Brian Whitaker

Brian Whitaker (sometimes credited as Brian Whittaker; born 13 June 1947)^[1] is a British journalist and writer.

He studied Arabic studies at the University of Westminster and Latin (BA Hons) at the University of Birmingham. A former joint investigations editor of The Sunday Times, he left the title at the time of the Wapping dispute.^[2] For a period during 1987, he was editor of the short-lived News on Sunday tabloid.^[3] The newspaper published extracts from Spycatcher by Peter Wright in August 1987 while Whitaker was editor. The title was eventually fined £50,000 in May 1989 for contempt of court in breaking an injunction upheld by the Law Lords shortly before publication.^[4]^[5]^[6]

Whitaker worked for the British newspaper The Guardian from 1987 and was its Middle East editor from 2000 to 2007. He runs a personal, non-Guardian-related website, Al-Bab.com, about politics in the Arab world.

Works

News Limited: Why You Can't Read All About it, 1981 (London: Minority Press Group) ISBN 978-0-906890-03-5, ISBN 978-0-906890-04-2, OCLC 8229010
Notes and Queries, vol. 1-5, 1990 (London: Fourth Estate) ISBN 978-1-872180-22-9, OCLC 22182928, a collection of Q&A from the readers of The Guardian
Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East, 2006 (London: Saqi Books) ISBN 978-0-86356-819-0, (Berkeley:University of California Press) ISBN 0-520-25017-6, OCLC 238877880
What's "Really" Wrong with the Middle East?, 2009 (London: Saqi Books) ISBN 978-0-86356-624-0, OCLC 416261943
Arabs Without God: Atheism and Freedom of Belief in the Arab World, 2014 (CreateSpace) ISBN 9781501064838

References

^ "Whitaker, Brian 1947–". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
^ "Bitter battle at Wapping: scenes at the frontline". Press Gazette. 19 January 2006. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
^ Greenslade, Roy. Press Gang: How Newspapers Make Profits from Propaganda. London: Pan Macmillan. pp. 494–495.
^ "Britain to Punish Paper in Spy Case". The New York Times. Reuters. 5 August 1987. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
^ "Government to Prosecute Newspaper for Printing Spy Book Exerpts". AP News. 5 August 1987. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
^ "Papers fined £150,000 for Spycatcher contempt". The Glasgow Herald. 9 May 1989. Retrieved 19 September 2021.