Tony Harcup

email : t.harcup@sheffield.ac.uk
tel: (+44)0114 2222502

Tony Harcup has been a senior lecturer in the Department of Journalism Studies at the University of Sheffield since 2005, and for the four years up to 2011 he served as the department's Director of Learning and Teaching. He previously taught journalism at Leeds Trinity University College.

Tony has more than 30 years' experience as a staff and freelance journalist for media ranging from small local weekly publications to national newspapers and magazines, both alternative and mainstream. This first-hand experience informs both his teaching and his research.

He is the author of the books The Ethical Journalist (Sage, 2007) and Journalism: Principles and Practice (Sage, 2004 and 2009), and the co-author with Peter Cole of Newspaper Journalism (Sage, 2010), all of which are recommended on university journalism courses throughout the UK and beyond.

His research on news values, alternative media, journalistic ethics, and journalism education has been published in journals including Journalism Practice, Journalism Studies, Ethical Space, Journal of Media Practice and Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism in addition to being presented at international conferences such as the Future of Journalism (University of Cardiff, 2009) and Crossroads in Cultural Studies (University of the West Indies, 2008).

This research activity feeds directly into Tony’s teaching, which focuses on the ethics of journalism and on alternative forms of journalism as well as on the essentials of reporting news accurately and fairly.

Keen to embrace new ideas without discarding the basics, Tony helped devise a series of 'information literacy' workshop sessions and online exercises to help improve journalism students' ability to evaluate sources and avoid 'information-overload'. He has also passed on lessons gained from his own use of the Freedom of Information Act, and introduced a blogging element to students' reporting from their different 'patches' within Sheffield.

Tony has served several terms as an elected member of the executive committee of the Association for Journalism Education (AJE). With the help of a small research grant from the AJE he conducted a study of journalists who now teach journalism within the UK and Ireland. Since publication, his survey of so-called 'hackademics' is now being replicated overseas.

Tony holds a Masters degree in Cultural Studies from Leeds Metropolitan University and a Postgraduate Diploma in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education from the Open University. He is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

As an elected member of the Professional Training Committee of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), he helped write the NUJ’s guide to careers in journalism and guidelines on work experience. He is a former chair of the editorial advisory board of the NUJ's Journalist magazine, and in 2008 he was awarded the NUJ Gold Badge in recognition of his work for journalists and journalism students.

Tony’s comments are frequently sought by media outlets on stories ranging from tabloid phone-hacking to the role of the local Green ‘Un sports newspaper.