Louise Oswald latest Murdoch hack to take an ACP editor’s chair
The tabloid takeover of ACP has accelerated, with the woman who tempted England’s rugby captain into a career-killing drugs admission today appointed to the helm of NW.
Louise Oswald was this afternoon named as editor-in-chief of ACP’s weekly celebrity title NW. She is a former News of the World journalist who enjoyed brief notoriety for tempting Lawrence Dallalgio into boasts about his drugs habit in what was described at the time as “a classic honeytrap“. After the resulting story he resigned his position as captain of the English rugby team.
Her appointment underlines a clear new direction for ACP, which appears determined to wrest the news agenda from Australia’s newspapers and break more stories in its magazines. She is the third recent big ACP appointment featuring a female editor schooled by Rupert Murdoch journalism.
Last weeek, Helen McCabe, the experienced deputy editor of Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph, was appointed as editor in chief of Australian Women’s Weekly. She told Mumbrella that her brief was to break news. And on Monday, ACP’s Lynette Phillips was clear that she had made changes because the title had not been setting the agenda under Robyn Foyster.
The appointment also follows the installation in April of former Daily Telegraph senior staffer Fiona Connolly at ACP’s Woman’s Day.
In today’s announcement, ACP said that Nicole Byers would remain as editor of NW under Oswald.
As well as her decade-ago Dallaglio scoop, Oswald has edited the News of the World’s Sunday magazine, worked on daily tabloid title The Sun, held senior roles on UK celebrity title Closer and was deputy editor of the (ultimately disastrous) relaunch of the National Enquirer in the US.
Phillips said: “Her hiring also underscores the continuing push at ACP to bring the best people available worldwide to the business. Louise has an exciting new editorial direction planned.”
Oswald said: “I am incredibly excited about working with the NW team and taking the magazine to new exciting heights.” She begins in just under a fortnight.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Am I alone in fearing that the emphasis on ‘news’ for these magazines will result in a race to the bottom – in lowering the standards of what qualifies as ‘news’, in making public what should by all rights remain personal, and basically bringing these mags way down-market?
Real news is always welcome but can’t be engineered each and every week. So in slower weeks (which for these types of magazines must surely be most of them), will the new breed of ACP editors seek to whip up controversial ‘news’ out of non-news stories, or digg up and pump up anything they can in order to keep those sales buzzing along?
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Surely pumping it up would be an advance on making it up, which is what they do now.
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Jack,
Are you suggesting that a News of the Screws hack will lower editorial standards? NW is a fine upstanding publication.
If you are in any doubt then her National Enquirer creds should confirm any remaining doubt.
I will continue to enjoy reading NW as it should be – free in dentist waiting rooms.
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hi i am an old friend of louise oswald trying to catch up with her could you pass on my details please email bondbayswater@gmail.com or work on 0397205322 regards DAVID SAMMUTT
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Dave,
You’re some kind of special, aren’t you. How on earth did you end up here looking for her?
Try Facebook. She’s the one with Piers Morgan as a friend…
Or ACP, her new employers.
You aren’t subject to an AVO are you?
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