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Margaret Ashworth Interview Highlights The Curiosity Gap Relevant To BuzzFeed’s CEN Reporting

This archived screenshot preserves a Press Gazette interview with veteran Daily Mail sub-editor and style-guide writer Margaret Ashworth, published under the headline “After 39 years of fighting ‘boffins, toffs and cads’, Daily Mail style guide writer reveals all”, in which Ashworth criticised young journalists with strong academic backgrounds but limited newsroom instincts for suffering from “an odd lack of curiosity”. The screenshot is significant because it provides useful contemporary media-industry context for the BuzzFeed/CEN evidence chain: the largely young BuzzFeed UK team appeared to miss or underplay obvious bigger-picture questions while criticising CEN, including the contradiction of attacking viral news while producing viral news, targeting rival publishers such as MailOnline while not clearly declaring the competitive context, and treating unanswered questions as proof rather than as reporting gaps requiring deeper investigation. The item helps frame one of the central process issues in the CEN material: the problem was not merely whether individual details were right or wrong, but whether the reporters involved had enough curiosity, training and editorial supervision to ask what wider commercial, professional and evidential risks they were walking into.

Source

Part of Central European News & Mike Leidig v BuzzFeed (US Second Circuit Libel Case) – Archived Web Screenshots

Europe Media newsX CIC Published 3 May 2026 at 13:59 Source: 16 July 2016

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Press GazetteMargaret AshworthDaily MailDaily Mail style guidesub-editingnewsroom standardsyoung journalistscuriosity gapOxbridgeAlan WhiteBuzzFeedBuzzFeed UKCENMike Leidigviral newsMailOnlineeditorial standardsmedia rivalryconflict of interestreporting gapslibel case evidencearchived web screenshot

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File SCREEN - After 39 years of fighting 'boffins, toffs and cads', Daily Mail st_ - [pressgazette.co.uk].pdf · 1.4 MB Download

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