Marina Hyde - Career

Career

Hyde began her career in journalism as a temporary secretary on the showbiz desk at The Sun newspaper. She was later sacked by Sun editor David Yelland after it emerged she had been exchanging emails with Piers Morgan, editor of rival newspaper the Daily Mirror.

Since 2000, Hyde has worked at The Guardian and wrote the newspaper's Diary column. She now writes three columns a week: one on sport, one on celebrity, and one which is typically 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". In both 2011 and 2012 she failed to publish any columns for various periods ranging from a few weeks to several months.

A libel action brought by Elton John against The Guardian, in reaction to Hyde's spoof diary column "A peek at the diary of... 'Sir Elton John'", published in July 2008, was rejected. The judge, Mr Justice Tugendhat, said that in this case "irony" and "teasing" do not amount to defamation.

Hyde's book about celebrity, Celebrity: How Entertainers Took Over the World and Why We Need an Exit Strategy, was published in 2009. She has appeared from time to time as a reviewer on the BBC's Newsnight Review, and was nominated as Columnist of the Year in the 2010 British Press Awards.

In November 2011 The Guardian was forced to apologise to rival newspaper The Sun 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".