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John Lloyd is a contributing editor at the FT. He writes a weekly column on television for the weekend FT as well as features for FT Magazine, of which he was founding editor.
His previous FT posts include Labour Editor, Industrial Editor, East Europe Editor and Moscow Bureau Chief.
He has been a reporter and producer for LWT’s London Programme and Weekend World, and editor of Time Out and the New Statesman magazines.
He co-founded the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, where he is Director of Journalism
He sits on the editorial board of Prospect magazine and on the board of the Moscow School of Political Studies.
His books are Loss Without Limit: The British Miners’ Strike (1985); Rebirth of a Nation: an Anatomy of Russia (1998); and What the Media Are Doing to Our Politics (2004).
He was born in Fife in Scotland, lives in London and is married with one son. - -
All eyes on the legacy of Big Brother
The reality show of shows leaves Channel 4 after next year’s 11th series, but John Lloyd sees it as merely the end of the beginning for the genre
And the wall came tumbling down ...
John Lloyd reviews a flood of new books that marks 20 years since the fall of the Berlin wall. Each one, in varying degrees of detail, considers the logic of the wall, both before and after it was built
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
Behind the Berlin Wall
The Year that Changed the World
1989
The Berlin Wall
And nation shall speak unto itself
Andrew Marr, the new master of the genre of the expression of Britishness, has taken up the white middle-aged man’s burden with huge gusto, says John Lloyd
From soap in space to the most real TV of all
In drama, TV claims to portray a deeper-than-surface reality through fiction, while in documentary it selects scenes from life to illuminate a state of affairs, says John Lloyd
Just what TV genres need – new blood
‘True Blood’ is a monstrously fine and funny piece of work, cleverly commenting on contemporary anxieties, fads and follies while telling a story at the same time, writes John Lloyd
The appeal of ‘Spooks’
As it returns for an eighth season later this year, John Lloyd explains why the British TV series about MI5 spies has such a huge fan base
Truth, justice and the non-violent way
The painstaking exhumation of a grim murder unfolds in the five-part ‘Criminal Justice’ on BBC, while an over-tentative guide to the life of Gandhi promises dramatic revelations, writes John Lloyd
That’s the way it is ... or isn’t
Television is the most popular way to consume fiction and fact in a finely crafted stream, but distinguishing between the two, says John Lloyd, is not always easy
Europe’s centre-left suffers in the squeezed middle
It is not only the right that exults. The left, within these mainstream parties and outside, now sees a chance, writes John Lloyd
Wounded BBC puts on a show of courage
The broadcaster produces news, analysis and documentary of unrivalled quality and depth, far better than the profit-based channels of the US, writes John Lloyd
