We’ll All Be Murdered in Our Beds: The Shocking History of Crime Reporting in Britain by Duncan Campbell – review

The Guardian’s former crime correspondent reveals the often corrupt relationship between journalists and the police in this thoughtful exposé of his trade

Contrary to what one might imagine, the British obsession with crime and criminals long predates the birth of tabloid journalism. In 1714, one “Captain” Alexander Smith published a journal snappily entitled A Complete History of the Lives and Robberies of the Most Notorious Highwaymen, Footpads, Shoplifts and Cheats of Both Sexes. Smith, who in the great tradition of British crime writing was not above a bit of invention, promised his readers “most secret and barbarous murder, unparalell’d robberies, notorious thefts and unheard of cheats”.

In those days, of course, there was the additional attraction that most serious offenders ended up on the gallows and executions were a public spectacle, attended by thousands. Even in my youth the prospect of execution gave a murder trial a frisson that all but the most grisly cases lack today. Some crime reporters attribute the decline of their trade to the abolition of the death penalty. There was nothing like a good hanging to boost the sales of evening newspapers.

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