Times Higher Education Silence

This nib* is all I can see in the latest issue of the Times Higher Education Supplement that mentions Boris Johnson. It is sandwiched between a par on an art school's change of name and one on a funding council's performance targets:

Boris Johnson will not be sacked as Higher Education Spokesperson for the Conservatives, the party's leader, David Cameron, said this week. Mr Cameron said that allegations that the Henley MP had an affair were a private issue. Mr Johnson has been in China on a fact-finding mission.

The Sunday newspaper that broke the story named Johnson's lover as a THES journalist. Anna Fazackerley has bylined several stories about Johnson in recent weeks. The paper's silence about her speaks volumes about its relationship with its readers.

Is the paper bothered that it has been feeding words to its readers written by someone with an intimate and secret relationship with the Tory's higher education spokesperson? Does it wish to maintain any pretence at objectivity?

Does it realise how contemptible it will be if it ever reports undeclared conflicts of interest in other organisations, while censoring itself about its own?

Apparently not.

Attempts to get a statement from the THES editor, John O'Leary, or his deputy, Gerard Kelly, have so far failed. They have ignored three emails this week.

Hackles has terrier-like persistence. This is a serious matter. There will be no giving up. The pressure will increase.

Les

* A bit of trade jargon. Nib stands for news in brief. They are single paragraph (or par, as we call them) news stories, generally printed together in a column. News editors have judged that readers want to know about them, but figured they don't merit full news story coverage.