Remembering Greg Philo

Tony Hodges, one of his many friends at St Mary’s, recalls a man who enjoyed a distinguished career after leaving the school.

Greg Philo was at St. Mary’s between 1958 and 1965. On leaving school he studied sociology, first at Bradford and then at Glasgow. It was in Glasgow that he both made his home and his name.

Greg became an academic of some renown. He ended up being Emeritus Professor of Sociology as well as Professor of Communication and Social Change at Glasgow University. But it is as co-founder of the Glasgow Media Group and research director of the Glasgow University Media Unit that he made his name. Like many students who came under the influence of Mick Lynch in the mid-60s he had a radical socialist analysis of society’s ills and what needed to be done to alleviate them. He authored, or co-authored, a series of books under the title of Bad News in which he looked at bias in the press and the way that the media shaped people’s opinions and ideas.

Bad News for Refugees looked at the way the public’s opinions of refugees and asylum seekers were moulded by the press; Bad News for Labour looked at the mixture of half-truths and downright lies used by the press to vilify Jeremy Corbyn; Bad News from Israel looked at the favourable light in which Israel is always portrayed in our press with the concomitant bad light cast on the Palestinians. The use of language important here: Israelis are always murdered whereas Palestinians are somehow just simply killed.

Greg wrote many articles and opinion pieces for both the Guardian and for websites such as Open Democracy. He was held in high regard and great esteem by his students and his colleagues as witness the number of comments left on his Facebook page after the post by his daughter announcing his death.

Greg had two adult children but in recent years had two more young boys from a new relationship. His two families and his friends will miss him terribly.