I met with Chris Atkins - writer and director of the documentary Starsuckers during his visit to the University of Gloucestershire today.
We were offered a screening of the doc and a lengthy Q&A session with the man himself afterwards.
It was a fascinating piece of film about, in my openly bias view, a fascinating industry but it did not portray the media in a good light at all.
Exploiting the fame-hungry parents of toddlers, running false stories, preventing coverage of humanitarian demonstrations, behaving illegally to expose celebrity gossip - and those were just the bits we did see.
Particularly interesting to me was the furore afterwards when the News of the World attempted to sue over the sting operation carried out by Atkins.
In short the NOTW (remember them from the illegal phone taps during the reign of the now chief Tory spin doctor Andy Coulson?) objected to Atkins' sting. This is despite having perpetrated it for motives less in the public interest hundreds of times.
Shame that Charlie Brooker couldn't find time to put the story into Newswipe but he assures us on Twitter that it wasn't a conspiracy!
The Max Clifford footage was gold dust. Who would of thought that a man who earns millions burying stories could be so indiscreet.
I heartily recommend Starsuckers to anyone with a view on media and journalism - stick with the annoying American drawl in the commentary. But be warned you will feel extreme guilt if you donated to Live8 or LiveAid in the last 25 years!
Afterwards I caught up with Chris Atkins for a brief interview about his project. Forgive the quality, it is recorded on a NokiaN95 and edited in Movie Maker (boo).
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