Tor Clark

Tor Clark has over 30 years’ experience as a regional and national political journalist. He has edited a series of books on journalism and politics and is frequently invited to provide expert commentary around general elections and media controversies.

The last five years have seen a profound change in the relationship between journalism and politics both in the UK and abroad. Journalists have failed to acknowledge changes in society but politicians have also come to denigrate the role journalism plays in society and democracy. Both these changes can be seen as worrying trends for the general public who rely on good journalism to navigate the politics they need to understand in order to participate in society.

Tor explores these changes in his four most recent books, the latest Brexit, Boris and the Media was published March 2020 and he is currently working on a new book on COVID-19, politics and journalism, due for publication early 2021.

I am interested in virtually all aspects of Journalism and its pedagogy. I am especially interested in political journalism and in the regional media and its relations with government and politics. I have published widely on the UK regional media, its history, current situation and future prospects and a host of other topics concerned with journalism, politics and history in academic journals, magazines, the trade press and newspapers.

As well as editing and contributing to books on the decline of print journalism, the changes to journalism brought by Brexit and the impact of social media on journalism, I have also published journal articles on the regulation of the UK regional press after Leveson and on the pedagogy of Journalism (with Alistair Jones).

My PhD looks at how UK regional newspaper journalists cover the work of local government and my future publication plans reflect this with a journal article commissioned on the history of the regional press’s coverage of local government, and book chapters on the current state of the UK regional press and on its use of social media to grow its audiences.

In 2017 I toured Australia and New Zealand delivering invited talks on Brexit, Trump and the Media and on the threats to printed journalism.

I am Reviews Editor of Journalism Education, the official international peer-reviewed academic journal of the UK Association for Journalism Education.

Mair, J., Clark, T., Fowler, N., Snoddy, R., and Tait, R. (March 2020) Brexit, Boris and the Media, Abramis.

Mair, J., Clark, T., Fowler, N., Snoddy, R., and Tait, R. (2018) Social Media, Journalism and Society, Abramis.

Clark, T., and Jones, A., (2017) Not What They Want, But What They Need: Teaching Politics to Journalism Students, Teaching Public Administration, July 2017.

Mair, J., Clark, T., Fowler, N., Snoddy, R., and Tait, R. (2017) Brexit, Trump and the Media, Abramis.

Clark, T., (2017) Missing the Biggest Story: The UK Regional Press after Leveson, in the Journal of Applied Journalism and Media Studies, April 2017.

Mair, J., Clark, T., Fowler, N., Snoddy, R., and Tait, R. (2016) Last Words? How Can Journalism Survive the Death of Print? Abramis.

I teach on many undergraduate and postgraduate courses concerned with News and Journalism, especially News and Features Journalism, Journalism Ethics and Regulation, Journalism Employability, The Production of News, PR Journalism and Networked Media, Digital Journalism and International Political Communication.

In the past my teaching has focused on political journalism, the history of journalism, journalism practice and the contemporary context of journalism.