Geoffrey Goodman - Telegraph Goodman's pre-eminence and integrity were undisputed, and he was renowned for his helpfulness to young colleagues. He did, however, protect his reputation. When late in his career fellow industrial correspondents awarded him their annual "Golden Bollock" for a story that could not have conceivably have been true, Goodman pressed a threat of legal action to the point where they backed down. Geoffrey George Goodman was born at Stockport on July 2 1922, the son of Michael Goodman and the former Edythe Bowman, both children of Jewish immigrants from Russia. Geoffrey grew up a non-practising Jew - though his heritage mattered to him - and in 1947 he married Margit Freudenbergova, who as a child had escaped from Czechoslovakia on the final Kindertransport. When his father lost his job in a Manchester factory, the Goodmans moved to London where Geoffrey won a grammar school place, later reading Economics at LSE under Harold Laski. In 1940 he lied about his age to train as a bomber pilot, flying many sorties in Wellingtons, Whitleys and Lancasters; he ended the war a flight lieutenant flying Mosquitos for photo reconnaissance. He felt lucky to have survived, especially as on one of his last missions he was intercepted by one of the Luftwaffe's first jet fighters. Goodman had wanted to become a journalist ever since hearing a shopkeeper say before the Abdication that the newspapers were refusing to print the truth "despite most of us knowing exactly what is going on." Demobilised in 1946, he worked briefly on the Manchester Guardian and the Mirror (being sacked in a purge of Left-wingers at Christmas 1948). He worked with Bevan and Foot at Tribune, and also became a fixture on the News Chronicle. Crucially in 1956, he backed the paper's editor, Michael Curtis, in opposing the Suez operation, over which the staff were deeply divided. A year later, Goodman sat through a "wake" of a dinner with a tearful Foot after Bevan broke ranks with the Left to insist that Britain must not abandon its nuclear weapons. Months before the Chronicle closed in 1960, Goodman moved to the Labour-supporting Daily Herald as its industrial editor. He was a key member of the team that in 1964 relaunched the Herald as the Sun, and at the Sun he secured his greatest scoop, breaking the story that the combatants in the Vietnam War were meeting in Paris to search for a peace formula. Goodman returned to the Mirror in 1969 just before Rupert Murdoch captured the Sun. The paper then was innovative and progressive, and expected the Labour government to be the same. But its opinionated chairman Cecil King saw Wilson as a busted flush and was machinating for a coalition or even a military junta. Again Goodman alerted Benn. Goodman had more in common with Hugh Cudlipp, who had been the brains behind the Sun. Rating Cudlipp "the greatest popular journalist of the 20th century," Goodman worked with him to build trust with Labour and the unions. He served with distinction under several managements, but came to reckon himself one of the few senior Mirror figures who were still devoted to Labour. When Maxwell bought the paper he was tempted to resign, only staying on when Maxwell - having altered one of his columns on the agony of the miners" strike - promised he would never do it again. He retired two years later, fulminating against "that maniac on the ninth floor." Goodman founded the British Journalism Review in 1989, editing it for 13 years. He produced several books - culminating in From Bevan to Blair (2003) - and numerous columns, drawing on his immense experience. When John Smith died suddenly in 1994, parallels with the impact on Labour of Hugh Gaitskell's death 31 years before came naturally to him. One of his last columns for the Mirror was headlined "How Ed Miliband can become Prime Minister." Goodman was named Descriptive Writer of the Year for 1972, and given the Gerald Barry Award for Journalism for 1984-85. He was appointed CBE in 1998. He is survived by his wife, and their son and daughter. Geoffrey Goodman, born July 2 1922, died September 5 2013