When was your first day at the Guardian?
It was 19 November 1979. After two interviews I was delighted to be offered the role of the Guardian’s Midlands correspondent, based in my hometown of Wolverhampton. Previously I had worked at the town’s Express and Star paper, completed a postgraduate course in journalism at Cardiff University and then joined Cardiff’s Western Mail as leader and features editor. I remember feeling early on that it seemed an amazing way of earning a living, and I got to do so many interesting, varied things.
What came next?
I progressed to being the paper’s Ireland correspondent, based in Belfast. It was a period of tremendous unrest – the Brighton bomb and the introduction of shoot-to-kill. I met Ian Paisley, Gerry Adams, and members of the UDA. I recall standing on the Falls Road and seeing the police shoot a man dead a few feet away from me. We produced fair-minded coverage of the Troubles. I grew to know where all the phone boxes were between Derry and Belfast and made it my business to reach them before my Press Association counterpart so that I could be the first to file my copy.
In 1987 I became the Guardian’s news editor. It was pretty intimidating given the experience on the desk at that time, and I hadn’t worked in London much, but it was hugely vibrant, exciting and lively. In addition to this being the time of our first big redesign, politics was in flux – the Thatcher era ended and in 1990, John Major became the prime minister. It was this same year that I became the assistant editor, in charge of putting the paper out each night. In 1995, I was promoted to deputy editor responsible for news.
Can you tell us about your career highlights?
One of my first stories as assistant editor was the libel claim brought against the Guardian by the Police Federation in a case seen as a test of the media’s ability to report investigations into police corruption allegations. Had we lost the case, it would have cost us about £2.5m in today’s money.
We reported on Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith’s “cash for questions” scandal. After questions in parliament, we realised Hamilton’s defamation action would collapse. It was billed as the £10m libel case and we ran the story with the headline “A liar and a cheat”.
Then, of course, we covered the actions of the Treasury minister Jonathan Aitken, who denounced “wicked lies” told by the Guardian and Granada TV’s World in Action about his business activities. He was so smooth and polished, even tipped as the next PM, and he was quoted as saying: “If it falls to me to start a fight to cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism in our country with the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of fair play, so be it.” He launched libel writs against the Guardian and the case took two years to get to court. Then Owen Bowcott uncovered the vital piece of evidence in Switzerland that proved Aitken had lied about who had footed the bill for his stay in the Paris Ritz, and his case collapsed. Aitken went to prison for perjury and perverting the course of justice. The headline we ran read “He lied and lied and lied”.
I recall 1997 and Blair’s general election victory very clearly – it felt like a new dawn, a time of great hope, energy and progression. But the Guardian was vehemently against the Iraq war and never seduced by the justifications that were offered up for it.
What sets the Guardian apart from other publications?
I think our bravery and commitment to truth. It’s also our attention to political nuance, which can be seen in our reporting of the Balkans, Afghanistan and Syria. Reporting like this is sometimes dangerous and always expensive, but it is reporting we must do because of the impact it has on the world. The consequences of the phone hacking scandal reverberated widely, as did our undercover reporting on Sports Direct and the gig economy. The series on abuse in football exposed culprits and revealed huge numbers of victims, Windrush changed the law and resulted in the resignation of a home secretary, and the Snowden leaks sparked conversations around privacy that are still going on today.
How has the industry changed since you started?
The means of delivery is probably where the biggest shift can be seen. When a story breaks, our first thought now is the web – the Guardian is now truly global. We have the advantages of the web, of being an English-language paper, and of course our operations in the US and Australia. We are a 24/7 organisation now.
In many ways, it’s unrecognisable compared with when I first started, but at its core, the Guardian hasn’t changed. We still have a dedication to fairness, to rigour, and to effecting positive change in the world and moving the dial. We refuse to bow to external pressures. We have grown from a paper on one small island to something which has millions of readers across the world, meaning our potential for impact is huge. All the financial support we receive is returned to our journalism, and that reader-funded model is working well for us so far, which is a pretty amazing thing.
Which journalists do you most admire?
I have worked with many world-class investigative journalists over the years. And I’ve worked closely with three brilliant editors-in-chief – Peter Preston, Alan Rusbridger and Katharine Viner. They are united by the qualities of huge drive and foresight. Katharine’s editorship is already characterised by energy, exuberance and engagement. She also has a terrific sense of mischief and, when things look tricky, of remarkable bravery too.
What advice would you give for reporters just starting out?
Stamina is key – you have to be able to keep digging away at a story, to ask the right questions, listen carefully to the answers, and exercise rigour at all times. You also have to be technically adept, understand politics and the wider context of stories, and have a nose for seeking out interesting stories and contacts. For the Guardian in particular, I’d say originality is important. But moreover, you should be sceptical rather than cynical, and have a profound curiosity about the world.
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