‘i owe him so much’ – tributes to man who trained thousands of journalists
Richard Tait, Professor of Journalism at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture, pays tribute to colleague David English
DAVID English, who has died at the age of 74 after a long period of ill health, had a unique career in university journalism education.
By 2015, when he retired as newspaper director and deputy director of the Cardiff University Centre for Journalism, he had, over 35 years, launched more than a thousand young journalists into the profession.
He helped make the Cardiff journalism school what its founder Tom Hopkinson had always hoped it would become - the best place in the country to learn to be a journalist.
His students included great newspaper journalists like Ian Macgregor of the Sunday Telegraph, Kevin Maguire of the Daily Mirror, Anne Hegerty of The Chase fame, as well as leading broadcasters such as the BBC’s Richard Sambrook (who went on to work with him at JOMEC), and ITV’s Libby Wiener.
David was a fine journalist himself, with a nose for a good story and a wicked sense of humour.
He graduated from Oxford and initially worked on Thomson regional newspapers such as the Belfast Telegraph and the Journal in Newcastle.
But he found his vocation in journalism training and education, working for the Thomson Editorial Training Centre in Cardiff and then for the university’s Centre for Journalism.
The secret of his success is that more than anything he wanted his students to get to that wonderful crossover moment where, as he used to say, “you’re thinking like journalists now”.
And writing like journalists - his red inked subbing pen was pitiless. Woe betide anyone with ‘That’ in her or his copy - regardless of anyone’s rules of grammar, it was ‘Which’ - or nothing.
He loved the Cardiff Blues, hated cat stories and dined out on his students’ scoops such as revealing the red light district off the Penarth Road which the police tolerated for the 1998 European Summit in Cardiff and the Rugby World Cup the following year.
The reactions of many of his former students to the news of his death tell their own story of how much he was appreciated. Laura Trevelyan said “I owe him so much”; Kevin Maguire remembered that he had made David laugh when he half joked that some considered educating so many journalists a crime; Paul Waugh said “I loved every minute of my time at CJS”.
He was focused and driven in the newsroom on production days but a lot of fun outside it.
A passionate Welsh rugby fan, he enlisted the support of his course in the exciting finale of the 2015 Six Nations which Wales could have won, if the English had faltered against the French and the Irish had stumbled against Scotland.
Everyone was under strict orders to cheer on Les Bleus - David even gave one of the students his ‘lucky’ hat sadly to no avail. The French were well beaten and Ireland hammered Scotland - Wales came third. But David accepted the disappointment with good humour.
He combined his role as director of the newspaper option with the sometimes challenging - but essential managerial task of deputy director of the Centre for Journalism.
He was a brilliant bridge between the academy and the profession helping ensure his course both met the academic requirements of a Russell Group university and the practical tests demanded by the National Council for the Training of Journalists.
He was enormously respected in newsrooms across the country which was crucial in helping his students get the right workplace attachments and then jobs.
In 2020, David was honoured with the lifetime achievement award at the inaugural Nick Machin Prize event in Cardiff - an award in the memory of a great South Wales Echo news editor who had mentored many of David’s students.
Sadly, David was too ill to accept it in person, but he sent an acceptance speech which summed up his philosophy: “Though newsrooms have changed, the core skills remain the same, whether it be newspaper journalism, magazine journalism, broadcast or online.
“Journalism is a craft, similar to that of medieval stone masons carving statues on cathedral stonework, carpenters shaping misericords in choirs or monks illuminating manuscripts.
“Once that skill of crafting a story has been learnt, it is a skill which never deserts one.”
David’s retirement was cruelly blighted by serious illness and he was not able, despite the devoted support of his journalist wife Pat, to do all of the things he had promised himself in the next stage of his life.
But he never lost his interest in current affairs and in the progress of his students which gave him such satisfaction.
He would have been very touched by their recognition of what he did for them.
Katie Sands of ITV Wales, one of his final cohort, said it was a privilege to have been there and “David really brought the dream of being a journalist to life. A fiercely fair and kind man”.
I worked closely with David for more than a decade and one moment each year summed up for me his unique contribution to British journalism.
It came towards the end of the second semester when I’d come into his office and enquire as casually as I could manage how things were going on the jobs front.
From the middle of an enormous pile of apparently (but only apparently) random papers on his desk a sheet of A4 would appear.
On it were the names of 25, 28 or even 30 young women and men.
Opposite each of them was the name of a very good place to start your career - newsrooms where David knew every one of his students would get the best possible support.
A great teacher - and a lovely man.