Scots journalist, Gordon Smart, who edits The Sun's Bizarre pages, has been named the number one showbusiness journalist in the UK by the media trade website and magazine, Press Gazette.
Smart was voted number one in a survey of journalists and the public to find the UK’s top 50 showbiz journalists.
The 30 year-old has been editor of the Sun showbiz pages the past three years. He started out his career in journalism on The Courier and Evening Telegraph in Dundee, before studying journalism at Edinburgh Napier University.
After a spell football coaching, he worked for Deadline Press and Picture Agency in Edinburgh, and got his big break, when, while covering the MTV Europe Music Awards in Edinburgh, a former college at DC Thomson introduced him to Victoria Newton, the editor of The Sun’s Bizarre column
This led to shifts in London, and he had a stint on the News of The World before joining The Sun full-time six years ago as Newton’s deputy – becoming the Bizarre editor three years ago.
Says Press Gazette: “Recent scoops for Smart have included breaking the news that Madonna and Guy Ritchie were to divorce two years ago; revealing in March this year that Take That singer Mark Owen had ten extra-marital affairs; and revealing comic Jason Manford’s Twitter sex antics in October.”
He is quoted, saying: “I’ve felt as much like a marriage counsellor as a journalist over the last few years.
“I feel like I’ve become the respectable face of showbusiness journalism. That’s something I’m trying to do.”
Wrote Deadline co-founder, Scott Douglas, three years ago: “He had all but given up on a newspaper career and was coaching youth football in London when he landed a job with Deadline Press & Picture Agency.
“Gordon is charm personified – a lovable rogue with a line in cheek delivered with a grin that virtually no-one else woulg get away with. Which explalins how he’d also been a successful club promoter even when he was still journalism student at Napier University. I can safely say I’ve never known another reporter with such a God-given talent for winning people over – they would actually go out of their way to tell stuff to young Goags.”
The rest of the top ten reads:
2. Clemmie Moodie – Daily Mirror 3am editor
3. Mark Jefferies – Daily Mirror deputy TV editor
4. Caitlin Moran – The Times columnist and interviewer
5. Dan Wootton – News of the World showbiz editor
6. Piers Morgan – CNN chief interviewer
7. Mr Holy Moly – Holy Moly
8. Louise Gannon – News of the World Fabulous and freelance
9. Isabel Mohan – editor of 3am.com
10. Christian Guiltenane – assistant editor of OK! Magazine
The identity of the top 50 are to be published in the print edition of Press Gazette.
