Mic Wright

Norwich

Contributor, Reporter and Podcaster at Freelance

Same name on BlueSky. I’m a writer and have a newsletter👇🏻 “Do you know what the sad part is…? I’m a very good tailor.” Agent: @taffyagent

Articles

How Journalism Can Survive AI and Bothsidesism (w Mic Wright)

1 month ago | news.wickedproblems.uk | Richard Delevan |Mic Wright

You lucky ducks. We are replete - nay, verily, festooned - with a content cornucopia just for you. “Actin like life is a big commercial” seemed like a line worth nicking for today’s outro. And if you hate the Beasties you’re in the wrong parish, friendo. Pass the Mic is the outro track for this conversation. Answers on a postcard about why - best answer gets a set of steaknives pint on us. is the madman media survivor behind one of this show’s second-favourite newsletter, .
20. Allison Pearson, VE Day, and the ghost of Umberto Eco

1 month ago | brokenbottleboy.substack.com | Mic Wright

Event announcement: If you’re in or around London on June 11th, I’m launching my book at Ink84 in Highbury between 6.30 and 8.30 pm. I’d love to see you. Click the following link to grab a free ticket. Previously: Cover story In the years following World War I, the stab-in-the-back myth, which maintained that Germany lost the war because of Jews, socialists, and communists who betrayed the nation on the home front, was a powerful one for the far right.
The newsroom's vanishing women: ITN, Channel 4 News and the long shadow of NDAs

Mar 13, 2025 | brokenbottleboy.substack.com | Mic Wright

Previously: FeMail trouble“When former Channel 4 News editor Ben de Pear stepped down from his post at the start of 2022 — after nearly a decade at the helm — he was treated to a lavish leaving party at Tate Modern (a bash he shared with a PR for the programme, who was joining the Daily Mail). Some people were missing.
Cold day in The Sun

Jan 23, 2025 | brokenbottleboy.substack.com | Mic Wright

Previously: Trump StakesReviewing UK coverage of Donald Trump's second inauguration so you don't have to... July 19, 2011, was “the most humble day” of Rupert Murdoch’s life, or so he claimed to the parliamentary committee investigating phone hacking. But Murdoch was not humbled by that grilling or the pie in the face he received later in the same hearing.
Labour stands by VAT for private schools

Nov 13, 2024 | perspectivemedia.com | Mic Wright

Parents must cough up or check outParents must cough up or check outThe protests have been loud, long and increasingly personal – yet unsuccessful in diverting the government from its plans to impose 20% VAT on private school fees from January ’25. Around 7% of all school-age children and 18% of those over sixteen currently attend private schools.
Hold the blank page

Nov 12, 2024 | perspectivemedia.com | Mic Wright |Viv Groskop

As I sat down to write this column, a tundra of white space stretched out before me, empty but for the blinking cursor goading me to get on with it. A blank page provides a good example of how freedom can feel – in theory you can fill it however you please but in practice you are constrained in so many ways. I’m not free to write whatever I want here because this issue has a theme (freedom) and I’ve agreed with the editor on how I’ll approach that topic in these 900 words.
Isabel Oakeshott’s dirty mind

Oct 8, 2024 | theneweuropean.co.uk | Mic Wright

Last week, the political journalist Isabel Oakeshott set the cat among the social media pigeons by suggesting that the prime minister has a secret. “There have long been rumours about Keir Starmer’s private life,” she said, speaking on TalkTV, where she holds the rather grand title of international editor. “They certainly aren’t to do with any doubts around his sexuality, if I can put it delicately.
‘A chump’s idea of a clever man’

Oct 1, 2024 | theneweuropean.co.uk | Mic Wright

No less an expert in editorial malpractice than former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie greeted Michael Gove’s appointment as the new man in charge at the Spectator by writing on X: “[He] has three qualities which I feel will make him an inspired choice as Editor.
Bonfire of the hotdog suits

Aug 6, 2024 | brokenbottleboy.substack.com | Mic Wright

Previously: The 'Talent'Huw Edwards' conviction leaves the BBC with another set of serious questions to answer and allows The Sun to cry vindication. This morning The Times published a “rogues’ gallery” of those it says are responsible for “fanning the flames of violence”. It includes Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson), Andrew Tate, Nigel Farage and Lawrence Fox. All of them deserve their share of the blame but others are conspicuous in their absence.
The 'Talent'

Aug 1, 2024 | brokenbottleboy.substack.com | Mic Wright

Previously: The NoteI was deeply critical of The Sun’s story about Huw Edwards last year. I was wrong. While that case was not the one that ended up with the BBC’s former top news presenter pleading guilty to possessing vile images of child sexual abuse, the actions described — paying a much younger person for intimate photos — were a clue to a pattern of behaviour. That Edwards was not found to have committed a crime then did not mean that there was no abuse of power and position.