Ian Jack, the Scottish-born journalist and former editor of Granta, died in Paisley on 28 October 2022, aged 77, after a short illness. His career moved from Scottish local newspapers to national reporting and editing, and later to long-form journalism and a Guardian column.
Who was Ian Jack?
Born Ian Grant Jack on 7 February 1945, he was born in Lancashire to Scottish parents. They returned to North Queensferry when he was seven, according to John Lloyd’s Guardian obituary. Jack began as a trainee journalist at the Glasgow Herald in 1965, after early work at the Cambuslang Advertiser, East Kilbride News and Scottish Daily Express.
He joined the Sunday Times in 1970, working first as a section editor and later as a foreign correspondent, with a focus on India. From 1986 he wrote for the Observer and magazines. His route through newspapers gave way to a body of reporting and essays noted by colleagues for close observation and attention to fact.
What was his career at Granta?
Jack edited Granta from 1995 to 2007. In her 2022 remembrance for the magazine, publisher and editor Sigrid Rausing recalled that he took over with issue 51, “Big Men (and LA women),” and left with “The Deep End.” She describes his tenure as twelve years and 48 issues: Rausing’s remembrance.
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Granta’s account of its tradition under Jack emphasizes story and truth. The Guardian obituary names Monica Ali, A L Kennedy, Andrew O’Hagan and Zadie Smith among writers published during his editorship. That record situates Jack within the magazine’s editorial history; it does not mean he alone determined those writers’ later careers.
What did Ian Jack do after Granta?
Jack became a Guardian columnist, continuing to report and write about Britain, its history and public life. His final Guardian column, published on 22 October 2022, reflected on the BBC’s centenary and its place in the lives of his generation. In the Guardian’s report of his death, he concluded of the BBC: “It looks unlikely that Britain will ever again invent anything so admired and influential; we have been lucky to have it.”
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His final major commission was a 17,300-word London Review of Books essay on the Scottish government’s ferry refurbishment and resupply project, considered alongside the history of shipbuilding on the Clyde, according to Harriet Sherwood’s Guardian report of his death. Jack was also preparing a book about the Clyde when he died; the Guardian obituary and Granta biography describe it as work in progress, not a published book.
What books did he write or edit?
Granta’s contributor biography lists The Country Formerly Known as Great Britain, a collection of Jack’s journalism, and two anthologies he edited: The Granta Book of Reportage and The Granta Book of India. His subjects included the Titanic, singer Kathleen Ferrier, the Hatfield train crash and the IRA members killed in Gibraltar.
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How was Jack remembered by fellow journalists?
Tributes published after his death stressed different aspects of his work. Guardian editor Katharine Viner called him “one of the finest journalists of his generation,” praising his curiosity, observational skill and writing. Former Independent editor Andrew Marr described him as “one of the great, wise originals of British journalism,” and writer Neal Ascherson remembered a reporter “rigidly scrupulous in his insistence on fact.” These are colleagues’ assessments, not objective rankings.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How did his newspaper editorships fit into the chronology?
Jack joined the launch team of the Independent on Sunday in 1989 and became its editor in 1992, serving until 1995, according to Lloyd’s Guardian obituary. The Guardian’s contemporaneous death report gives the editorship as 1991–1995. The accounts differ on the appointment year; the obituary distinguishes joining the paper from becoming editor.
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