Uncaged

We'll be sending a large bunch of virtual bananas today to John Plunkett, longest serving Media Monkey at the Guardian, who is moving to pastures new. He's been there 14 years; and for eight of them, was one of the hosts of a weekly podcast, Media Talk. 

The Guardian regularly tops the BBC list of company-purchased papers, and, conspiracy-theorists, that's not really because of its politics. It's the legacy of "Media Appointments" on a Monday, still the day of publication for media industry articles (though many fewer) and the tail-tweaking diary stories of broadcasting correspondent John. Under the Swallows and Amazon helmanship of Rusbridger, this market-leading combination fell away from full battleship supplement to a mere inflatable canoe footnote to UK News on the digital front page. 

John has recently been Chairman of the Broadcasting Press Guild, and helped to upset media executives by moving them up and down the Guardian's Annual Media 100. I'm sure he'll find new ways to poke fun.