Dennis Hackett was the editor who inspired us all at Nova
|
Version 0 of 1. I was assistant editor to Dennis Hackett (Obituary, 22 September) for two years in the glory days of Nova, and they were the happiest in my journalistic career. He had huge charisma; all of us on the magazine loved him – but we were in awe of him too and went to great efforts to gain his approval with our work. He always thought outside the box: he once wanted to print Nova back-to-front because he noticed that women started reading the magazine at the end. On another occasion, to illustrate a piece on confession (he was a Catholic) he wanted to cut a hole in a page and put the image of the priest on one side and the penitent on the other. Of course IPC wouldn’t let him do any of these expensive things. He taught me everything I know about journalism and I feel privileged to have worked so closely with him.Brigid KeenanLondon • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com |