international news _ 29th September, 2006

Top Dance Hacks Take Over Tabloids

Text by Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)

Dance music dissing one-time Muzik magazine man Malik Meer has landed a prestigious role as editor of the Guardian newspaper’s listings section the Guide, some two years after joining NME after IPC shut down Muzik

The high-flying journalist presided over the last days of the once influential dance mag before abandoning the genre when he joined fellow ex Muzik chief Conor McNicholas at NME as assistant editor.

"The dance culture as a whole got lazy,” Meer told the Independent in 2004.

“It came to be perceived as one thing: this cheesy, superclub, larging-it lifestyle, and the magazines ended up representing just the girls, the drugs and Ibiza . . . The next generation thought 'That's a bit naff, I wouldn't mind skate-punk metal’. "

In more media news, former Mixmag editor Tom Whitwell resurfaced at another British tabloid newspaper this week, becoming a ‘communities editor’ at the Times website. The prolific journalist worked as Deputy Editor at the Face, news editor at Ministry and founded musicians blog musicthing.co.uk in between, and also became something of a pundit, addressing issues including drugs.

“In the 60s, it was a trendy elite who were getting into drugs,” he told the Sun in 2001 when the paper ran a piece on the modern UK drug scene,

“Drugs are so much part of our club culture that it’s something which has become the mainstream – they’re no longer an act of rebellion,” he added.