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).

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

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 and blogged for ZDNet.^[7][8] 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:^[9]

1. Never put data into a program unless you can see exactly how to get it out^[10]
2. Data doesn't really exist unless you have two copies of it^[11]
3. The easier it is for you to access your data, the easier it is for someone else to access your data^[9]

• 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".^[12]
• 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.

• Jack Schofield on X
• Schofield's profile page at The Guardian