Someone To Keep "Big Brother" In Check (Private Eye)

Member Name: eyedo6789

Product:	Private Eye
Date:	28/03/09 (89 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very Clever & Sometimes Important Satire

Disadvantages: A Bit Too Highbrow

Private Eye is a fortnightly British satirical magazine that costs £1.50. It was founded in 1961 and is currently edited by Ian Hislop who is better known to many as one of the long standing (sitting) team captains on TV's BBC2 satirical panel show "Have I Got News For You".

One of the main aspirations and functions of Private Eye is to poke fun at and criticize the political and ruling establishment as well as to uncover what it feels are any dishonest, corrupt or wrong doings by it or by individual business people or large corporations.

It does this in a satirical way which can take the form of direct accusations or by using cleverly written innuendo. Over the years this has often resulted in "The Eye" being sued for libel.

The magazine is not all about taking the establishment and big business down a peg or too, it also focuses heavily on the goings on of individuals in "Fleet Street" or Wapping as it now is, which is where much of the print media is produced. This section for me is utterly boring and would only be of any interest to people involved in the print media.

One of my favourite parts of the magazine is "Colemanballs" (named after the sometimes bumbling ex-BBC sports presenter David Coleman) where amusing quotes are printed of sports commentary gaffes made in the preceding fortnight.

Two examples from a recent issue are:

"There are a lot of tired legs in those white shirts." ANDY GRAY Sky Sports "... and Stewie Downing will look at this with his left foot." GARY GILL Radio Tees

I distinctly remember David Coleman once commentating on the great middle distance runner Steve Cram. As Cram started moving away from the field down the back straight Coleman said "and Steve Cram opens his legs and shows his class".

They also have a famous lookalikes section; last weeks were Bernard Madoff (crooked financier) and George Washington U.S. President).

There are a few cartoon sections, with or without themes, that convey satirical comedy plus there are various other regular sections such as "Rotten Boroughs" which deals with local government and "Dumb Britain" which prints some dumb things that members of the public have said on television or radio recently.

As with a lot of comedy much of it falls flat so you have to be prepared to find only some of the content of the magazine to be funny.

Usually very funny is the front cover of the magazine which has a large topical news photograph on it with a satirical style caption added to it.
There are very few adverts embedded within the main body of the magazine but there is a classified ads. section at the back which in itself can be amusing as some of the ads. are for strange of wacky things.

I like Private Eye because it is brave in its journalistic style and objectives and because a lot of it makes me laugh out loud.

My criticism of it is that it can be too highbrow and have too much of an intellectually superior feeling about itself. There is possibly also too much emphasis on writings about the print media and local councils and not enough about popular culture.

In my opinion it is a great publication that serves a niche market very well.

There is an on line version too which is released after the print version and gives a taster of what you get.

You can find the online version at http://www.private-eye.co.uk/ and if you look now (on 28th March 2009) you will find a pretty funny satirical look at Banking Logos in the Cartoon section. An example of which is Bradford & Bingley's logo being changed to Badfund & Bungley!

Summary: Part Of British Media Culture