Brian Whitaker

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Brian Whitaker (sometimes credited as Brian Whittaker; born 13 June 1947)[1] is a British journalist and writer.

He studied Arabic studies at the University of Westminster and Latin (BA Hons) at the University of Birmingham. A former joint investigations editor of The Sunday Times, he left the title at the time of the Wapping dispute.[2] For a period during 1987, he was editor of the short-lived News on Sunday tabloid.[3] The newspaper published extracts from Spycatcher by Peter Wright in August 1987 while Whitaker was editor. The title was eventually fined £50,000 in May 1989 for contempt of court in breaking an injunction upheld by the Law Lords shortly before publication.[4][5][6]

Whitaker worked for the British newspaper The Guardian from 1987 and was its Middle East editor from 2000 to 2007. He runs a personal, non-Guardian-related website, Al-Bab.com, about politics in the Arab world.

Works[edit]

  • News Limited: Why You Can't Read All About it, 1981 (London: Minority Press Group) ISBN 978-0-906890-03-5, ISBN 978-0-906890-04-2, OCLC 8229010
  • Notes and Queries, vol. 1-5, 1990 (London: Fourth Estate) ISBN 978-1-872180-22-9, OCLC 22182928, a collection of Q&A from the readers of The Guardian
  • Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East, 2006 (London: Saqi Books) ISBN 978-0-86356-819-0, (Berkeley:University of California Press) ISBN 0-520-25017-6, OCLC 238877880
  • What's "Really" Wrong with the Middle East?, 2009 (London: Saqi Books) ISBN 978-0-86356-624-0, OCLC 416261943
  • Arabs Without God: Atheism and Freedom of Belief in the Arab World, 2014 (CreateSpace) ISBN 9781501064838

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Whitaker, Brian 1947–". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
  2. ^ "Bitter battle at Wapping: scenes at the frontline". Press Gazette. 19 January 2006. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
  3. ^ Greenslade, Roy. Press Gang: How Newspapers Make Profits from Propaganda. London: Pan Macmillan. pp. 494–495.
  4. ^ "Britain to Punish Paper in Spy Case". The New York Times. Reuters. 5 August 1987. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
  5. ^ "Government to Prosecute Newspaper for Printing Spy Book Exerpts". AP News. 5 August 1987. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
  6. ^ "Papers fined £150,000 for Spycatcher contempt". The Glasgow Herald. 9 May 1989. Retrieved 19 September 2021.

External links[edit]