Dennis Hackett

Dennis Hackett (5 February 1929 – 23 August 2016) was a British magazine and newspaper editor whom many would say played significant roles on game-changing publications that reshaped the language of British journalism.

Hackett grew up in Sheffield, where he attended De La Salle College, then entered journalism with the Sheffield Telegraph in 1945. He spent 1947 to 1949 in national service with the Royal Navy, then resumed his career, joining the Daily Herald in 1954, then quickly moving to Illustrated, where he was Deputy Editor. In 1958, he moved again to the Daily Express, then the Daily Mail, before becoming Art Editor on The Observer.

Joining the glossy magazine Queen as Deputy Editor in 1962, Hackett later served as Editor but in 1965 was poached by Nova, which soon became regarded as the sharpest consumer magazine of its day. Together with visionary art director Harri Peccinotti, he swiftly established Nova as an influential must-read for the movers and shakers of Swinging London, with men as well as the original target audience of women becoming devotees of its heady mixture of social issues and cutting-edge fashion and modern lifestyle features.

He stood down in 1969 to become a director of the International Publishing Corporation (IPC Newspapers) where the chief title was the Daily Mirror, then Britain’s biggest-selling red-top tabloid at 5 million copies daily. Hackett’s key task was to launch an irreverent midweek colour supplement, a challenge which was arguably of greater cultural significance than Nova. The Mirror was not only a serious-minded left-wing daily paper, but also in Cudlipp’s view, “the first quality popular paper”. Within that decade, only quality newspapers had launched glossy colour supplements (Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph, Observer), all of which had delivered boosts to their papers’ circulations.

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