Francis Wheen

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Francis James Baird Wheen (born 22 January 1957) is a British writer and journalist.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Wheen was educated at Copthorne Prep School, Harrow School and Royal Holloway College, University of London. At Harrow he was a contemporary of Mark Thatcher who has been a recurring subject of his journalism. He is a member of the 'soap' side of the Wheen family, whose family business was the long-established "Wheen & Sons", soap-makers, as was revealed in the gossip column of the Daily Mail on 26 March 2007, with humour.

[edit] Writing

He is the author of several books including a biography of Karl Marx, which won the Isaac Deutscher prize. An award-winning column for The Guardian ran for several years. He writes for Private Eye and is the magazine's deputy editor. His collected journalism – Hoo-hahs and Passing Frenzies won him the George Orwell Prize in 2003. He was also a regular columnist for the London Evening Standard.

[edit] Broadcasting work

Wheen broadcasts regularly (mainly on BBC Radio 4) and is a regular panellist on The News Quiz, in which he jokes fairly frequently about the fact that he rather looks like the former Tory party leader Iain Duncan Smith. He is also one of the most frequently recruited guests for Have I Got News For You.

Wheen wrote a docudrama, The Lavender List, for BBC Four on the final period of Harold Wilson's premiership, concentrating on his relationship with Marcia Williams, which was first screened in March 2006. It starred Kenneth Cranham as former Prime Minister Wilson and Gina McKee as Williams. In April 2007 the BBC paid £75,000 to Williams (Baroness Falkender) in an out-of-court settlement over claims made in the programme.[1] The BBC did not inform Wheen about the settlement beforehand, and he was reportedly angered by the decision.[citation needed]

[edit] Political views

Francis Wheen is a signatory to the Euston Manifesto and a close friend of Christopher Hitchens. In late-2005 Wheen was co-author, with journalists David Aaronovitch and Oliver Kamm, of a complaint to The Guardian after it published a correction and apology for an interview with Noam Chomsky by Emma Brockes. Chomsky complained that the article suggested he denied the fact of the Srebrenica massacre of 1995. [2] The writer Diana Johnstone also complained about references to her in the interview. [3] A Guardian readers' editor found that this had misrepresented Chomsky's position, and his judgement was upheld in May 2006 by an external ombudsman, John Willis. [4] In his report for the Guardian, Willis detailed his reasons for rejecting the argument; Kamm maintains that his argument "remains unconsidered" by Willis. [5]

[edit] Criticisms

Wheen has been dubbed "the Rottweiller of Decency" for his habit of attacking people who displease the so-called 'decent' left associated with the Euston Manifesto. He was accused of hypocrisy when in Private Eye he vehemently attacked a review by Johann Hari of the book 'What's Left' by Nick Cohen, impugning Hari's journalistic standards, without declaring that he is a close personal friend of Cohen's and thanked at length in the book. Critics charged that this is the sort of behaviour that Wheen condemns so often in others. [1] A letter in Private Eye later argued that the magazine, via Wheen's writings, "attacks honest journalists just because they criticise you and your mates."

[edit] References

  1. ^ "BBC pays out over Wilson drama", The Guardian website, 4 April 2007.
  2. ^ Brockes, Emma. "The Greatest Intellectual?", The Guardian, October 31, 2005; the article has since been withdrawn from the Guardian's website, but remains available at chomsky.info.
  3. ^ Johstone, Diana. "The Bosnian war was brutal, but it wasn't a Holocaust", The Guardian, November 23, 2005.
  4. ^ Willis, John. "External Ombudsman Report", The Guardian, May 25, 2006
  5. ^ Kamm, Oliver. "Guardian and Chomsky, concluded", Oliver Kamm's weblog, May 26, 2006.

[edit] Partial bibliography

[edit] External links

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