Confessions of a “Hackademic”

These were stirring times

Let me take you back to that July fortnight last year when the world turned upside down. Nick Davies and The Guardian blew the whistle again on Monday July 5, this time on the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone (and, yes, they were misled on one important fact in the story) —and finally people listened to the phone-hacking story and its implications. The News of the World was closed down within three days in the face of an advertiser boycott. Senior police officers and PCC officials threw in their soiled towels, senior news executives had their collars felt. Worst (or best) of all, News Corporation lost the chance to take over all of BSkyB.

There was a moral fury amongst the chattering classes that spread to the political classes. David Cameron smelt the public mood (it is what he does best) and on July 13 announced the appointment of Lord Justice Leveson to inquire into the “Culture Practices and Ethics of the Press”. These were stirring times.

Events made for journalists and journalism academics you would think? Richard Keeble and I help to run the Institute of Communication Ethics (ICE) conference annually. It is what it says on the tin. The subject for the conference picked itself and papers were invited. We asked Brian Cathcart of the Hacked Off Campaign (which instantly achieved its aim of a Public Inquiry into tabloid journalism practices) and Rich Peppiatt, Daily Star reporter turned refusenik (and a philosophy graduate) to present keynotes. That London ICE Conference at the end of October was invigorating and fertile: 11 publishable papers came out of it. They varied in quality but then that is no different to any other conference. There was time to critique and improve.

At Coventry University, where I was teaching, my colleagues in the cultural studies department initially declined to engage. One told me phone-hacking was a “minor and purely English phenomenon”. He is a German neo-Marxist, so well up on British media. I persevered and, ignoring the prophets of doom or inaction and the strange melange they choose to call “theory”, we organised a mini conference. That yielded three papers too, though one had so much theory in it that, when it came to publication, the author did not deliver.

More materiel came from a mini-series on “Journalism after Hackgate” which I put on as part of the Coventry Conversations series in Autumn 2011. They are what they say on the tin too. The series yielded Professors Stewart Purvis (Ex editor of Channel Four News, former ITN CEO and Ofcom regulator); Steven Barnett (Westminster University and long-term Murdoch sceptic); Kevin Marsh (the former editor of the Today programme and much else on BBC Radio Four and one of the most insightful and acerbic thinkers on modern journalism); another Hacked Off founder and that sultan of anti-spin, Nicholas Jones. That's nearly 20 chapters commissioned without breaking much sweat.

Lord Leveson began his hearings proper in November. By then, the book and the plans for it had fructified. Richard Keeble and I had “form”, having edited six previous “hackademic” tomes in the previous two years. We had achieved the holy grail of mixing practitioners and theorists between the same covers. One frontline correspondent produced a piece full of footnotes. It turned out he had just finished writing an MA on media.

We got the men and women on the ground with the expertise to write on “Hackgate”. Richard and I have been round the courses in journalism and in the academic world and know the runners and riders in both fields.

We also called on some of the “hackademic” repertory company that had served us well in the previous six volumes. We knew they could think and write on their feet and deliver. Most were in universities. Some were very well-known name/brands who welcomed the challenge of time. Journalists, however long retired from the coalface, still relish and (mostly) respect the deadline. The rep company knew the score. Most were prepared to play.

For the gaps we perceived, we commissioned pieces such as one by a PR crisis man on salvaging Rupe's reputation. John Lloyd delivered a Delphic overview. Richard headed for the leftie foothills of Mediawise and Goldsmiths College. He likes it there. Plus student pieces from wannabe hacks. Part of our job as educators is surely to encourage publication from the apprentices. Each and every “hackademic” book has at least one piece by them. Some came too from the Association for Journalism Education newsletter. That produced a few frustrated academics nurturing a chapter inside them. The target is usually 30 chapters for our books. We had 35 unpaid volunteers. None of us is making money from this. The reward is reputation.

Fast they may be, but poor writing they are not

By early December 2011, we had a book, a theme, a cast, a publisher (Arima), a title (it did not change. I used to work in TV so can do catchy), a book and a February publication date that meant tight deadlines for authors. Some proved tardy and they remain still unpublished, some delivered copy of not outstanding quality — they were encouraged by firm sub-editing to improve it or were simply thrown out. We do this to at least two pieces in every book. This “peer review” by double subbing is as thorough as any other. The books we produce are no vanity publications: fast they may be, poor scholarship and writing they most definitely are not.

So from London conference to copy delivered by authors, a period of six weeks plus two allowed for over-runs, then a month of hard work by the editors ordering the book logically, kneading the individual copy and the whole, through heavy production editing and then contextualising and pulling together ready for publication. Every dot and comma is checked and double checked. We even commission the covers from a Coventry University designer. Printing takes just a fortnight. Our publisher, Richard Franklin, is superb on that

What of the main show in the Strand? Leveson's Inquiry, like the phone-hacking story itself, had started off mainly as a media village story then become national and international news as star witnesses gave way to ordinary people caught up in extraordinary situations and “monstered” by the tabloid press. Some of the stories were simply jaw-dropping.

The book was ready for the end of January 2012, as Leveson continued to peel the skin off the rotten onion of British tabloid journalism. The Phone Hacking Scandal: Journalism on Trial examined the very issues — ethics, practices, remedies for the press — that the good Lord Justice Leveson was charged with. We did it from 360 degrees, using all the tools and knowledge available to academics, hacks and “hackademics” — that strange hybrid that Keeble and I straddle. Some chapters in this and others of our “hackademic” texts are footnoted to within an inch of their life, some are pure journalism written by journalists. That is “hackademia” for you.

Nobody could accuse us of taking editorial sides or having an anti-Murdoch bias. We are a broad church, as is always the best scholarship. A volume whose intellectual reach varies from the Goldsmiths College soi-disant “Media Reform Committee” to Professor Tim Luckhurst, the Kent controversialist, from Medialens to John Lloyd, the sage of the Reuters Institute, cannot be said to be partial in any way. Genuine debate in a single volume. It is what we academics do or should do. Food for thought and for discussion.

Whisper it gently in the cloisters and common rooms, but marketing plays a part too. No soft launches for this kind of book. It is of the moment and has to catch the zeitgeist. There was a tough debate in London between the tabloid haters and defenders, refereed by the urbane Raymond Snoddy. He will contribute to the second edition.

An event of that kind generates copy, as does offering extracts or publication in journo blogs. Getting Greenslade in The Guardian was striking it rich. I can do no better than quote the City University Professor himself: “There are going to be many books about the News of the World phone-hacking scandal… But I want to extol the virtues of a book that's already been published.”

The lesson for others in the thicket of the journalism academe are: be brave, commit yourselves early, commission good people and commission them well and then cajole/harry to publication (some authors will have dreaded my almost-daily emails arriving).

Be thorough and get your timing right. Otherwise you produce a damp squib. Keep up the quality, or the brand will be damaged beyond repair. As for REFability, ignore the doubters. If your piece is significant enough, it will be REFable. Those who think that time means quality are misguided. I turned down Palgrave Macmillan for this book. They wanted to publish it in 2014. The Leveson circus, as some see it, would have long left town. Relevance zero, impact nil.

A second, updated edition of The Phone Hacking Scandal will be published in October this year. This time round, it will also be a Guardian eBook. It will coincide with Leveson's first report. I am chasing the 30 authors as I write this. Richard Keeble and I may have played a small part in the downfall of Rupert Murdoch. Now that is what I call impact.