A regular poke in Eye of powerful

Private Eye cover. Photo / Supplied

Half a century after Emmanuel Strobes first brought forth his mighty organ, Private Eye remains immune to the catastrophic effects the digital revolution has inflicted on much of the rest of the print media.

The internet fosters a cynical view of those in power and those who report on the powerful, meaning there is an almost insatiable hunger for satire.

Private Eye, during the first six months of this year, sold 206,266 of each fortnightly issue in Britain. Among British periodicals, only the Economist can boast such a circulation.

It's not that the Eye has ignored the internet. It has mocked the moronic observations of some online commentators with its regular feature "From The Messageboards", while simultaneously using technology to promote itself through Twitter and a website that hosts an "Eye Player" of video clips and audio sketches that encourage sales of the print product.

The magazine is a model of consistency. Editor Ian Hislop is in his 25th anniversary in residence. The layout and regular features - "Pseuds Corner", "HP Sauce" and "Street of Shame" - are so familiar it seems like the template has never changed.

It has included colour for some years. But it did once have a "Colour Section", printed in black and white to mock the way other titles pursued presentation over content.

In an age of 24-hour media noise and endless searching for "trends" there is something reassuring in the constancy of Private Eye.

When even the larger media organisations struggle to fund investigative journalism, the Eye still keeps alive the flame of the late great Paul Foot, its most dogged campaigning hack.

Co-founder Christopher Booker and former longstanding editor Richard Ingrams are still part of the close-knit editorial team in the tumbledown townhouse in Carlisle St, Soho, where the magazine is still produced.

Hislop is most closely assisted by deputy editor Francis Wheen and chief sub-editor Tristan Davies. The operation, which is largely one week on and one week off, is held together by Eye stalwart Hilary Lowinger.

It is something of a boys' club, but over the years the magazine has provided a platform for many funny writers and cartoonists. It has generated its own lexicon, with phrases such as "just fancy that" and "tired and emotional".

There is a school of thought that says its once biting satire has been replaced by a greater dependence on cartoons and a simpler humour that is less threatening to the establishment. Others, especially those whose egos it has bruised, complain the Eye shows no inclination to balance a story and gives no right of reply.

This is a golden era for Private Eye, not just because it is 50 years old, but because media issues on which it has long campaigned are to the fore. Hislop has been one of the loudest opponents of the use of super-injunctions by the rich and powerful and the Eye has stood up to media moguls such as Rupert Murdoch, just as it did to Robert Maxwell.

Maxwell, with financier James Goldsmith and Sonia Sutcliffe, wife of the Yorkshire Ripper, was among those who threatened the magazine's very existence by pursuing it through the courts.

The Eye has lived to tell the tale, and warned future challengers they too will face the "Curse of Gnome".

* Johann Hari, the writer and columnist for the Independent, has admitted plagiarism allegations and will attend a journalism training course before being allowed to rejoin the newspaper. He will take four months' unpaid leave to follow a programme of journalism training at his own expense.

Independent Print Limited (IPL), the owner of the Independent, said that Hari had acknowledged embellishing quotations in articles and plagiarism following an examination of evidence by Andreas Whittam Smith, the founding editor of the paper. Hari was suspended in July to allow the claims to be investigated.

Hari will also return the Orwell Prize for journalism that was awarded to him in 2008.

- Independent