STEPHENSON, Hugh 1938-

PERSONAL:

Born July 18, 1938, in India; son of Sir Hugh and Lady Stephenson; married Auriol Stevens, 1962 (divorced, 1987); married Diana Eden, 1990; children: (first marriage) two sons, one daughter. Education: Attended Winchester College; New College, Oxford, B.A.; attended University of California, Berkeley.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Journalism, City University, Northampton Square, London EC1V 0HB, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Journalist and educator. Oxford Union, president, 1962; served in diplomatic service, London, England, and Bonn, Germany, 1964-68; Times, London, 1969-81, editor of Times Business News, 1971-81; New Statesman, London, editor, 1982-86; City University, London, professor of journalism, 1986—. London Borough of Wandsworth, councillor, 1971-78; History Today, Ltd., director, 1981—.

WRITINGS:

The Coming Clash: The Impact of Multinational Corporations on the Nation State, Weidenfeld and Nicolson (London, England), 1972, published as The Impact of Multinational Corporations on National States, Saturday Review Press (New York, NY), 1973.

Mrs. Thatcher's First Year, J. Norman (London, England), 1980.

Claret and Chips: The Rise of the SDP, M. Joseph (London, England), 1982.

(With others) Libel and the Media: The Chilling Effect, Clarendon (Oxford, England), 1997.

(Editor, with Michael Bromley) Sex, Lies, and Democracy: The Press and the Public, Longman (New York, NY), 1998.

(Editor) Media Voices: The James Cameron Memorial Lectures, Politico's (London, England), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS:

British journalist and professor of journalism Hugh Stephenson wrote his first book, a critique of globalism titled The Coming Clash: The Impact of Multinational Corporations on the Nation State, in the early 1970s, when he was a reporter for the London Times. A Saturday Review contributor, who called this a "carefully researched, objective book," noted Stephenson's prediction that unless international regulations are put in place to regulate banking, taxation, and antitrust matters, "individual nations may well lose their economic sovereignty, as well as control of other political and social changes that are bound to follow."

Claret and Chips: The Rise of the SDP is a study of the founding of the Social Democratic Party in 1981. Bernard Crick, who reviewed the book in the Times Educational Supplement, wrote that "the judgements of this book are balanced and shrewd, and it will be of use to future historians (limited only by its inability to disclose its sources)." Crick called Stephenson's tone one of "dry and respectful curiosity. It is good to see that an editor can be a true reporter, showing hard graft and self-restraint rather than the flash opinionating of the born columnist or sketch writer."

Stephenson is editor, with Michael Bromley, of Sex, Lies, and Democracy: The Press and the Public, a collection of commentary by authors from the United Kingdom, United States, France, and Germany on the state of British journalism. In reviewing the volume in Contemporary Review, George Evans wrote that "the national and international media academics who contribute to this critical wide-ranging study of the British press leave no room for doubt about the depth and extent of public resentment caused by press intrusion and the invasion of privacy, particularly Royal privacy. Though it lays most of the blame on the popular tabloid papers, the so-called qualities or broad-sheets also earn their share of it for adopting tabloid values themselves." Times Higher Education Supplement reviewer Nick Couldry said that "this is clearly an area where debate is needed, and this collection will be of use to journalism students."

Media Voices: The James Cameron Memorial Lectures is a collection of lectures about the media arranged by the London Guardian as a memorial to journalist James Cameron, who died in 1985. Every lecture is here, with the exception of one given by Studs Terkel, who used no notes. Times Literary Supplement contributor Michael Davie commented that editor Stephenson "notes that one dominant theme coming out of the lectures is the running tension between the protection of privacy and the freedom of the press."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Contemporary Review, December, 1998, George Evans, review of Sex, Lies, and Democracy: The Press and the Public, p. 323.

London Review of Books, October 21, 1982, Peter Clarke, review of Claret and Chips: The Rise of the SDP, pp. 3-5.

Saturday Review, March 17, 1973, review of The Coming Clash: The Impact of Multinational Corporations on the Nation State, p. 86.

Spectator, August 26, 1972, Patrick Cosgrave, review of The Coming Clash, p. 324; September 25, 1982, Peter Paterson, review of Claret and Chips, p. 24.

Times Educational Supplement, November 12, 1982, Bernard Crick, review of Claret and Chips, p. 22.

Times Higher Education Supplement, November 5, 1999, Nick Couldry, review of Sex, Lies, and Democracy, p. 28.

Times Literary Supplement, May 24, 2002, Michael Davie, review of Media Voices, p. 27.*