This was the text of my speech for Nick Davies at the Honorary Degree ceremony at LSE, proposed by the Department of Media and Communications

Beckett, Charlie

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Nick Davies at LevesonNick Davies in his ‘wizard’ outfit at LSE2012-12-19An oration for Nick Davies’ Honorary Degree ceremony atthe London School of Economics and Political Scienceblogs.lse.ac.uk /polis/2012/12/19/an-oration-for-nick-davies-honorary-degree-ceremony-at-the-london-school-of-economics-and-political-science/This was the text of my speech for Nick Davies at the Honorary Degree ceremony at LSE, proposed by theDepartment of Media and Communications.Director, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to propose Nick Davies for the award ofan Honorary Doctorate at LSE.As a fellow journalist now working in this university it gives me enormous satisfactionto be able to pay tribute to someone whose lifetime of work has taken the craft of newsreporting to a level that compares more than favourably with any research orinvestigation carried out by us academics. And by helping to bring about the LevesonInquiry it also has to be said that Nick has given journalism scholars, in particular, morematerial for study than perhaps anyone before.Nick Davies is now best known as the leading figure in the Guardian newspaper’sexposé of the scandal of phone-hacking. Phone-hacking was a series of criminaloffences that, when brought into the open, led to much wider revelations about thesometimes pernicious culture within one news organisation in particular, but also malpractice across the newspaperindustry as a whole and by some police officers and politicians.Nick Davies is one of the most dedicated and skillful journalists of hisgeneration. That has been recognised by accolades from his peers suchas Reporter of the year and Journalist of the year in the British PressAwards, and as winner of both the Martha Gellhorn and Paul Foot prizesfor investigative journalism. His work has had an historic impact on thetrade itself but also on wider society. He has sought to understand thecauses of things, but always with a burning desire to change them, too.Like many great journalists Nick Davies is a controversial figure personallyand editorially. He is rarely politically simplistic, but he is always ethical.Nick has been producing outstanding investigative journalism for decadesand in so doing, he has redefined that genre itself. As well as investigatingspecific stories he has also tackled whole areas of British life, such ascriminal justice or the “war on drugs’. His work is characterised by therelentless deployment of a very basic journalistic idea: find out the facts bygoing to look for yourself and by talking to real people involved in an issue– as well as a wide range of experts.  Out of this act of witnessing andquestioning he produces detailed, thorough and critical accounts of majorissues seen from the grassroots. It is very much journalism as socialscience – only much better written. Journalists sometimes divide into thosewho find things out and those who can write. Nick Davies can do both, a skill perhaps grounded in his traineeship atthe old Mirror Group.His investigations of poverty, education and crime, in particular, led to outstanding material for the Guardiannewspaper but they also became important books. His writing combines an extraordinary evidence base with great1/2compassion and human feeling for those who suffer. In ‘Dark Heart’ for example,he revealed not just a world of drugabuse, sexual exploitation and criminal violence, but the impact on those living in the poverty that sustains it.And when he turned his attention to his own craft in his book ‘Flat Earth News’ he produced another landmark pieceof work chronicling the crisis in news production in the UK. ‘Flat Earth News’ exposed the depletion of newsroomresources and the assault on journalism standards driven by commercial and other pressures. Backed with arigorous academic survey ‘Flat Earth News’ helped spark a serious debate about British journalism. Passionate,persuasive and topical it brought the word ‘churnalism’ into the lexicon of journalism studies. It was a wake-up call tojournalists but also to a society that does not always value what a healthy news media can do for us all.That debate has now reached an unprecedented level. The role of Nick Davis’ work on phone-hacking cannot beunderestimated in this. Even as he first broke the story there was an attempted cover-up, widespread denial andgeneral avoidance of the full implications. It was the Guardian newspaper’s commitment and Davies’ owndetermination that forced it to its full conclusion. His current editor Alan Rusbridger told me that this was a personaltriumph for Nick. Alan said “He has been genuinely fearless in pursuit of the phone-hacking story.  He loathesbullying and the abuse of power.  No-one else wanted to go near this – not parliament, not the police, not theregulator, not the rest of the press. Nick did.”In response to the phone-hacking revelations we have had the Leveson Inquiry, the most extensive examination ofthe British press in modern times. From one story Davies has created a debate that has had international resonanceand that should change British journalism forever. Whatever system of regulation, and whatever kind of journalismthat emerges in the post-Leveson world – a digital world, of course – it must surely include much more of the kind ofjournalism that Nick Davies produces. Yes, it’s traditional, it is documentary. But it is also mould-breaking andtimeless. Most of all it is necessary.Director, I request that by the authority of the Court of Governors, you admit Nick Davies to the degree of Doctor ofLiterature.Copyright © 2014 London School of Economics and Political Science2/2

An oration for Nick Davies’ Honorary Degree ceremony at the London School of Economics and Political Science

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