Jack Schofield (journalist)

Jack Schofield (30 October 1947 – 31 March 2020)[1] was a British technology journalist. He wrote the Ask Jack column for The Guardian[2] and preceding that covered technology for the newspaper from 1983 to 2010. He edited photography and computing periodicals and produced a number of books on photography and on computing, including The Darkroom Book (1981).

Jack Schofield
Schofield in 2009
Born(1947-10-30)30 October 1947
Died31 March 2020(2020-03-31) (aged 72)
OccupationJournalist

He died on 31 March 2020 at the age of 72, following a heart attack on 27 March.[3]

Career

Schofield edited various photography magazines during the 1970s:[4] Photo Technique, Film Making, You & Your Camera (a partwork), and Zoom as well as the journal of the Royal Photographic Society, The Photographic Journal.[5]

In 1983, he started writing a weekly computer column in Futures Micro Guardian, from its first issue, in The Guardian.[4] He also became editor of the monthly Practical Computing[4] in 1984. In September 1985 he joined The Guardian's staff to launch Computer Guardian, the newspaper's weekly computer supplement.[4] He continued to cover technology for The Guardian until 2010 when he switched to solely writing the newspaper's Ask Jack column.[2][6]

Schofield also wrote on computing for Reuters[7] and blogged for ZDNet.[8][9] He produced a number of books on photography and on computing.[5]

Whilst working for The Guardian, Schofield published what he referred to as his Laws of Computing which sought to help people understand the consequences of decisions about their data:[10]

  1. Never put data into a program unless you can see exactly how to get it out[11]
  2. Data doesn't really exist unless you have two copies of it[12]
  3. The easier it is for you to access your data, the easier it is for someone else to access your data[10]

Publications
  • The Darkroom Book: the comprehensive step-by-step guide to processing your colour or black-and-white photographs. Schofield was consulting editor.
    • London: Spring, 1981, 1982. Feltham, UK: Newnes, 1983. ISBN 9780600353997.
    • New York: Ziff Davis, 1981. ISBN 9780871651068.
    • New York: Amphoto, 1981, 1985, 1987, 1988. ISBN 9780817437572.
  • Photographing People. Littlehampton Book Services, 1982. ISBN 978-0600384731.
  • Nude and Glamour Photography. You & Your Camera Photography Series. Glasgow: Collins, 1981, 1982. Schofield was consultant editor. ISBN 978-0004116396.
  • How Famous Photographers Work. New York: Amphoto, 1983. Edited by Schofield. ISBN 9780817440022.
  • Improve Your Camera Techniques. Feltham, UK: Newnes, 1985. Edited by Schofield. ISBN 9780600332657.
  • The Guardian Guide to Microcomputing. Oxford, UK; New York: Blackwell, 1985. Hardback, ISBN 978-0631143031. Paperback, ISBN 9780631143048. "A selection of the author's columns from the MicroFutures page of the Guardian, rewritten and revised".[13]
  • The Hutchinson Dictionary of Computing, Multimedia, and the Internet. By Schofield, Wendy M. Grossman and David Goul. Oxford, UK: Helicon, 1996, 1997. ISBN 978-1859861592.

References
  1. Keegan, Victor (3 April 2020). "Jack Schofield obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  2. "Guardian hack fails to Ask Jack about IE popups". The Inquirer. Archived from the original on 24 December 2019. Retrieved 27 June 2018.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  3. Hern, Alex (1 April 2020). "Jack Schofield, Guardian's Ask Jack tech columnist, dies at 72". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 April 2020.
  4. Schofield, Jack; Arthur, Charles (16 December 2009). "Guardian technology section 1983-2009, by the people who edited it". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 June 2018.
  5. Schofield, Jack (21 February 2007). "Ars Technica reviews Adobe's Lightroom". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 June 2018.
  6. Schofield, Jack (18 January 2010). "What happened to Ask Jack?". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 June 2018.
  7. Editorial, Reuters. "Columns". Reuters. Retrieved 27 June 2018. {{cite web}}: |first1= has generic name (help)
  8. Schofield, Jack. "Jack Schofield – Freelance blogger". ZDNet. Retrieved 1 April 2020.
  9. Jack Schofield, "Nominet Presents The Story of the Web: Celebrating 25 years of the World Wide Web". Nominet UK. Retrieved 27 June 2018
  10. Schofield, Jack (9 July 2008). "Eureka! I've discovered the Third Law of computing". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 June 2021.
  11. Schofield, Jack (24 July 2003). "Jack Schofield: Schofield's First Law of Computing". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 June 2021.
  12. Schofield, Jack (14 February 2008). "Jack Schofield: Never assume your data is safe, even if it's online". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 June 2021.
  13. Schofield, Jack. The Guardian guide to microcomputing. Oxford, UK; New York, NY, USA: Blackwell. ISBN 9780631143048. OCLC 11786409.
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