Katie Hi-i-i-ind
Hackwatch, Issue 1652
The paper proudly quoted the judges' view that Hind excels in "effectively balancing factual reporting with personal narrative". Well, she's certainly very good at inserting herself into the middle of any story...
25 May 2024: "This weekend marks a year since Phillip Schofield's epic tumble from grace, when, after years of lying about his long-term romance with a much younger This Morning colleague, he decided to tell the truth in a jaw-dropping mea culpa to the Mail, in which he apologised for lying to this newspaper – to me," Hind reminds readers.
She then remembers to add "and also his bosses and viewers". Of course there were his colleagues, his agents and his wife too, but that's the really important people covered.
11 September: Rugby player Ben Cohen and dancer Kristina Rihanoff's relationship appears to be in trouble. "My unpleasant late-night rooftop confrontation with Ben Cohen," barks the headline over Katie Hind's 1,200-word take on the matter, "and why I can't feel sorry for him and Kristina."
When did the confrontation in question take place? "The year was 2014. The venue was the same rooftop room at the Sanctum Hotel where, incidentally, I had met Meghan Markle just a year earlier." Cohen objected to a story Hind had written, which he said had "upset his children".
"I wonder if they recall that night at the Sanctum Hotel as vividly as I do. Or perhaps they were just too drunk on fame?" muses our heroine.
18 October: Boy-band star Liam Payne has plunged to his death from a hotel balcony. "KATIE HIND HAS THE INSIDE STORY," shrieks the front page of the Mail. It starts early. "It was the autumn of 2011, and I had been summoned to Sony Music's West London HQ to meet Britain's hottest new boyband... I could never have known, of course, that just 13 years after our first interview, Liam would perish in the most terrible circumstances."
More insider insights are on offer. "In December 2013 I bumped into him in the Kurt Geiger shoe shop in Canary Wharf, East London. Gone was his carefree demeanour of just two years earlier, he now seemed strikingly shy. At my insistence, he posed for a picture with me before dashing off."
28 November: As Coleen Rooney enters the I'm a Celebrity jungle, Hind can reveal that husband Wayne is "a good guy". How does she know? "Back in the spring of 2010," when the journalist lost her mobile phone, the footballer "began to search on the floor, telling me not to worry and that it would turn up".
28 January 2025: A personal reminiscence from the funeral of Boyzone singer Stephen Gateley in 2009. "It was the most touching and emotional of farewells... As I stood behind a security barrier on Dublin's tough Sheriff Street, where Stephen had grown up, publicists for the band regularly updated me with the tributes Ronan and his bandmates were making for Stephen."
20 February: "I stopped a drug-addled Pete Doherty driving across London. How bizarre it's now a CHEESE addiction that could kill him" is the unimprovable headline on Hind's irrelevant revelations about an encounter she had with the singer, who 19 years later has been revealed to be suffering from diabetes.
27 February: Rod Stewart's son is in rehab. "Rod may be the only man who can save the sweet but troubled guy I got to know," muses Hind. How exactly did she get to know Sean Stewart? She interviewed him once. "It was 2015 and I had come to hear all about the new clothing range Sean was set to launch."
20 April: Cat Deeley is celebrating her first year presenting ITV's This Morning. It's all down to one woman. "She was undeniably 'Hollywood', which I pointed out to ITV at a lunch where they asked if I thought she was too glamorous to host their flagship daytime programme. But I said she would be a triumph, not least because she is an enormously talented presenter."
27 April: "My wild night out with Kate Middleton downing shots and gyrating wildly to the Pussycat Dolls. What she told me on the dancefloor is so revealing – and now I'm ready to share." A spectacular scoop about the cancer-stricken mother of three? Er, no.
"The date was October 2007", and Kate wasn't even with Prince William at the time. And the conversation? "With no other ideas for an ice-breaker, I decided I'd asked her about her outfit. When I asked Kate where she had got her lovely white top, she flashed her beaming smile. Appearing delighted, she said: 'I don't know, I can't remember.'"
15 May: Brooklyn Beckham and his wife Nicola Peltz have fallen out with his parents David and Victoria – but also with someone much more important. "Nicole has resorted to pressing the Generation Z nuclear button: she's blocked me on Instagram. And so has Brooklyn," reveals Hind, who sources an enormous number of her stories from celebs' posts on the social media site. "It all seems rather petty."
6 June: Hind has the inside scoop on why the lead singer of Coldplay has separated from his fiancée Dakota Johnson: "My drunken evening with Chris Martin that explains why he's now split up from yet another A-list beauty."
The evening in question occurred in 2006, 11 years before Martin and Johnson got together.
22 June: "Britain's rudest celebrities, by Katie Hind – an Inside Showbiz Special," shrieks the front page of the Mail on Sunday. Oddly enough, they mostly turned out to be "jaw-droppingly rude" after Hind wrote nasty things about them. Who'd have thought it?
Next issue on sale: 26th June 2025
More top stories in the latest issue:
PRESS CUTTINGS
The Mail has dispensed with high-profile columnists and two senior editors as they move to cut costs and prioritise online performers over the paper.
HARMS' WAY
Vere Harmsworth, the Mail's nepo baby – sorry, chief commercial officer –caused chaos at the office after making a faux pas at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
TRYING TIMES
The Times ran a column last week co-written by Yoav Gallant, the ex-Israel defence minister who was served with an ICC arrest warrant for "war crimes".
A MOTE IN IMI...
The Observer focused at length on the chaotic sale of the Telegraph and the Spectator – but was it any weirder than how the Guardian sold the Observer?
TOO-HARD NEWS
Reach plc's "content hub" boss has told staff "we're finding traffic harder to come by" – but fear not, the robots are coming to chase those valuable clicks!
RACIAL FILLERS
MailOnline tried to soothe racial tensions during riots last year, but now it is running hate-bait pieces that helpfully guide the bile to specific locations.
BACK TO SCHOOL
A full 24 days after wiping all trace of a clearly fake story from its website, the Telegraph finally published an acknowledgement that the story was bollocks.
TRUCE STORY
The Sun published a friendly interview with Noel Edmonds, which marks quite a turnaround from 2019, when he denounced the paper for "disgusting lies".
