When Reporters Cross the Line

The phone-hacking scandal has brought journalism into disrepute, closed a bestselling newspaper and led to the imprisonment of senior media executives. This account of modern reporting examines just how far journalists will go in order to get a story in the heat of war or political conflict. Featuring some of the best-known names in British broadcasting, including John Simpson, Lindsey Hilsum and Charles Wheeler, it interrogates the ethics of the trade, and poses the question: 'When do you cross the line?'

Stewart Purvis began his career as one of the BBC's first news trainees, going on to become Editor-in-Chief of Channel 4 News and, ultimately, Chief Executive of ITN. In 2003 he became City University London's first Professor of Television Journalism and a Visiting Professor of Broadcast Media at Oxford University. He is a broadcaster on media matters, appearing regularly on BBC Radio 4's Media Show and on Sky News, the BBC News channel and LBC. His career has won him a number of awards, including two BAFTAs. He received the CBE in 2000 for services to broadcasting and in 2009 he was awarded the Royal Television Society Gold Medal for an outstanding contribution to television. Jeff Hulbert is a media historian who initially specialised in cinema newsreels and television news, but has become increasingly interested in the ways in which the media and political worlds collide. He has managed two publicly funded film and television history projects and is currently an honorary research fellow in the journalism department at City University London. The two men first worked together helping to create Newsfilm Online from digitised video archives at ITN and Reuters. Subsequently they collaborated on Stewart Purvis's 2004 Oxford lectures and the 2011 BBC Radio 4 programme When Reporters Cross the Line.