this is bbc news. the headlines... authorities in the us are assessing the damage caused by severe storms and tornadoes across the states in the south and midwest. at least twenty—one people — in six states — have been confirmed dead following friday's powerful storms. tennessee, arkansas and illinois were hardest hit. more than a hundred—thousand israelis have been holding protests againstjudicial reforms — for the thirteenth consecutive week. they gathered in spite of a pause in the lawmaking process — announced earlier this week. in the city of tel aviv there were scuffles between protesters and

counter—demonstrators. ukraine has condemned russia's assumption of the rotating presidency of the un security council as a "slap in the face to the international community". ukraine's foreign minister urged council members to thwart any russian attempts to abuse the position. the presidency is largely ceremonial, although it oversees the agenda. now on bbc news, the media show — geordie greig: britain's best connected editor. hello. what does the future hold for britain's newspapers? few people are more qualified to answer that question than my guest on the media show today, and it's rare to get an interview with him. welcome to the independent. thank you so much. lovely to be here. very nice to have you here. geordie greig has sat in the editor's chair at some of

the country's biggest titles, the daily mail, the mail on sunday, as well as the evening standard, tatler magazine, and since january here at the independent geordie. geordie greig, welcome to the media show for the first time. nice to be here. thank you for saying yes. and i wondered, first of all, how you began injournalism. i think you come from i think it's fair to say, a well—to—do background. your father's family were royal courtiers for several generations and your twin sister was lady in waiting to diana, princess of wales. did it come as a surprise to them that you wanted to pursue a career in journalism? you know, i'm very, very lucky. i had a very happy childhood. i went to an incredible school and it began myjournalism, i suppose, at school, this pretentious boy writing to rock stars, musicians, artists, poets

and did you? i used to get some replies, but i mean, i set up something which was really the self promotional geordie greig society, but it was called the contemporary art society and i used to invite people down to school and i would interview them. sometimes it worked. joanna lumley came down and this was an old boys school. this was it was an all boys school. so there was a slightly embarrassing moment when i was putting the microphone onjoanna lumley and she was fairly dear. silly boys all went, whoa, i blush like a, like a traffic light. anyway, a0 odd years on, we're still in touch. i believe in long relationships with people you meet on your way. and i recently interviewed david hockney, who i wrote to from school, and that is more than a0 years later, he's allowing me to interview him. it's enjoyable, privileged and exciting. yourfirst proper journalism job was in local newspapers at the southeast london and the kentish mercury, based in deptford. why did they hire you, do you think? and what did you learn there? well, i wrote to about 100 different papers, local papers, and got about 99 refusals or were too busy or

we haven't got a job. and so i turned up with this south east london, kentish mercury, and they said, gosh, this is rather embarrassing. there isn't a job. and i said, "well, why am i here?" and they said, well, we thought it would be very funny to have someone who might have on their cv eton, oxford, deptford. so i went. very funny. we must remember, was then the poorest borough in london, and when i eventuallyjoined, it had more murders than it could possibly put into the papers. it was a very tough area. anyway, i said to them, this is slightly embarrassing. they said, will you just leave the room for a few minutes? so i left and came back and they said, you know what? we're going to find you a job. and i did. i stayed there for two and a half years and covered a lot of crime, a lot of deprivation. and it was a hugely

exciting and educative process for me to see, you know, tower blocks with lifts, not working people on the 17th floor, what single parents with junkies on the fourth floor... felt like an education. it was a total eyeopener. one of the people who i had was tasked to get to know was a gangster called charlie richardson. was he led the richardson torture gang. you had the krays in north london and you had the richardsons in south london. and i remember going to lunch with charlie richardson and mad frankie fraser. now, they weren't interested in my privilege or my background, or they just wanted to, you know, the local reporter. and i remember... did you get a story out of them? idid, yeah. no, it was a great interview. and we scooped the the fleet street and they was very exciting. but during lunch,

frankie leaned forward and said, geord, no one's ever called me george before, but i thought i wasn't going to argue with him. i said, joe, do you know what a codicil is? and i said, i do actually ask in addition to a will. and he said, i'm going to leave you my pliers in my codicil. how did you respond? fairly sinister. a mission. but actually when he died, luckily no pliers did arise through the post. but it was it was fascinating to seeing that nether world of criminality, of poverty, of an area with an incredible, vibrant history, and with this amazing editor who was race blind whenever we were never allowed to mention anyone�*s colour. and it was this was the time of the new cross fire just had happened. and so there was a whole education on race, all the different parts of society, of court cases, of council meetings. you couldn't really come back to the office until you'd found a story.

so you knocked on doors and you ask people questions and you, hopefully, your natural curiosity led to what was needed, which is stories. and that set you up for a very well, highly regarded, garlanded career. after stints at the daily mail, the sunday times, you got your first major editorship at tatler magazine between 1999 and 2009. then, after editing the london evening standard for a year or so, you became editor of the mail on sunday in march 2012 and one when you took over, one of your critics complained that you had too many friends in high places to be a really good editor. how can you hold powerful people to account if you've got if you're close friends with so many of them? i do think that there is a duty of an editor to report what's in front of them. and i think the god of news is ruthless and exposes cover ups, obfuscations and a lack of truth. and i think

certainly when i was on the standard and on the mails and today on the independent, we hold power to account. and i think have you ever scrapped or changed an article because it was about a friend? i think one always listens, but you can't alter. if i know someone i know is going to be written about, i might call them up and say, by the way, you know, there is no dodging. this is going to be written about. i'm just going to let you know. i think if you're straightforward and you're candid and you're truthful and you're accurate, what people don't like is people not having the courage to face what's going to happen. and i stand by what we've written. and has it crossed friendships? i'm sure it has at times. you know, it's i think the previous but one prime minister probably wasn't over pleased by the coverage in the daily mail over party gate of a wall paper gate, those investigations which held power to account.

when we looked at 0wen paterson, the way in which the judicial system ofjustice in parliament was going to be ignored, we were vehement against that. you took a critical position, increasingly critical position over the time of his premiership. was that deliberate strategy on your part? i think you follow the news, you follow the facts. and there was no strange funding over that and then the cover up over that. we were very, very critical of dominic cummings when he went on his eye testing mission. yes. i think the headline was what planet are they on? and i think that surprised a lot of people in that we were a conservative leaning paper, but highly critical of of that government when it went wrong. but we were very supportive when it did things which it seemingly promised to do. the social care, which they then reneged on. but at the one moment

they were going to support what what the prime minister said on the steps of downing street, which was to help the very vulnerable people. and i thinkjournalism is about helping people as well as transforming lives through exposure. i mean, i think it's an incredibly important part of our of our country. i think it's a pillar of democracy. i don't want to be too pompous about it, but i think it's one of those crucial things in a civilised society is to have a proud, rude and free press. and it's interesting because if we look at that was at your time at the daily mail before that, as i said, you were editor of the mail on sunday, which took a pro—remain stance in the run up to the 2016 referendum on brexit, whereas the sister paper at the time, the daily mail, which was being run by paul dacre, its long standing editor, at that point encouraged voters to, to readers to vote leave. i mean, i guess that must have led to some pretty tense conversations. but do you think would would brexit

have happened if the daily mail hadn't supported it? well, we can all play hypothetical games as to if certain brexiteers had not been there, if boris had not been there, if certain papers hadn't been so vehement. but in the end, you know, i'm a democrat. there was a vote and one has to accept accept the vote. but it's interesting, those questions about the influence of newspapers isn't what they. well, what was interesting during that time, you know, i was a passionate remainer and the mail on sunday was one of the most potent voices arguing the case for not leaving the european union. and we argued with conviction. and i think, i hope some of the reporters and commentators showed courage. and we fought the good fight. but again, back to the principle of democracy. if there is a vote, you have to accept it. well, let's look back at the tensions at the time, because it looks like

there were tensions between the daily mail starts and the mail on sunday stance, which culminated eventually in 2018 with you replacing paul dacre to become the 18th editor of the daily mail when he was editor in chief at the mail's parent company. and he warned you, i'm concerned about moving the mail away from its pro—brexit stance. is that the tension that eventually ended up with you abruptly leaving the paper in november 2021? what's the story behind that? i mean, it's quite a simple story in that i was asked to go and see the proprietor and he began saying. various things about the climate and the economic climate. and i had an intuition that. he was trying to fire me. and so i said, jordan, i think you're trying to fire me. and he went, oh, this is very difficult. he was very gracious. and i said, just leave it there. so it was a very, very

short conversation. did you understand why, though? i never really fully on. people have many theories. i of the simple belief eds are a bit like football managers that the owner of the club has a right to move the personnel around. do you think borisjohnson had a hand in it? the paper had been very critical of borisjohnson�*s tenure in a way that perhaps must have surprised him after the support he'd had. you know, there are so many theories that have gone around, and i... do i think he called the proprietor and said, you must get rid of greig? no. is there many theories of going around of the way i cover the cover that government? yes. but are they right? i think history will will will tell that in its own way. i'm just so pleased to have had the experience of being there, but more pleased to be at the independent, which, as i say, is this incredible sleeping giant. people have not fully understood that it's the largest digital

quality newspaper in britain. you know, we have six different editions, american, spanish and asian edition. it's a global brand which has been profitable and growing. i mean, particularly in america, and particularly with our tv, independent tv has almost three million people watching it different times. and it's the diversity of its coverage in terms of us, you know, we're the only paper to have a race correspondent, a women's correspondent. so there's been an opening up for me of a different way of understanding how news is dealt with. but it comes back to that simple thing, as i said, i hope not to pretentiously see myself still and always will as a reporter, i love finding the answers to questions. and i think i very much enjoy hoping to inspire our team of reporters and specialists and our news desk to quest, to seek,

to find and to get answers to what's going on in britain. i just want to ask you a few questions about sort of slightly more topical things. i wonder where you think, for example, when it comes to being an editor, the line should be drawn over freedom of speech. and i'm thinking about the recent jeremy clarkson column in the sun, which caused controversy when he talked about meghan markle and saying he wanted to see her paraded naked through the streets. i mean, would you have fired him if you were editor? or does freedom of speech triumph? where do you see that line? every editor knows that they're responsible for every single word which goes into their publication. and i hope i would have would have seen seen that. and i think i would have edited out. but, you know, foresight, hindsight, you know, you can be all too clever. clearly, it was a huge mistake. it was a horrible thing to say about any woman. and i think clearly he regrets it. clearly, the sun regrets it. and it was not a proud part

of the history of fleet street. and the other subject relating to the royals that's very topical at the moment was leading your site in the independent on monday after prince harry and sir eltonjohn arrived at the high court hearing in which they're suing your former employer, associated newspapers, which is the publisher, of course, of the daily mail and the mail on sunday for what they call gross breaches of privacy. what's your take on that? well, it's a live court case. we've got this very strong accusation. you've got this very strong denial. i mean, i'm clear on one thing. hacking is illegal, wrong, and there should be prosecution if evidence is found. but as i say, the denials are very, very strenuous. they're really from 1993 to 2011. ijoined the mail on sunday in 2012. so i am very clear on what's right and what's wrong. and we will wait and see whether this gets knocked out or whether it's a huge trial. and it's worth me repeating associated

does vehemently deny, as you say, all the allegations of unlawful phone hacking and surveillance. and as you say, most of them date between 1993 and 2011. so before your time. but the lawyer did also say up to 2018, i mean, can you categorically state your journalists were not involved in commissioning the surveillance of public figures to get stories? i have no knowledge of any hacking whatsoever under my watch. let's turn to your editorship, your new editorship, your latest editorship at the independent, which is facing challenges on several fronts. i think you've recently put several staff at risk of redundancy, and news websites generally are facing extraordinary economic headwinds brought about by worsening digital advertising environment. what is your recovery plan? i think we're already on a recovery plan. i mean, it's astonishing how advertisers or commercial partners are coming forward with exciting new plans, with new contracts. i mean, ouraim

is always to try and grow the journalism. and in every recession there are really painful cuts and all one's sympathy goes out for people who suffer those. it's not fun on any sense. it's painful. it's difficult. some people have said it lacks the intellectual heft of its print forebear. is it still relevant to the national conversation in britain today? if you look at our coverage this weekend, this heroic afghan fighter who was alongside british and american troops is now at risk of being sent to rwanda. so those sort of stories which cut through as we look at coverage of the vulnerable, coverage of stories which may not be taken up by everyone, and we will pursue those to the nth degree. if you look at how nadhim zahawi, that was an independent story. his tax affairs broken.

of the investigation into his affairs which led to his resignation. if you look at the story again in the independent, how the prime minister's wife was non—dom, broken in the independent. if you look at the capability of the independent in yester years to bring a million people onto the street to look at whether we should or should not be leaving europe. the power and potency of the independent. the fact that we've got eight bureaus around the globe, the fact that we invest in journalism constantly, and that is the journey which which we're on. and the independent is this. it's on the tin. it is independent. we have no one proprietor. and that's what people are so proud of. in the staff and our readers around the world. and let's turn to proprieties. you mentioned the evening standard earlier. you were editor of the london evening standard, appointed by evgeny lebedev, who also

appointed you editor of the independent. i was going to ask a mrs merton style question, if you don't mind, which is what was it that first attracted you to the multimillionaire? lebedev and indeed, what attracted them to you, do you think? i'll tell you how we met. which was when i was the editor of tatler, and he came in with a pr female and they wanted to know whether they could we would cover a party they were giving. and so i brought them into my office and the woman said, we're doing this in with a michael gorbachev. i went, do you mean mikhail gorbachev? and she went, whatever. and i said, that's amazing. and then with yevgeny, who was then 28, dark glasses, young manjust said,

finally someone gets it. so i then said we wouldn't cover it. the shoulders drooped. i said we'll co—host it with you. so they gave me a big budget. we had the first russian charitable event in the uk. and that led to me being a trustee of gorbachev�*s charity, the royal foundation, to help sick children. as a result of that, i can remember about a year in calling alexander, who said he'd quite like to buy something as long as it wasn't a football club or a boat. and i suggested the standard and he said just one word. 0k. i brought in genius colleague justin ramshaw, probably the cleverest person in newspaper transformations, as it turned out.

and we negotiated to by the standard, and i became the editor. the great thing about having proprietors in my experience of him. is that i had no interference. that's my question. how much influence does he have hold over the total and the independent? my contract. and with the independent he is not actively involved in the publication. he is one of several shareholders in the shareholders agreement there is a covenant. that there will be no interference. and as an editor, there's only one thing you judge what's in it. and our coverage of russia has been robust. 0ur coverage of every political event around the world has been robust, unfettered. my contract as an employee and i was hired by the chairman, john payton, who put it through the board.

so it was a business decision by them to hire an editor who'd previously edited other publications. who would be interested, though, from your perspective? the question that is often asked is what's in it for them? what's in it for evgeny lebedev to be a proprietor, a newspaper proprietor in the uk? you know, the the temptation to buy a newspaper has been something which many people with deep pockets have thought would be one of the most enjoyable... isn't it to wield influence? that's what we want to do it for. of course, being a proprietor brings influence, but the independent has no proprietor. we are individual. independent, original producers of news and comment, which is unadulterated by any interference from anyone who's got any money invested in the newsprint. i want to explore a bit the relationship between the media and politicians. clearly, yevgeny

lebedev, perhaps he wasn't controversial at the beginning of you knowing him. he's become a more controversial figure, he's come under scrutiny, for example, in the way it was. he was appointed to the house of lords by borisjohnson, who people say benefited from the support of the evening standard when he stood as mayorfor london and then prime minister. do you think the relationship between the media and politicians is too cosy? well, i think it's fascinating what's happening at the moment. i mean, we're all waiting for boris�*s honours or dishonors list to come out. where paul dacre, your old friend, might be on the on the rich list. you've clearly got inside information, katie. we're all waiting. and i think people will question the give and take, but it's it's not new. we saw this going back to harold wilson. there's a danger. that the contract of trust between reward gets undermined.

and i think i think that happened. i think i think the honours system is quite a good system of people being rewarded doesn't cost anything. and it allows heroes from lollypop ladies to people who've done great charities to be rewarded. and if that gets undermined by the slurry of politics, not a good thing. and we're talking about influence on newspapers and print brands and digital brands like the independent. it's worth mentioning that there's a 30% stake in the evening standard, the independent, which is owned by a saudi businessman. the arrangement is fairly opaque, but there are possible links to a saudi government bank, we understand the british government has expressed fears that the saudi government could potentially exert editorial influence over the independent and the standard. is there any substance to that? he's named on the shareholder agreement. there's so many footsie 100 companies who have saudi investment. the british government does business with the saudis.

as an editor, i've only got one concern, what can i put in the paper? what have we put in the paper? and if you look at the track record of the independent, it is. unqualified to be robust, independent, its coverage of every matter to do with saudi arabia, with russia, with ukraine in... would you every in an ideal world not be taking money either from the saudis or the russians in the present climate? i think in the end. i think in the end, one can take quite a pious view on on do we want to ban all investment from all countries who have had things which go wrong in their history? maybe just the ones with terrible human rights records. i know i might narrow it down a lot, though. i absolutely hear you, katy, but as the editor, can you find anything? and you've been doing your research on me and the independent.

is there a single thing which makes you unsettled? and i would say the answer is no. can you confirm that? i think i can. thank you. not what i've found anyway. and we're coming to the end. just the future of news with the rise of social media and the proliferation of news websites. do the big newspaper brands still hold as much sway or any sway over british public opinion in the way they did? i think you're probably thinking back to the sun on it. i think that those moments have gone. but i do think that the power of the press is still very potent and in a good sense, if it shines lights and shows things which are wrong with which politicians are doing it, uncovers it uncovers facts or transactions or deals or policies which are not getting the full sunlight, which the public needs to make a full

decision on who is in power. then i absolutely am proud to be a member of the press. that's a very good moment to end on. geordie greig, thank you so much forjoining us on the media show today. lovely to talk to you. we'll be back at the same time next week. thanks for listening and goodbye. hello. under cloudy skies, parts of eastern england and eastern scotland only saw temperatures of five or six degrees on saturday. sunday should bring more sunshine for many of us a drier and a brighter day overall. we will start off, though, with some areas of cloud and perhaps the odd spot of drizzle, but that cloud should tend to thin and break. and we will see spells of sunshine developing. parts of scotland, northern ireland, wales and the south west of england will keep some areas of cloud right through into the afternoon.

not as chilly as it was on saturday for north sea coast. nine degrees here out west highs of 12 or 13 and then through sunday night with those clearer skies overhead. temperatures are going to drop. it is going to be a colder night than we've been used to of late with a touch of frost in places. these temperatures are for the towns and cities out in the countryside. it will get a little colder than that. so a frosty start to monday, but sunshine should lift those temperatures quite quickly. sunny skies for england and wales on tuesday. more clouds and some rain for scotland and northern ireland.

this is bbc news, i'm vishala sri—pathma. our top stories: devastating tornadoes tear through america's south and midwest, at least 21 people are killed. another week, another protest, thousands of israelis once more demonstrate against a radical overhaul of the judiciary. uproar as russia takes over the presidency of the un security council. ukraine calls it a slap in the face. translation: there is no form of terror that _ translation: there is no form of terror that russia _ translation: there is no form of terror that russia has - translation: there is no form of terror that russia has not - of terror that russia has not already committed and there will be no reason that that would stop for reform of global

institutions, in particular, the un security council. and, fancy footwear, we'll tell you about the huge