Francis Wheen
Francis James Baird Wheen (born 22 January 1957) is a British journalist, writer and broadcaster.
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[edit] Early life and education
Wheen was born into an army family[1] and educated at two independent schools: Copthorne Preparatory School near Crawley, West Sussex and Harrow School in north west London.
[edit] Life and career
Running away from Harrow at 16 "to join the alternative society," Wheen had early periods as a "dogsbody" at The Guardian and the New Statesman and attended Royal Holloway College, University of London after a period as a crammer.[1] At Harrow, he was a contemporary of Mark Thatcher[2] who has been a recurring subject of his journalism.[citation needed]
Wheen was married to the writer Joan Smith between 1985 and 1993. He has been the partner of Julia Jones (formerly Julia Thorogood), the author of a biography of crime writer Margery Allingham, since the mid-1990s. They have two sons.[1]
[edit] Writing
Wheen is the author of several books, including a biography of Karl Marx which won the Deutscher Memorial Prize in 2001. He followed the biography of Karl Marx with a biography of Das Kapital, which follows the creation and publication of the first volume of Marx's major work as well as other incomplete volumes. Wheen had a column in The Guardian for several years. He writes for Private Eye and is currently the magazine's deputy editor. His collected journalism – Hoo-hahs and Passing Frenzies won him the Orwell Prize in 2003. He has also been a regular columnist for the London Evening Standard.
[edit] Broadcasting work
Wheen broadcasts regularly, mainly on BBC Radio 4, and is a regular panelist on The News Quiz, in which he often refers to the fact that he resembles the former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith. He is also a regular on Have I Got News For You.
Wheen wrote a radio docudrama, The Lavender List for BBC Four on the final period of Harold Wilson's premiership, concentrating on his relationship with Marcia Williams, which first screened in March 2006. It starred Kenneth Cranham as Wilson and Gina McKee as Williams. In April 2007, the BBC paid £75,000 to Williams (then Baroness Falkender) in an out-of-court settlement over claims made in the programme.[3]
[edit] Political views
Wheen is a signatory to the Euston Manifesto and was a close friend of the late Christopher Hitchens. He is not an admirer of Noam Chomsky, although they share an interest in the values of the Age of Enlightenment. In late-2005, Wheen was co-author, with journalist David Aaronovitch and blogger Oliver Kamm, of a complaint to The Guardian after it published a correction and apology in respect of an interview with Chomsky by Emma Brockes. Chomsky had complained that the newspaper suggested that he had denied the Srebrenica massacre of 1995.[4] The writer Diana Johnstone also complained about references to her in the interview.[5]
The Guardian's then readers' editor Ian Mayes found that Chomsky's position had been misrepresented, and his judgement was upheld in May 2006 by an external ombudsman, John Willis.[6] In his report for the Guardian, Willis detailed his reasons for rejecting Kamm's argument that the correction was itself wrong. However, Wills suggested that the newspaper had over-reacted to the controversy in withdrawing the interview from its website.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Nicholas Wroe "A life in writing", The Guardian, 29 August 2009
- ^ Beatrix Campbell "What Margaret taught Mark", The Independent, 18 October 1994
- ^ "BBC pays out over Wilson drama", The Guardian website, 4 April 2007.
- ^ Brockes, Emma. "The Greatest Intellectual?", The Guardian, October 31, 2005; the article has since been withdrawn from the Guardian's website, but remains available at chomsky.info.
- ^ Johstone, Diana. "The Bosnian war was brutal, but it wasn't a Holocaust", The Guardian, November 23, 2005.
- ^ Willis, John. "External Ombudsman Report", The Guardian, May 25, 2006
[edit] Partial bibliography
- The Sixties (1982) ISBN 0-7126-0018-3
- Television: A History (1984) ISBN 0-7126-0929-6
- Battle for London (1985) ISBN 0-7453-0054-5
- Tom Driberg: His Life and Indiscretions (1990) ISBN 0-7011-3143-8
- The Chatto Book of Cats (Chatto Anthologies) Francis Wheen, editor, John O'Connor, illustrator (1993) ISBN 0-7011-4005-4
- Lord Gnome's Literary Companion (1994) ISBN 1-85984-945-8
- Karl Marx (1999) ISBN 1-85702-637-3
- Who Was Dr. Charlotte Bach? (2002) ISBN 1-904095-39-9
- Hoo-hahs and Passing Frenzies: Collected Journalism, 1991-2001 (2002) ISBN 1-903809-42-8 (mainly consisting of columns written for The Guardian)
- The Irresistible Con: The Bizarre Life of a Fraudulent Genius (2004) ISBN 1-904095-74-7
- Shooting Out the Lights (2004) ISBN 0-00-714943-3
- How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World (2004) ISBN 0-00-714096-7; in the USA and Canada: Idiot Proof: A Short History of Modern Delusions (2004) ISBN 1-58648-247-5
- Marx's Das Kapital: A Biography (2006) ISBN 978-1843544005
- Strange Days Indeed: The Golden Age of Paranoia (2009) ISBN 978-0007244270
[edit] External links
- Extract from Hoo-Hahs and Passing Frenzies: Collected Journalism
- Booknotes interview with Wheen on Karl Marx: A Life, June 25, 2000.
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