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Professor Richard Tait - M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon)

Overview

Professor Richard Tait Position: Professor of Journalism Email: TaitR@cardiff.ac.uk
 Telephone: +44 (0)29 208 75420
Fax: N/A
Extension: 75420
Location: Room 0.31B, Bute Building

Research Interests

War reporting, journalism and politics, broadcasting policy, political communications, journalist safety.

Teaching Interests

Journalistic ethics, investigative reporting, specialist journalism, safety and stress.

Personal Interests

In 2003/4 I was a member of the Independent Review of Government Communications, chaired by Bob Phillis and set up after the Jo Moore/Martin Sixmith affair. Last year I joined the Hansard Society's Commission on Parliament In The Public Eye. I was for five years on the advisory board of the annual NewsXchange broadcast news conference, where in 2003 I presented the Cardiff University research project on embedded reporters.

I am currently developing, with international colleagues, a journalism safety module for use in university journalism schools.

Away from work, I ski in the French Alps, play tennis, go to the ballet and the opera when I can and try and fit in the odd trip to Stamford Bridge - but my wife Jane and daughter Rachel (age 10) have first call on my time.

Publications

‘The Parties and Television’, in Ivor Crewe and Brian Gosschalk (eds), Political Communications: The General election Campaign of 1992 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp 59-64.

‘The Debate That Never Happened: Television and the Party Leaders, 1997’ in Ivor Crewe, Brian Gosschalk and John Bartle (eds), Political Communications: Why Labour Won the General Election of 1997 (London: Frank Cass 1998), pp 205-13.

‘The Parties and Television: Some Antidotes to Apathy’, in John Bartle, Roger Mortimer and Simon Atkinson (eds), Political Communications: The General Election Campaign of 2001 (London: Frank Cass 2002), pp 236-245.

‘The Right to Editorial Independence’, in Damien Tambini and Jamie Cowling (eds), New News? Impartial Broadcasting in the Digital Age (London, IPPR 2002), pp 16-23.

What future for regional television news?', Local Journalism and Local Media: Making the Local News, 2006

Journalism Safety, Journalism Practice, 2007

Weekly column on media policy in Financial Times Creative Business, 2002-2004.

Biography

Read Modern History at New College, Oxford, 1965-1968.

Business Journalist, Haymarket press and McGraw-Hill, 1968-70.

Junior research Fellow, St Edmund Hall, Oxford (D.Phil in French History), 1970-1974.

BBC Television: Producer, Nationwide, The Money Programme: Editor, People And Power, 1983: The Money Programme, 1983-5; Newsnight, 1985-7; General Election Results Programme, 1987. I also edited Budget Programmes, Local and European Election Specials and By Election Specials.

ITN: Editor, Channel 4 News, 1987-95; Editor-in-Chief 1995-2002.

Vice-Chairman, International Press Institute (1994-2002), Fellow, Society of Editors, Fellow, Royal Television Society, Board Member and Vice-President, International News Safety Institute. BBC Governor, 2004-2006 (Chair. Governors’ Programme Complaints Committee). BBC Trustee 2007-2010 (Chair, Editorial Standards Committee).

Professor Tait is currently Chairman of INSI UK.