Paul Lashmar

Paul Lashmar     ( academic,  investigative journalist,  author,  television producer)
Born	December 1954
Alma mater	•  Sussex University •  Redbridge Technical College •  Brunel University
Reader In office August 2019 - Present Employer City St George's,  University of London  Senior Lecturer in Journalism In office September 2017 - Present Employer City,  University of London  Senior Lecturer in Journalism In office September 2015 - Present Employer University of Sussex  Course leader MA International Journalism In office September 2009 - September 2015 Employer Brunel University  Acting Head of Journalism In office September 2010 - September 2011 Employer Brunel University  Associate Lecturer In office September 2007 - September 2009 Employer Solent University  Lecturer In office 2001 - 2009 Employer Falmouth University  Investigative Journalist In office 2001 - 2008 Employer Independent on Sunday  Producer In office 1993 - 1998 Employer Channel 4  Reporter In office 1990 - 1992 Employer Granada TV Succeeded by Alain Duhamel  Investigative Reporter In office July 1978 - December 1989 Employer The Observer

Paul Lashmar is a research academic, investigative journalist, author and TV Producer who is head of the Department of Journalism at City, University of London. He writes about "terrorism", intelligence, organised crime, offshore crime, business fraud and the Cold War. He also usually works on one or two TV programmes a year.

Author

Paul Lashmar is the author of five well received books:

• “Britain’s Secret Propaganda War, 1948 – 1977” (1998),
• “Spy Flights of the Cold War” (1996),
• “Online Journalism” (2013),
• “Spies, Spin and the Fourth Estate: British Intelligence and the Media” (2020) and,
• "Drax of Drax Hall: Landed Gentry, Sugar and Slavery" (Pluto 2025).

"This timely and important book reveals Barbados plantation owner James Drax to be the equal of Robert Clive or Cecil Rhodes in his profiteering from human misery."

SpyCast

In 2022, Paul Lashmar appeared on the SpyCast podcast to discuss “My Life Looking at Spies & the Media” with host Andrew Hammond.

Drax

In 2022, Paul Lashmar revealed how Richard Drax still owned the family ancestral slave plantation, Drax Hall, in Barbados. He also set out questions Richard Drax had to address about the accuracy of his entries in the House of Commons Members’ Register of Interests.

Leigh and Lashmar

Paul Lashmar recounts:

"The Observer's news editor Robin Lustig hired an investigative reporter from The Guardian called David Leigh, an extraordinary character, and suggested I work with him.

“David and I just clicked and thirty-seven years later we still do. Leigh and Lashmar we were the investigative team at the Observer, up against the other Sunday papers such as the Sunday Times who had much larger resources. We considered our task was to beat them every week, getting the stories they didn’t. We did Mark Thatcher in Oman, MI5 vetting at the BBC, several investigations into police corruption, Stalker, Spycatcher, Clive Ponting, the Belgrano, and many, many more.

“I learnt that as a journalist if you take on the government you don’t do so lightly, but in those days we were a gung-ho, fearless lot. Many of the people we went after were very rich, very powerful and had the best lawyers, and we had to out-think them. After I and many others left the Observer due to owner Tiny Rowland's interference, I went to work at ‘World in Action’ on TV.

"There were some very exciting times, some too exciting, following stories on police collusion with organised criminals, being rammed by their cars, and travelling to Brazil to cover how street children were being murdered like vermin, following the death wagon to get footage as they went round in the mornings collecting bodies. That was a pretty hairy time, but perhaps my best story was investigating the Royal Family’s ability to negotiate how little tax they paid, a privilege which changed after we wrote about it."

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