A working journalist for about 30 years, mainly at the Independent papers, Reuters and the New Statesman, I was everything from sub-editor to deputy editor, business specialist to investigative reporter, and foreign correspondent to media columnist. I joined Kingston University in 2003 to help launch its journalism courses. My research is chiefly in journalistic ethics and I am a leading campaigner for reforms to raise ethical standards and restore trust. I write for Byline Times and I tweet as @BrianCathcart.
Among my recent publications is 'The Daily Mail and the Stephen Lawrence Murder' in Political Quarterly, which exposed that paper's exaggeration of its role in this tragic case. I also wrote 'Trust, Newspapers and Journalists' for Radical Statistics, an analysis of survey data which found that trust levels in UK print journalism were very low by every available measure. In 2019, with another veteran journalist, Paddy French, I published Unmasked, a detailed study of anti-Muslim reporting by the Times. Forthcoming publications include book chapters, for Routledge publications, about press accountability (or rather, its absence) and about the history of political journalism.
A former specialist adviser to the Commons media select committee, I was a founder and the first director of the campaign group Hacked Off. I twice gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into press standards and I recently led the Kingston team that created the online resource DiscoverLeveson.com. I am currently helping build a similar resource relating to the 1998-9 inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. I am the author of eight books, including the award-winning The Case of Stephen Lawrence (1999) and, most recently, The News from Waterloo (2014). If you wish to contact me consult a member of the journalism staff.
Professor of Journalism