Monitor: Janet Street-porter

Reaction to the appointment of Ms Street-Porter as editor of `The Independent on Sunday'

The Guardian

THE APPOINTMENT of the effervescent Janet Street-Porter as editor of The Independent on Sunday may well be a first in the history of journalism. Ms Street-Porter's CV as recorded in Who's Who is varied and colourful: it includes several jobs in television (including a spell at L!ve TV), four husbands and a passion for rambling. What it does not include is any prior experience in newspaper journalism.

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The Spectator

MUCH COMMENT on Janet Street-Porter's appointment has concentrated on her inexperience as a print journalist and her alleged lack of seriousness. Actually, she may not be as deficient in the latter department as her critics suggest. I have met her only once, when she told me that the passions of her life are the English countryside, cathedrals and choral evensong. Far from being an apostle of "yoof culture", Ms Street-Porter may be a bit of a fogey. (Stephen Glover)

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Evening

Standard

THOUGH SHE wrote a perfectly acceptable New Statesman diary a couple of months ago, she is, as a former news editor of mine would put it, no Shakespeare. It should be no great surprise that, after the celebrity columnist and the celebrity author, we should now have the celebrity editor. (Peter Wilby)

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New Statesman

I DON'T think that Janet Street-Porter is bound to fail. True, she could not be more different from the richly talented newspaperman she success, but it is possible that, at the age of 52, she has outgrown her weaknesses without losing her creative drive. (Ian Hargreaves)