Media hard times

The press has given Oxford vice-chancellor Colin Lucas a hard time over the Laura Spence case. But he has had worse run-ins with the press. In an interview in UK Press Gazette, Boris Johnson, Lucas's godson and Spectator editor, said that his brief career at The Times ended after he quoted Lucas in a front-page story on something about which he was not an expert and without getting in touch with him. Worse, it happened "at a very sensitive moment" - when Lucas was trying to become master of Balliol.