'If it bleeds, it leads' - this maxim is as true now as it was 300 years ago. Crime is the staple of the news, and the British public's appetite for crime stories shows no sign of abating. Today, following Leveson, the line between journalists and the criminals they expose has been blurred; but, in fact, it was ever thus. The reporters who have delved into the most terrible crime stories of each era have often, by necessity, had questionable morals and dubious practices. The 'hacks in the macs' and the 'murder pack' would go to any lengths to get a story - and serve it up to an ever-eager reading public. In this colourful history of the wild world of crime reporting since 1700, Duncan Campbell goes behind the scenes to show how the phone hacking scandal is nothing new - in fact, it is part of our great British news heritage. Revealing what it's really like to deal with murderers, gangsters, robbers, cat burglars, victims, informers and detectives, Campbell draws on 40 years of experience to explore the dark arts of journalism, as the relationships between the press, public, police and criminals, and their impact on society, are being questioned as never before.
