Marina Hyde (born Marina Elizabeth Catherine Dudley-Williams; 13 May 1974) is an English journalist. She joined The Guardian newspaper in 2000 and, as one of the newspaper's columnists, writes three articles each week on current affairs, celebrity, and sport.

Marina Hyde
Hyde in 2022
Born
Marina Elizabeth Catherine Dudley-Williams

(1974-05-13) 13 May 1974 (age 49)
NationalityBritish
EducationChrist Church, Oxford
OccupationJournalist
EmployerThe Guardian
SpouseKieran Clifton (m. 1999)
Children3
RelativesSir Rolf Dudley-Williams, 1st Baronet (grandfather)

Early life and education edit

Hyde is the daughter of Sir Alastair Edgcumbe James Dudley-Williams, 2nd Baronet, and his wife, the former Diana Elizabeth Jane Duncan. Through her father, she is the granddaughter of aviation pioneer and Conservative politician Sir Rolf Dudley-Williams, 1st Baronet. She attended Downe House School, near Newbury in Berkshire,[1] and read English at Christ Church, Oxford.[2]

The Sun edit

Hyde began her career in journalism as a temporary secretary on the Showbiz desk at The Sun newspaper.[2][3] In an otherwise unrelated article in The Guardian, she wrote: "I am only called Marina Hyde because my real name was too long to fit across a single column in The Sun, where I started out".[4] She was later sacked by Sun editor David Yelland after it emerged she had been exchanging e-mails with Piers Morgan, editor of rival newspaper the Daily Mirror.[5]

The Guardian edit

Since 2000, Hyde has worked for The Guardian, at first writing the newspaper's Diary column. She contributes three columns a week: one on sport, one on celebrity, and one which is typically about politics. Her sport column appears on Thursday; her celebrity column is entitled Lost in Showbiz and appears in the G2 supplement each Friday. She has a regular serious column in the main section of The Guardian on Saturday, as well as a column in the "Weekend" supplement, in which she parodies a celebrity diary entry. This is entitled A Peek at the Diary of..., which ends in the sign-off, "As seen by Marina Hyde". Hyde was nominated as Columnist of the Year in the 2010 British Press Awards.

Elton John unsuccessfully sued The Guardian for libel in relation to Hyde's spoof diary column "A peek at the diary of... 'Sir Elton John'", published in July 2008.[6] Mr Justice Tugendhat ruled that the "irony" and "teasing" did not amount to defamation.[7] Hyde published a follow-up diary of Elton John in 2009.[8]

In November 2011, The Guardian apologised to The Sun newspaper for an article in which Hyde had falsely alleged the newspaper had visited the home of a member of the legal team of the Leveson Inquiry. In the front-page story Hyde had accused The Sun of "blowing a giant raspberry at Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry".[9][10] The Sun's then[11] managing editor Richard Caseby sent a toilet roll accompanied by "a squalid note" to then - Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger after Hyde's false story.[12]

A few months later, Caseby once again objected to an article by Hyde in which, according to Roy Greenslade, she was "employing irony",[13] in a reference to Page 3 models following a comment on Twitter by Rupert Murdoch and the use by The Sun of a photograph of model Reeva Steenkamp in a bikini, on the day after her murder.[14] Caseby objected to the article,[15] and complained to The Guardian's readers' editor, but his complaint was the only one received.[16][relevant?]

Hyde received two awards from the Sports Journalists' Association (SJA) in February 2020, including Sports Journalist of the Year, the first woman to receive the award in its 43-year history. The other award was for Sports Columnist of the Year. She had written columns during the year on Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision to award a knighthood to Geoff Boycott, Tiger Woods’s performance at the 2019 Masters, and male responses to the FIFA Women's World Cup that year.[17]

Hyde has won awards for her journalism. In 2017 she was named Political Commentator of the Year at the Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards, as well as winning the Commentariat of the Year Award.[18] At the 2018 Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards, she received the Commentator of the Year award. In 2019, she won Political Commentator of the Year at the National Press Awards.[19] Also in 2019, she received the Columnist of the Year award at the British Journalism Awards.[20] She won the same award again at the British Journalism Awards in 2020.[21] Also in 2020, she became the first woman ever to win the Sports Journalist of the Year award at the British Sports Journalism Awards. At the same event, she also won Sports Columnist of the Year.[17] In 2020 Hyde won the London Press Club's Edgar Wallace Award for writing or reporting of the highest quality.[22]

Other work edit

Hyde's book about celebrity, Celebrity: How Entertainers Took Over the World and Why We Need an Exit Strategy, was published in 2009.[23] What Just Happened?!, a collection of her Guardian columns written between 2016 and 2022, was published in 2022.[24] She helped prepare and proof read Piers Morgan's The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade,[25] in the acknowledgments of which she is described as Morgan's "best friend".

She appeared occasionally on the BBC's Newsnight Review.[26]

In 2022, Hyde was hired as a writing executive producer on an HBO pilot originating from director Sam Mendes about the process of superhero filmmaking in Hollywood. The TV series is entitled The Franchise.[27]

In November 2023, Hyde began hosting a podcast with Richard Osman, titled 'The Rest Is Entertainment'.[28]

Personal life edit

In 1999, Hyde married Kieran Clifton, a director at the BBC.[29][30][31] The couple had a child in 2010 and live in London.[31] Their third child was born in the summer of 2014.[32]

References edit

  1. ^ Hyde, Marina (19 April 2011). "Who are these royal wedding fans? One doesn't know such people socially". TheGuardian.com.
  2. ^ a b "Marina Hyde". BBC News. 30 September 2005.
  3. ^ Hyde, Marina (24 July 2011). "Phone-hacking scandal: What I learned about news by temping for Sean Hoare". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 22 September 2011.
  4. ^ Hyde, Marina (27 April 2017). "Orlando Bloom's elf warning: 'Don't get on the wrong side of me'". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 May 2017.
  5. ^ Hagerty, Bill (25 May 2004). "The Piers Morgan that you won't read about in the newspapers". The Independent. London.
  6. ^ Hyde, Marina (5 July 2008). "A peek at the diary of ... Elton John". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
  7. ^ Hyde, Marina (13 December 2008). "A victory for irony as Elton John loses Guardian libel case". The Guardian. London.
  8. ^ Hyde, Marina (19 December 2008). "A peek at the diary of Elton John". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
  9. ^ "Guardian apologises to Sun for Leveson doorstepping claim". Journalism.co.uk.
  10. ^ "Britain's Guardian sorry for Sun hacking probe claim". The Economic Times.[dead link]
  11. ^ Ponsford, Dominic (1 July 2013). "Sun's outspoken managing editor Richard Caseby understood to be standing down". Press Gazette.
  12. ^ Greenslade, Roy (24 December 2011). "Caseby's squalid note to the Guardian editor shows News International's true face". The Guardian.
  13. ^ Greenslade, Roy (20 February 2013). "The Sun doesn't do irony, as its managing editor illustrates once again". The Guardian.
  14. ^ Hyde, Marina (15 February 2013). "Reeva Steenkamp's corpse was in the morgue, her body was on the Sun's front page". The Guardian.
  15. ^ Caseby, Richard (18 February 2013). "Why the Guardian's Verbal Sexual Assault on Page Three Girls Is Baffling". The Huffington Post.
  16. ^ Caseby, Richard (21 February 2013). "Isn't it ironic? No, says Sun's Richard Caseby over Guardian depiction of Page 3 'downmarket scrubbers'". Press Gazette.
  17. ^ a b "The Guardian's Marina Hyde wins two SJA awards in landmark achievement". The Guardian. 24 February 2020. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  18. ^ "Guardian and Observer commentators win six Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards". The Guardian. 27 November 2017. Retrieved 24 February 2021.
  19. ^ "Gallery of Winners for 2019". Society of Editors. Retrieved 24 February 2021.
  20. ^ "Guardian wins at the 2019 British Journalism Awards". The Guardian. 11 December 2019. Retrieved 24 February 2021.
  21. ^ "Guardian wins at the 2020 British Journalism Awards". The Guardian. 19 December 2020. Retrieved 24 February 2021.
  22. ^ "Marina Hyde wins London Press Club award". The Guardian. 15 October 2020. Retrieved 24 February 2021.
  23. ^ "Marina Hyde". www.penguin.co.uk. Retrieved 3 October 2019.
  24. ^ Hyde, Marina (2022). What Just Happened?!. Faber and Faber. ISBN 9781783352593.
  25. ^ Morgan, Piers (30 June 2012). The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade. Random House. ISBN 978-1-4464-9168-3.
  26. ^ "Marina Hyde". BBC Two. 30 September 2005. Retrieved 3 October 2019.
  27. ^ Otterson, Joe (8 August 2022). "HBO Orders Superhero Movie-Making Comedy Pilot From Sam Mendes, 'Veep' Creator Armando Iannucci". Penske Media Corporation. Variety. Retrieved 9 February 2024.
  28. ^ "The Rest Is Entertainment". Goalhanger Podcasts. Retrieved 15 February 2024.
  29. ^ "Who We Are > Kieran Clifton". BBC. Retrieved 24 February 2021.
  30. ^ Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage 2008, p. 1008
  31. ^ a b Norman, Matthew (22 November 2010). "Diary: The paper with teeth". The Independent. London.
  32. ^ Hyde, Marina (5 December 2014). "Childbirth is as awful as it is magical, thanks to our postnatal 'care'". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 July 2018.

External links edit