Tim Luckhurst

Timothy Colin Harvey Luckhurst (born 8 January 1963) is a British journalist, academic, principal of South College of Durham University and an associate pro-vice-chancellor. Between 2007 and 2019 he was professor of Journalism at the University of Kent, and the founding head of the university's Centre for Journalism.

Luckhurst began his career as a journalist on BBC Radio 4's flagship Today programme before becoming a member of the team that designed and launched BBC Radio 5 Live. Between 1995 and 1997, he served as bi-media editor of national radio and television news programmes at BBC Scotland. He joined The Scotsman newspaper in 1997 as Assistant Editor (News) and was promoted to the role of Deputy Editor in 1998, before briefly becoming editor in 2000.

2000–2006

 * The visceral issues of Jerusalem, refugees and settlers are not yet resolved. But the truth is that they will be. Israel has decided to settle. The principle of land for peace has been accepted. What is now required is the peace to compensate for territorial surrender.
 * Two absolutes inform Israeli diplomacy today: first, that peace is coming and, second, that it must be irrevocable. Nobody in Israel expects peace to be warm.
 * "Deaths in a cause that is already won", New Statesman (9 December 2000)

Even if they are, the best advice, that few doctors will offer is this: reject the diagnosis. Throw away the the pills. Take a rest and get better naturally. For most people, that approach will work just fine. And it won't leave you unemployed. Believe me, it's a lot less depressing than suing.
 * Sceptics are asking whether they might be avoided if doctors did less to confirm unhappy employees' suspicions that they are clinically ill. Physicians love to diagnose what they can treat, but the fact that they think they can now treat depression does not mean most patients are depressed.
 * "Resist the depression industry", The Independent (28 June 2001)

I ignored him. What possible harm could be done by telling my employer the truth? I was entirely candid with The Scotsman. My doctor knew all about the stigma that attaches to any form of mental illness. I was absurdly naive. Six weeks later, feeling healthier than I had for years, my GP agreed I was fit to return to work. I was raring to go. My boss was having none of it. I was informed that I could not return as editor. His explanation was plain. "It might happen again." I refused the offer to go back to work in a demoted role and we agreed severance terms. The Scotsman was generous, but I was unemployed.
 * He [Luckhurst's doctor] gave me a sick note that said I was suffering from hypertension, but not [Clinical] depression. He advised me not to mention it either.
 * "Mad, bad and dangerous", The Sunday Times (13 October 2002)
 * The Herald, in May 2000, identified Andrew Neil, then The Scotsman's editor-in-chief, as responsible for informing Luckhurst he would not be returning to his post.

I joined as I believed that David Cameron would make a fantastic leader, and my decision to join was based on a clear decision that if he was not elected leader I would not stand for election. I'm overjoyed that he has been elected leader. He represents the strain of non-ideological reformist politics that I'm interested in. I have no interest whatsoever in standing for the Scottish Parliament.
 * It's a question of whether I can do something useful [...] It's not about personal ambition, it really is not.
 * "Ex-Dewar aide joins Tories as he praises Cameron", The Herald (9 December 2005)
 * According to the article, Luckhurst had joined the Conservatives in England.


 * Ken Loach denies that he is a "socialist realist". He is right. There is not an iota of realism in his support for George Galloway's Respect movement.
 * Riefenstahl did not fully understand the evil cause to which her work contributed. Ken Loach does not deserve such indulgence. He knows precisely what he is doing.
 * "Director in a class of his own", The Times (31 May 2006)
 * Loach's film The Wind That Shakes the Barley had received the Palme d'Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.

2007–2011
Affection for Elvis is a workable predictor of anti-intellectual attitude. As one academic paper demonstrated in the 1970s, Beatles fans are much more likely to have experienced university education. They are also less likely to be psychologically insecure.
 * Elvis was what Americans call trailer trash, in our terms a "chav", before the term was invented. Instead of aspiring through education he made a career out of sullen, posturing ignorance. His fans have often made the same mistake. Small wonder they appreciate the lyrics, which are the literary equivalent of tumbler-dryer instructions.
 * "It's only rock'n'roll", The Guardian (14 August 2007)

I shall be stunned if the Conservative leader emerges from his party conference looking as smug as Gordon Brown did this week. Never mind the polls, Cameron simply lacks the upbringing.
 * Had he been born in Kent, [Gordon] Brown would have been a Conservative. But he was born in Glasgow, so what he shares with England's establishment isn't party affiliation, but an armour-plated sense of entitlement. I doubt [David] Cameron has anything approaching Brown's faith in his right to power. Etonians have been disliked for decades. The country has only just begun to perceive the true nature of the Scottish Labour party.
 * "The Tory of Kirkcaldy", The Guardian (29 September 2007)

Granted, this is a generalisation to which there are exceptions...
 * [On "broadcast presenters"] Many are comically insecure and egotistical. They need to appear on screen like a shark needs to swim. It is an addiction and they will beg, steal and wheedle to feed it.
 * "The BBC pays too much for too little", The Guardian (13 May 2009)


 * Google uses the work of journalists to sell advertising. Then it takes Daddy Bear's share of the profits and justifies its gluttony on the basis that it drives traffic back to the newspaper's own site. This is like a musician stealing a song, recording it, and excusing their crime on the basis that the illegal cover version may draw attention to the original.
 * A healthy democracy needs professional journalists to report accurately on public affairs, to find out things the powerful want to hide and to expose wrongdoing. These duties have been performed by journalists throughout the era of universal suffrage and in every country in which liberty flourishes. People who deride this claim as idealistic naïvety are enemies of parliamentary democracy. Its supporters must learn to appreciate that good journalism is worth paying for.
 * "We can't let Google steal the show", The Guardian (9 April 2009)


 * Now a newspaper innovation has been launched that can help the free world's news industry to recover the prosperity it first achieved under Queen Victoria. Johnston Press, Britain's most prolific newspaper publisher with 286 titles, will place the online content of six of its local titles behind paywalls.
 * It [Johnston Press] is leading a change that must happen. People who care about democracy must hope it happens fast. We have not attempted political freedom without well-funded, intelligent journalism, but we can assume that it would not be pretty. When accurate reporting dies it is usually replaced by gossip, prejudice and bigotry.
 * "Why journalism needs paywalls", The Guardian (30 November 2009)

A durable alternative to market distortion by oligarchs could only be achieved through restrictive laws on media ownership. Such laws rarely protect freedom and, even at this time of unprecedented chaos and despondency in the news industry, such legislation should not be conceived in haste.
 * [Alexander] Lebedev may not require profits. He may be willing to subsidise quality newspapers in return for the voice in national affairs they offer. If that is his ambition, he will be embracing a tradition that has endured throughout the democratic era. 19th- and early 20th-century examples of subsidy by political parties and departments of state suggest that subsidy by wealthy individuals may harm democracy less than subsidy by the state.
 * "What next for the Independent?", The Guardian (8 January 2010)


 * Rod Liddle will not be editor of The Independent. The screechingly intolerant campaign of hostility directed against him by metropolitan critics has done its job. They call themselves liberals. If they are right then the word has come to have as little meaning as its common counterpart "progressive".
 * [On the future of The Independent] With care, investment and innovation it might just thrive in the new media economy, particularly if a free distribution model covering all of Britain's major cities can be achieved.
 * "How the 'liberal' mob did Rod Liddle in", The Guardian (19 February 2010)
 * Luckhurst was sceptical of The Independent as a free newspaper (like the Lebedev-owned Evening Standard) and concerned about the effects of non-paywalled online content on newly paywalled titles in his article of 8 January 2010 quoted above.


 * Victorian liberals who campaigned for a free press and educated people to read it believed that newspapers should prepare Britons to participate in democracy. The new voters repudiated this patronising view. They were not content to read accounts of parliamentary debates and analyses of British diplomatic endeavour. They wanted fun too. Crime and scandal provided it.
 * "Read all about it: Britons have always loved scandal", The Guardian (25 May 2011)