Tim Luckhurst
Encyclopedia
Tim Luckhurst is Professor of Journalism at the University of Kent
University of Kent
The University of Kent, previously the University of Kent at Canterbury, is a public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom...

, and the founding head of the university's Centre for Journalism http://www.centreforjournalism.co.uk. He is best known as a former editor of The Scotsman
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....

. At Kent he has pioneered the teaching of degrees that blend instruction in the professional skills required to work as a reporter in the multimedia era, with intense academic study of established disciplines including history, politics and law. His research focuses on the history of journalism in democracies at war. He is a critic of media studies, a discipline which he dismisses as damaging to reasoned understanding of public service journalism.

Early life and career

Luckhurst was educated at Peebles High School, a comprehensive school in Scotland, and at Robinson College, Cambridge
Robinson College, Cambridge
Robinson College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.Robinson is the newest of the Cambridge colleges, and is unique in being the only one to have been intended, from its inception, for both undergraduate and graduate students of either sex.- History :The college was founded...

, where he obtained an honours degree in history (1980–1983). As a student at Cambridge he played bass guitar in Tony Tiger and the Frosties alongside Andy White the Northern Irish singer, songwriter and poet. The band entertained thousands of students at May Balls and at The Red Event. Between 1985 and 1988 he worked as Parliamentary Press Officer for Donald Dewar
Donald Dewar
Donald Campbell Dewar was a British politician who served as a Labour Party Member of Parliament in Scotland from 1966-1970, and then again from 1978 until his death in 2000. He served in Tony Blair's cabinet as Secretary of State for Scotland from 1997-1999 and was instrumental in the creation...

 MP, then Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland
Secretary of State for Scotland
The Secretary of State for Scotland is the principal minister of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom with responsibilities for Scotland. He heads the Scotland Office , a government department based in London and Edinburgh. The post was created soon after the Union of the Crowns, but was...

, and for the Scottish Labour group of MPs at Westminster. He stood as the Labour candidate in the Roxburgh and Berwickshire
Roxburgh and Berwickshire (UK Parliament constituency)
Roxburgh and Berwickshire was a county constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1983 to 2005...

 constituency at the 1987 British general election.

Career in journalism

He worked on BBC Radio 4's Today programme for which he produced, edited and reported from the UK and abroad. Luckhurst covered the Romanian Revolution of 1989
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...

, the First Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...

 and the Waco Siege
Waco Siege
The Waco siege began on February 28, 1993, and ended violently 50 days later on April 19. The siege began when the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms attempted to execute a search warrant at the Branch Davidian ranch at Mount Carmel, a property located east-northeast of Waco,...

 for BBC Radio and reported on the liberation of Kosovo
1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was NATO's military operation against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The strikes lasted from March 24, 1999 to June 10, 1999...

 and the fall of Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...

 for The Scotsman. He was the BBC's Washington Producer during the first year of the Clinton presidency and returned to the UK to become a senior member of the team that designed and launched BBC Radio Five Live. He played a crucial role in winning for Five Live the 1995 Sony Radio Academy Award for Station of the Year. From 1995 to 1997 he was Editor of News Programmes at BBC Scotland in which role he introduced bi-media working in BBC Scotland newsrooms and thoroughly revised the design and presentation of programmes including Good Morning Scotland, Newsdrive and Reporting Scotland.

He has won two Sony Radio Academy Awards for news broadcasting (The Romanian Revolution 1989 for Radio 4's Today Programme and the IRA ceasefire of 1995 for Radio Five Live).

His publications include It is held against me that I have a castle - a portrait of newspaper coverage of the Central Southwark by-election, February 1940 ,This is Today - A Biography of the Today Programme London, Aurum Press 2001 contributions to What a State - Is Devolution for Scotland the End of Britain. and the essays, Compromising the First draft?, in Afghanistan, War and the Media: Deadlines and Frontlines, Edited by Richard Lance Keeble and John Mair, Bury St, Edmunds: Abramis, 2010 and "Dr Hack I presume? Liberal Journalism in the Multimedia Age" in Face the Future: Tools for the Modern Media Age, Edited by John Mair and Richard Lance Keeble, Bury St. Edmunds, Abramis, 2011 In March 2011 he summarised proceedings at a conference on the future of investigative journalism hosted by the University of Coventry and the BBC College of Journalism

In October 2000 he criticised collective amnesia in Serbia in a New Statesman essay entitled What did your dad do for Milošević? In 2001 he expressed trenchant criticism of the devolution settlement in Scotland in another essay for the New Statesman entitled "Scotland returns to the Dark Ages"

He has published academic essays in Journalism Studies, British Journalism Review and Ethical Space In January 2010 he provoked anger among media studies academics in a column for the Independent,
Demise of news barons is just a Marxist fantasy,. In March 2010 he defended self-regulation of the British press in a column, Watchdog can champion ethics and fight sleaze, first published in the Independent

He is a determined advocate of convergent, multimedia journalism who promotes the view that the survival of authoritative, public service journalism in the 21st century requires public understanding that quality reporting cannot be provided free of charge In January 2010 he described the crisis in the economics of the newspaper industry in an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme and called for wider public understanding of the need to pay for journalism that is capable of speaking truth to power.

Luckhurst is a critical but sincere friend of the BBC. He argues that its role as a market-distorter has been magnified by the initial impact of multimedia convergence. He has urged the corporation to reduce its production of content that independent media organisations might otherwise profit by producing. He has criticised as naive the corporation's editorial coverage of devolution to Scotland He outlined his objections to the corporation's decision to relocate network production to the provinces in a column for the Mail on Sunday In response to the column BBC Radio 4's Media Show invited him to explain why network programme teams should remain in London In June 2011 he expanded his argument against the corporation's plans in an essay for British Journalism Review
He writes about topics including politics, media and motorcycling for newspapers, magazines and websites including The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

. and The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...

. Between 2000 and 2007 he was a political columnist for the Scottish Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...

and a media columnist for The Independent and Independent on Sunday.

He has also written about motorcycling for
The Independents motoring section. He has written for publications including the New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....

, The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...

, The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...

, the British Journalism Review, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

and The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...

. He is a frequent contributor to programmes on LBC Radio, Talksport and BBC Radio. He is a member of the Society of Editors and the National Union of Journalists
National Union of Journalists
The National Union of Journalists is a trade union for journalists in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. It was founded in 1907 and has 38,000 members. It is a member of the International Federation of Journalists .-Structure:...

.

Personal life

He is married to Dorothy Luckhurst (née Williamson). They have four children; Phoebe
The Tab
The Tab is a student newspaper based at the University of Cambridge, England.- History:The Tab was launched in 2009 by Cambridge students Jack Rivlin, George Marangos-Gilks, and Taymoor Atighetchi....

, Toby, Georgia and Molly.
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