Jack Schofield (journalist) explained

Jack Schofield
Birth Date:30 October 1947
Occupation: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).

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

Publications

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Keegan . Victor . Jack Schofield obituary . The Guardian . 3 April 2020 . 3 April 2020.
  2. News: 27 June 2018. Guardian hack fails to Ask Jack about IE popups. . https://web.archive.org/web/20191224060929/https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1004646/guardian-hack-fails-to-ask-jack-about-ie-popups . 24 December 2019 . unfit.
  3. Web site: Jack Schofield, Guardian's Ask Jack tech columnist, dies at 72 . Hern . Alex . The Guardian . 1 April 2020 . 1 April 2020.
  4. Web site: Jack. Schofield. Charles. Arthur. 27 June 2018. Guardian technology section 1983-2009, by the people who edited it. 16 December 2009. The Guardian.
  5. Web site: Jack. Schofield. 27 June 2018. Ars Technica reviews Adobe's Lightroom. 21 February 2007. The Guardian.
  6. Web site: Jack. Schofield. 27 June 2018. What happened to Ask Jack?. 18 January 2010. The Guardian.
  7. Web site: Reuters. Editorial. 27 June 2018. Columns. Reuters.
  8. Web site: Jack Schofield – Freelance blogger . https://web.archive.org/web/20210125112020/https://www.zdnet.com/meet-the-team/uk/jack-schofield/47/ . dead . 25 January 2021 . Schofield . Jack . ZDNet . 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. Web site: 2008-07-09. Jack. Schofield. Eureka! I've discovered the Third Law of computing. 2021-06-15. The Guardian. en.
  11. Web site: 2003-07-24. Jack. Schofield. Jack Schofield: Schofield's First Law of Computing. 2021-06-15. The Guardian. en.
  12. Web site: 2008-02-14. Jack. Schofield. Jack Schofield: Never assume your data is safe, even if it's online. 2021-06-15. The Guardian. en.
  13. Book: Jack. Schofield. The Guardian guide to microcomputing. 1985 . Blackwell. Oxford, UK; New York, NY, USA. 9780631143048. 11786409.