertainment, with an extraordinary three billion discs so far distributed in North America alone. And how does the industry thank us for tolerating all its horribly incompatible formats? Yes, you've guessed -with more rival systems designed not to work together.

The entertainment industry seems intent on restaging the old VHS v Betamax tug-of-war, with at least three competing technologies seeking to replace your current DVD recorder. Sony is backing one proprietary system, the Blu-ray Disc, along with partners including JVC and Philips. Meanwhile, NEC and Toshiba are backing another, the HD-DVD (High Definition/High Density-DVD), while China is developing a third, the Enhanced Versatile Disc.

You might question the need to upgrade, but the industry points to the rapid improvement in television image quality (unlike the programmes). Higher definition pictures require more storage space, and standard discs are already struggling to cope. Today's discs typically store 8.5GB of data on one side -a vast amount a couple of years ago, but peanuts in the era of high-definition TV. The new formats promise at least 15GB: the Blu-ray consortium is even predicting 150GB per disc if data is clustered in a series of layers.

The systems differ in their video-compression codecs and their approaches to copy protection, and the Hollywood studios are, wisely, remaining agnostic at this stage.

Although Japanese consumers can already buy Blu-ray recorders from Sony and Panasonic, it will be at least 18 months before HD-DVD machines go on sale. It is too soon to say which format will dominate, although the Chinese system, designed to bypass western intellectual property restrictions, is unlikely to find its way into Dixons.

Blu-ray may have a first-mover advantage, but Microsoft has pledged that its next-generation PC operating system will be compatible with HD-DVD. Both formats, mercifully, will play today's "old generation" discs.

However, unless the rival consortia can promise that films recorded on one system can be played on the other, you would be wise to sit out the battle. After all, you never know what will be coming next.

Last month, the Optware Corporation, in Japan, said it had developed a "holographic" recording disc with 200 times the storage capacity of a standard DVD. The transparent, CD-sized Holographic Versatile Disc is also said to transfer data at 40 times the speed. It is expected to reach the market in around 18 months, at something like £2,000, just as the HD-DVD competes for your cash.

Is it rational that we constantly upgrade our entertainment devices simply to ensure ever-greater storage? Probably not. Then again, who would have considered the 10,000-song iPod to be a necessity?

Geekdom has reached a momentous landmark. The "Internet", Wired News has solemnly declared, is henceforth to be called the "internet", while the "Web" and the "Net" are to be similarly de-capitalised. The online world is now just "another medium for delivering and receiving information".

"Oh dear, how remarkably po-faced and unnecessary," responds the amused custodian of The Times's linguistic style guide. "We have been lower-case for a good 18 months."

Yet again you read it here first.

(The Times, September 7 2004)

Read more!

Trendsurfing: Buzz marketing (The Times)

By David Rowan

Derek Archambault has chatted a lot about sausages this week. Al Fresco Chicken Sausages, to be specific, a brand the 28-year-old dairy-company executive from Rhode Island keeps throwing casually into conversations with friends or at the office water-cooler. They may not realise that Al Fresco has paid thousands of dollars for "brand evangelists" such as Derek to talk up its range among those "who know and trust them". He has been briefed, after all, that it is his decision alone whether to tell friends, family and colleagues about the financial transaction that underlies his culinary passion.

Although Derek has received no money - his reward comes as free samples and gifts - he has "buzzed" the sausages no less enthusiastically. "I had a party, served them, and people were saying, 'Wow, this is a good sausage!'," he explains. "It's a very natural communication. You're supplied with coupons, and if you happen to be talking to someone about food, well, you can bring sausages into the discussion."

This is the 17th campaign Derek has buzzed for a Boston-based agency called BzzAgent, using his personal social network to hype Penguin books, spam-blocking software, even an airline's frequent-flier scheme. In doing so, he has earned "BzzPoints" redeemable against shirts, CDs, even boxing accessories. But a greater motivation for Derek is the chance to stay ahead of the curve. "I love being the first in my group to know about the latest music, movies or restaurants, and I'd spread the word anyway," he says. So if BzzAgent's latest product happens to impress him, he will happily add his "real and true personal endorsement".

In two years, BzzAgent has grown into a network of 51,000 word-of-mouth promoters, their low-level buzz boosting Kellogg's cereals, Lee jeans and Ralph Lauren fragrances. An eight-week campaign involving 1,000 agents - half are over 25; two-thirds are women - can cost £50,000. Yet so great is demand, according to the agency's founder, Dave Balter, that a London office will open this autumn. "There's no question that this is coming to the UK," Balter says. "We've been approached by British businesses in the media space, in fragrance, in publishing, who want us to work for them. We know it's needed."

Dave stresses that this is "honest" word-of-mouth, as opposed to "roach" marketing, which sets out to hoodwink consumers. Sony Ericsson, for instance, hired 60 street actors to play tourists wanting their pictures taken; when passers-by obliged, they were handed the latest "easy to use" camera phone. Other agencies have placed models in bars to promote vodka and sent actors on to buses to talk loudly about "fantastic" leisure attractions. Funnily enough, Dave initially presumed that his recruits too would have to mislead people. "But we found that if they liked the products, they'd become evangelists and would happily talk about them honestly. That gives the products more validity."

And now British marketers are clamouring for buzz. "It's nothing new for the music industry here to create 'e-teams' to seed chatrooms with positive comments," says Jez Jowett at the London agency Cake. "Word-of-mouth marketing influences us more than anything else at the moment, and it can only grow."

Yet ... isn't this simply the commercialisation of human relationships? "It's using social networks not for commercial purposes, but because people feel strongly enough to get involved," insists Dave Balter. "There are no obligations to do anything cynical." Nor does Derek Archambault have any qualms. "It's not obnoxious or unnatural," he says, "just legitimate feedback from one friend to another about a product I like. And I get to maintain my status as a buzzer who knows the greatest new stuff out there."

(The Times, London, September 4 2004)

Read more!

The Times: How to live to be 1,000

By David Rowan

Fancy sticking around for another few hundred years? Dr Aubrey de Grey has some good news for you. "I see a true cure for human ageing as a very real possibility," the Cambridge University biogerontologist explains casually over a pint in his local. "I reckon we have a 50-50 chance of developing a human rejuvenation therapy that really works within ten to 15 years once we can show it works for mice - and the mice should take around ten years. At that point," he adds nonchalantly, rubbing his long ginger beard, "I see absolutely no limit on the age that humans could reach."

When a man in a pub promises you the secret to eternal life, you would normally be wise to walk swiftly away. But de Grey, the loquacious 41-year-old editor of the journal Rejuvenation Research, has become an influential if controversial voice among scientists studying why we age. Two years ago, the respected Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences published his argument that "the indefinite postponement of ageing ... may be within sight", since when he has become a leading advocate for what has become known as "radical life extension". Sure, it will take billions of pounds, unprecedented political goodwill and the small matter of his scientific hunches being proved correct. Yet, with genetic engineering, stem-cell research and other technologies promising vast new opportunities to "correct" the body's ills, de Grey and his supporters are shaking up traditional approaches to treating old age.

"The gerontological establishment finds me alarming and refuses to engage with me," de Grey says with the arrogance of an outsider suddenly enjoying the limelight. "Fortunately I'm not encumbered by their conventional wisdom."

Admittedly, this tall, pale, ponytailed obsessive lacks any medical or experimental training. A computer scientist who worked with Clive Sinclair, his day job is to run the fruit-fly database in the university genetics department. Yet his provocative thinking on why the body dies has stirred up furious debate among the research community. By breaking ageing down into seven underlying processes, and suggesting interventions designed to disrupt them, de Grey claims to offer new hope for defeating heart disease, strokes, even cancer. "We won't be able to eliminate them from body, but we will develop therapies to knock them back repeatedly and restore the individual to healthy life. It's almost certain that, if we fix all the things that determine why we can only live to 120 today, we'll live for longer - to 130, 200 or perhaps even 5,000. Most of these treatments will be periodic - you'll go back for rejuvenation every few years and decide just how old you want to be today."

Some dismiss such sci-fi posturing as an audacious quest for attention. But what has led a distinguished international audience to debate de Grey's vision is the apparently credible science behind it. Advances in gene therapy have, for instance, raised new possibilities for correcting harmful mutations within our cells' mitochondria, one of his seven suggested fixes. The mitochondria, the machines in cells that provide our energy, contain DNA that is highly vulnerable to mutation - a process that damages the surrounding cells. Yet if this DNA could be copied from the mitochondria into the cell nuclei, de Grey explains, the number of mutations would collapse, potentially slowing the ageing process by half. The next step is to make it work for mice. As for cancer, he suggests, that could be permanently postponed through periodic stem-cell treatments. You would book yourself a blood transfusion every few years, just as today you have your house decorated.

Dr Jay Olshansky, a public-health professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and an authority on anti-ageing medicine, is one of those taking de Grey's views seriously - albeit with reservations. "What I like about Aubrey is he's making scientists think about influencing the ageing process in ways we haven't thought of before," Olshansky says. "What I disagree with are some of his conclusions. To say we're going to achieve life expectancies of 100, as a population, any time soon is outside the realm of possibility. I'd be elated if we could get ten more years of life by slowing down ageing. But talking about 50, 60, 5,000 more years? That's counterproductive."

For all the advances in healthcare and hygiene over the past century, western life expectancy has been nearing a plateau. In 1901, baby boys in the UK could expect to reach 45 and girls 48.7. Fifty years later, boys' life expectancy had shot up to 65.6 and girls' to 70.4; yet by 2001, the pace of growth had slowed, with boys at 75.7 and girls at 80.4. Despite our growing medical knowledge, the human lifespan appears to have peaked at around 120 years, with one or other of our vital bodily systems inevitably failing by this stage. Nor has our extended old-age been entirely happy news, with more of those years lived each decade in poor health.

A major barrier to finding a "solution" is the scientific establishment's failure to agree on what ageing actually is. Some gerontologists see it as an unavoidable process of life, whose decline may only be "managed"; others define it as a specific biological process that one day we may learn to switch off. Ask a group of specialists how we might bypass the apparent 120-year limit, and their answers range from targeting specific diseases such as cancer and restricting calorific intake to the use of biotechnology or nanotechnology to replenish our bodily functions.

In Jay Olshansky's view, it is misguided to see ageing as a "disease" that can be "fixed". Instead, it is the inevitable result of irreparable molecular damage caused in our cells as a by-product of living. Better, he suggests, to find ways to slow the ageing process and so postpone the onset of age-related diseases. Nor, he adds, should we draw too many conclusions from experiments on mice, worms or other creatures. Humans, as cognitive beings, require mental as well as physical health - and who would want a functioning centuries-old body if our minds had not caught up?

"In the next two decades, we'll probably be able to intervene in heart disease, cancer and strokes, learning enough about them either to significantly postpone them or in some cases eliminate them altogether," Olshansky believes. "But they're diseases. I'd be surprised if we have an intervention that could affect ageing itself. It's feasible that we'll be able to add 10 or 20 healthy years by slowing down the ageing process, but I seriously doubt if it will happen in time for you or me."

Of more immediate concern to Olshansky are the lurid claims being made for some commercially available treatments which claim to "reverse" or "stop" the ageing process. Two years ago, 51 leading researchers in the field signed a statement he drafted condemning "ineffective and potentially harmful anti-ageing interventions" being marketed that lacked any basis in science. These untested products - from dietary supplements to hormones - may cause harmful biochemical reactions and unpredictable side effects, he warns. "Prospective patients should keep their money in their pockets, as there is no scientific evidence to support the claims currently being made by the anti-ageing industry," he says. "Doctors who recommend these products are simply conducting biological experiments on their patients."

Olshansky has been particularly outspoken against the American Academy of Anti Ageing Medicine, a Chicago-based body which is organising London's "First International Anti-Ageing Conference" next Friday and Saturday.at Kensington Town Hall. The academy's founders have twice earned an unwelcome "Silver Fleece Award", which Olshansky founded with fellow scientists three years ago "to expose the most outrageous or exaggerated claims about slowing or reversing human aging". Their latest award, last March, went to a suite of anti-ageing products created by the academy's co-founders, Drs Ronald Klatz and Robert Goldman, which cost around £300 for a short-term course sold through the Market America website. "Market America uses clever hype and pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo to convince consumers that 'nutraceuticals' and 'cosmeceuticals' can alter the ageing process," Olshansky stated at the time. "About the only thing these anti-ageing products do is fatten the wallets of those selling them."

Klatz and Goldman have not responded well to Olshansky's criticisms. Indeed, last month they launched a $150 million lawsuit against him and a Harvard medical professor, Dr Thomas Perls, alleging "damage to their reputations". "We take great exception to Mr Olshansky and his tactics which have finally compelled us to file suit for various unprofessional and improper actions," Klatz tells The Times. ("They can do whatever they want," Olshansky replies, "but there's zero per cent chance that they're going to silence scientists on this topic.") "The only thing I sell are books," Klatz insists, professing outrage. "My website is non-commercial - we're just trying to advance science."

Nonetheless, Market America has been trumpeting its valuable partnership with Klatz and Goldman to develop new products designed to "catapult this company to the forefront of the anti-ageing market". The range, according to a Market America press release, promises "to slow the ageing process" through "a unique secretogogue that stimulates the pituitary gland to produce more human growth hormone", not forgetting its "powerful blend of vitamins, minerals, pro-hormones and herbs that help stimulate the production of cytokines and create a balanced intracellular environment". All claims, as far as Olshansky and his colleagues are concerned, that are simply unscientific, meaningless marketing pitches.

Klatz's association claims to represent "12,500 physicians, scientists, health professionals, and the health minded public from 73 countries" - who, via his website, are invited to spend $595 on "educational materials" or $150 on their paperback books that call for ageing to be treated "as a disease".He himself is the bestselling author of books such as Grow Young with Human Growth Hormone, Seven Anti-Aging Secrets and Stopping the Clock - even if his and Goldman's medical qualifications, obtained in Belize, have brought them into conflict with professional regulators in Illinois. Four years ago, both agreed to pay $5,000 penalties for allegedly identifying themselves as MDs in the state without being "properly licensed".

Still, as "a recognised leading authority in the new clinical science of anti-ageing", how does Klatz rate the promise of human longevity? "I see an end to the major causes of death," he replies with certainty. "In 1900, pneumonia, TB and diarrhoeal diseases were our biggest killers, yet not that many people die of them now. Today, if we could beat heart disease, cancer and diabetes, we could add 12 to 15 years to any person's life expectancy." Through stem-cell techniques, genetic engineering and nanotechnology, he says, "living to be 100 becomes no big tickle at all". Indeed, it is no longer the science but the politics that are standing in the way of great breakthroughs, Klatz adds. "The science is the easy part. The reason the power establishment wants to suppress stem-cell technology is because it puts in danger the disease-based model of medicine that gerontologists rely on."

Aubrey de Grey has accepted an invitation to speak at Klatz's London conference - although, he admits, he is "taking a bit of a risk" by associating with the academy. Still, he welcomes the opportunity to promote his theories, particularly to the gerontologists whom he, like Klatz, identifies as barriers to progress. "We only think there's anything wrong with curing ageing because we've grown up with it as something ghastly but inevitable," he claims. "That won't survive the creation of the mice. Then everything will change overnight. There'll be unprecedented pressure to cure ageing, and politicians will be unable to get elected without promising a Manhattan Project geared towards life extension. Then people will realise that all ethical objections are a smokescreen."

We might not be quite there yet - but let's just say that de Grey is one day proved right. How would society cope with the prospect of five or ten times our current life expectancy - and with some of us, perhaps the wealthy, facing millennia-long lifespans, while the less fortunate, and those with still untreatable diseases, continue to succumb to old-fashioned death? Would it even be ethical to "cure" old age?

It is a prospect that has greatly preoccupied John Harris, professor of bioethics at Manchester University's School of Law, and one of our leading medical philosophers. Prof Harris's conclusion? There are no coherent ethical reasons to object to greatly increased life-spans and even "immortality". "If we believed that there was some moral imperative not to interfere with nature, we would not practise medicine, which in itself is a comprehensive attempt to frustrate the course of nature," he concludes. "If there is an imperative to saving life, it's very difficult to see why postponing death should not always be a good thing in moral terms."

Harris himself would be glad to sample the new therapies. "There's a lot of crap written that people would get bored if life was vastly extended, but only boring people would get bored," he reflects. "I could happily try the next million or two years." Besides, he adds, immortality is not invulnerability. "And we'd still be able to kill ourselves if we chose to."

(The Times, Body & Soul section, September 3, 2004)

Read more!

Interview: Dawn Neesom, Daily Star (Evening Standard)

By David Rowan

DAWN Neesom has a message for rival editors. If you want to stay in business, dump your oldfashioned obsession with news and give the readers froth.

"Why bore or depress them when they'll get all the news they want from TV and the web?" she says a little impatiently. "Sometimes I do think editors get stuck up their own backsides."

As editor of the Daily Star for the past eight months, Neesom, 39, feels in a strong position to know what readers want. As circulations tumble among red-tops and singleformat broadsheets, the Star remains the exception that continues to add readers.

Three years ago, when Richard Desmond bought it with the Daily Express, the paper's future looked uncertain, with sales below 630,000.

Under Neesom, and her predecessor Peter Hill, they have risen solidly to 919,000 and on some days to a million, overtaking the Express and causing serious worries at The Sun and the Mirror.

Commentators may sneer at the Star's mix of flesh, soaps and celebs, but Neesom points only to the numbers. "I don't give a monkey's what people say," she says in her no-nonsense east London accent. "Broadsheet snobs can dismiss me all they like, but I'm selling papers and they're not."

Besides, she says, the growth will only continue. "I think the Daily Star is capable of selling 1.5 million daily as a minimum," she predicts - adding that she will be there to make it happen.

Her recipe, she explains, is to offer readers "inspiration and aspiration".

"The secret is it's fun, it's cheeky, you read it and you smile," she says.

"Let's face it, people are not getting their news from newspapers now. The only paper that's doing exceptionally well is the Daily Star, and we have a light and frothy diet of celebrity and fun.

"Yes, we cover the big news stories too, but I'm not going to bore readers and go on for pages and pages. That's where The Sun and the Mirror go wrong.

One day they'll be off to Africa and you'll get a picture of a baby covered in flies, the next there will be Beyonce in a glittering frock. They are schizophrenic and they tend to preach." As for "star" journalists, they too are superfluous. "The days of having big-name journalists who can sell papers are long gone. The readers just don't care."

It remains debatable how far the Star does, as she claims, cover "all the hard news": coverage of the Republican National Convention, for instance, focused on Britney Spears's exclusion from a party over her "raunchy" image.

But readers - the youngest of any national paper, she claims, at an average age of 32 - seemingly hunger for such escapism. "I want them to feel confident and happy as they face the day," Neesom explains. "It's about having a life and enjoying themselves. We all know there are problems in Sudan or Iraq. But I don't want to depress them as they go to work on the bus or in their white van."

Part of her strategy is to involve readers - from a letters page for the text-message generation ("Can any1 explain y the bird sh*t on my car is PURPLE?") to a quest for Britain's "Cleavage Queen", which attracted entries from 2,000 " gorgeous babes". The Sun's "cleavage week", by contrast, lacked any "conviction", Neesom notes.

She rejects as patronising any suggestion that the paper should not show topless models. "Girls love it. They see it as a path to fame and fortune.

And they're not wrong. It's aspirational. A reader might have the worst job on Earth, but they think, 'Jordan started off like this, so maybe I'll have a go.'" The paper claims to have discovered not just Jordan, but Melinda Messenger and Nell McAndrew. Yet it has faced a struggle to appeal more widely to women readers.

Neesom responds that she has increased the proportion from around 30 to 40 per cent by using "less laddish" headlines and photographs of women celebrities rather than "gratuitous models".

Amid all the celebrity coverage, there is one political issue that obsesses the Star - asylum.

Refugee groups have accused Neesom of stirring up hatred, but she says she is merely giving a platform to readers' concerns.

"It's my job to reflect how they feel, and they're genuinely worried.

They see people coming over here and they perceive them to be treated better than themselves."

BUT isn't such coverage simply playing into racists' hands? "Tony Blair is playing into the hands of racists by some of his policies, and that's what's led to street attacks," she replies. "Why does being worried make the Daily Star reader racist?"

What policy, then, would she propose? "I'm not a politician, I'm a newspaper editor," she says. "Our line is what the readers are feeling at the time.

It's not our job to tell them what to think. I'm not into preaching." They "don't believe a word Blair says", but she will not yet commit to an electoral preference on their behalf.

Neesom, a kick-boxer and devoted West Ham supporter, retains some of the east London toughness of her Stratford upbringing. She dropped out of college at 18 for financial reasons, began her career on the Newham Recorder, and worked at Woman's Own and then The Sun before arriving at the Star seven years ago. She is married to a TV studio technician, with no children.

Working for Richard Desmond, she says, is "fantastic - the man's a positive whirlwind". She has not, she says, faced his legendary obscenity-laden tirades - "If I did," she insists, "I'd just swear back." She is evasive over reported cutbacks imposed by Desmond on her paper. When asked about sports coverage having to be pooled with the Express, for instance, she replies: "I wouldn't like to go into that, it's not my area of expertise so I don't know what's going on there."

This sounds a surprising admission for an editor, but she insists that her resources "are not being pared down". "I still have exactly the same sized sports desk," she says carefully. "My reporters still file for me." Nor should the use of a Lancashire-based pool of subeditors be seen as a cost-cutting inconvenience. "You can shout at them down the phone, it's just as effective."

What next, then, for Neesom?

Would she like to go back and run The Sun? "No fear," she answers.

"Have you seen their sales? They managed to lose 143,000 buyers in July.

That's going some."

But couldn't her no-news philosophy turn things around?

"What, with my hands tied behind my back? No," she adds, "it will be much more satisfying to take the Daily Star ahead of The Sun. It's possible. Do the graphs."

(Evening Standard, September 1, 2004)

Read more!