Professor Brian Cathcart

Brian Cathcart is a co-founder of Hacked Off, the campaign for free and accountable media, and professor of journalism at Kingston University London. He was a journalist for Reuters, the Independent, the Independent on Sunday (where he was deputy editor) and the News Statesman (assistant editor), and is the author of seven books, including the award-winning The Case of Stephen Lawrence (Viking, 1999) and recently Everybody's Hacked Off (Penguin, 2012). His engagement with Hacked Off, of which he was one of the founders, has its roots in his journalism teaching and also in his work as a media columnist for the New Statesman, when he wrote about the Madeleine McCann affair. In 2008-10 he was specialist adviser to the House of Commons select committee on culture, media and sport for its inquiry into press standards and phone hacking. He gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry and to other parliamentary inquiries and has written, spoken and broadcast on many occasions on press regulation and related matters.