Private Eye remains a haven for disillusioned or dissident UK journalists, broadcasters and artists where commercial and / or proprietorial pressures have 'spiked' or distorted stories. In the 1960's Private Eye could claim to have achieved some remarkable 'scalps' - not least during the Profumo / Keeler / Ivanov / Mandy Rice Davis affair which culminated in a resignation, a suicide and Lord Denning's report.
The legendary 'Curse of Gnome' is an awful warning to those lawyers attempting to sue the publication, although with the death of Peter Carter Ruck there has been less action in the courts.
Private Eye:
Cartoons with an Islamic Topic
Owner Pressdam Ltd
Headquarters:
6 Carlisle Street,
London, W1D 3BN
Website: http://www.private-eye.co.uk
Private Eye is a fortnightly British satirical magazine-newspaper.
Headquarters:
6 Carlisle Street,
London, W1D 3BN
Website: http://www.private-eye.co.uk
Private Eye is a fortnightly British satirical magazine-newspaper.
History
The magazine's mascot, "Gnitty", drawn by Willy
Rushton and based on John WellsThe forerunner of Private Eye was a school magazine edited by Richard Ingrams, Willie Rushton, Christopher Booker and Paul Foot in the mid-1950s. They met at Shrewsbury School and after National Service Ingrams and Foot went to Oxford University, where they met their future collaborators Peter Usborne, Andrew Osmond, John Wells, and Danae Brook, among others.
The magazine proper began when Peter Usborne learned of a new printing process, offset lithography, which meant that anybody with a typewriter and Letraset could design a magazine. Although Private Eye was founded amid the British satire boom and the political and social upheavals of the 1960s, at first it was merely a vehicle for silly jokes – an extension of the school magazine and an alternative to other humorous magazines like Punch. However, according to Christopher Booker, its original editor, it simply got "caught up in the rage for satire".
The magazine was initially funded by Usborne and was launched in 1961. It was named when Andrew Osmond looked for ideas in the famous recruiting poster of Lord Kitchener (an image of Kitchener pointing with the caption "Wants You") and, in particular, the pointing finger. After the name "Finger" was rejected, Osmond suggested "Private Eye", in the sense of someone who "fingers" a suspect.
The magazine was initially edited by Christopher Booker and designed by Willie Rushton, who also drew cartoons for it. Its later editor Richard Ingrams was then pursuing a career as an actor, sharing the editorship with Booker on his return around issue 10 and taking over fully only on issue 40.
After the magazine's initial success, more funding was provided by Nicholas Luard and Peter Cook, who ran The Establishment satire club, and Private Eye became a fully professional publication.
Other people essential to the development of the magazine were Auberon Waugh, Claud Cockburn (who had run a mock pre-war scandal sheet The Week), Barry Fantoni, Gerald Scarfe, Tony Rushton, Patrick Marnham and Candida Betjeman. Christopher Logue was another long-time contributor, providing a fortnightly column of "True Stories" using cuttings from the national press. The gossip columnist Nigel Dempster wrote extensively for the magazine before he fell out with the editor and other writers, and the late lamented Paul Foot wrote on politics, local government and corruption.
To ascertain the current flavour of this magazine – herwith some of their cartoons and Lord Gnome's Editorial from the February 17th 2006 edition.
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See also:
Jail threat over cartoons
Some further cartoons from AEL
No joke - cartoons row
Cartoon controversy -- The right to provoke?
Salman Rushdie
Three hour courtroom rant
London cartoon protest - why no arrests?
Ridicule won't lead to dialogue
Virgin bans free speech
Cartoons - offensive or defensive?
Cartoon row continues
Depicting Muhammed at Edinburgh University