'Publishers are obsessed with youth and good looks' says Hislop

Ian Hislop, chairman of the judges for this week's Whitbread Prize, has criticised publishers for their obsession with young, good-looking authors – arguing that books by older writers are normally much better.

Mr Hislop, the editor of Private Eye, said he was delighted that the shortlist for this year's £25,000 award was dominated by mature authors, including a "best newcomer" in his fifties.

And in a swipe at the likes of Zadie Smith, the 27-year-old author of White Teeth and a former Whitbread nominee, he said most thrusting young writers should not be entered for prizes until they reached their fourth book.

"I'm sure that old is the new young," said Mr Hislop. "Of all the areas where youth is at a premium, writing well probably isn't one of them. You get better. Age helps both in terms of the skill of writing and the experience. There's obviously a freshness and new-minted quality that some young writers burst in with, but that's not as prevalent as people seem to think.

"There's a tendency to imagine, because it makes better copy and they look better in a photo, that these writers are always worth including, but the panel this year doesn't seem to have gone for that."

The past few years has seen a growing number of photogenic twenty- and thirtysomethings, many of them high-flying Oxbridge graduates, being signed up by publishers, often for huge advances.

Many of the resulting works, including White Teeth and Alex Garland's The Beach, received genuine critical acclaim on their release. However, their subsequent entry for prizes like the Whitbread and the Booker arguably owed just as much to enthusiastic promotion, leading commentators to accuse publishers of treating the awards like beauty contests.

Novelist Joanna Trollope blames the demise of the editor for unruly books that would benefit from cutting. "There isn't a manuscript on earth that can't be improved by good editing," she said in yesterday's Daily Telegraph. "The current fad for fame among writers has inevitably had bad and sad consequences."

This year's Whitbread shortlist, which as usual will see a poet compete with two novelists, a biographer and a children's writer, pays uncommon attention to the achievements of older hands.

Even the winner of the best first novel category, the arts journalist Norman Lebrecht, is 54. Only one of the five contenders, Paul Farley, winner of the poetry award for his volume The Ice Age, is under 40.

Of the other nominees, Claire Tomalin, who made headlines after being shortlisted alongside her husband, Michael Frayn, is currently the favourite, at odds of 5-4, according to bookmakers William Hill.

Her biography, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, is hotly followed by Frayn's latest novel, Spies, at 5-2. Lebrecht is third favourite, followed by Farley and the final nominee, children's author Hilary McKay.

Commenting on the judges' decision to pit him against his wife, Frayn joked earlier this month that he had found himself in a "ridiculously farcical situation".

Mr Hislop said of the couple's tongue-in-cheek marital rivalry: "I'm slightly worried that I'm going to be responsible for their divorce if it all goes wrong."