Keith Hoggins, senior Telegraph news sub-editor, whose headlines enlivened the MPs’ expenses coverage

Plain-speaking and drily humorous, Hoggins combined the light touch needed for offbeat stories with the rigour required for politics

Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email
Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email
Keith Hoggins, who has died aged 69, was a cornerstone of The Daily Telegraph’s news production team for some 30 years.
He filled many roles within the department, frequently acting as night editor, and he mixed his supreme talent as a sub-editor with wry humour. He combined the light touch needed for an offbeat tale with the care and precision that the heavyweight political stories demanded.
These qualities made Hoggins the obvious choice to lead the production team working on the Telegraph’s groundbreaking investigation of MPs’ expenses in 2009, which owed a good deal of its success to his uncanny ability to cut through the reams of documents and pluck out the headline that got straight to the heart of the story. One “splash” headline with which he will be indelibly associated is “The phantom mortgage, the insurance mystery and a £1,600 duck house”.
Hoggins had an instinctive sense of what interested Telegraph readers, added to which he was technically adept – a necessary skill at a time of rapid change in the newspaper industry – and had a keen eye for design. In 2011 he “drew” the Telegraph’s Page 1 covering the Tottenham riots, named Front Page of the Year by the Society of Editors. Typically, he rejected any suggestion that he should attend the award ceremony.
His friends at the Telegraph remembered Hoggins as “fair, firm, funny but, above everything, supremely talented and a joy to be around” and “one of the smartest, most knowledgeable and humorous colleagues I had the privilege of working with”. The Telegraph’s Editor, Chris Evans, said: “Keith was a master of his craft, a perfect balance of flair and rigour. He was also wonderfully laconic and is remembered with an equal measure of fondness and respect.”
Keith Alexander Hoggins was born on August 13 1955 at Sheerness in Kent, the fourth of five children of David Hoggins, a labourer, and Patricia, née Fitzpatrick. He attended Borden Grammar School in nearby Sittingbourne but, despite showing great intelligence, he never really settled into his formal education.
Young Keith’s father worked at the local Pilkington Glass factory and was made jobless by its closure in the early 1970s. Displaying the sense of duty that would mark his life, Keith thought it would be good for the family if he got a job, so he gave up his A-level studies and began working as a junior reporter on the Sittingbourne-based East Kent Gazette.
He showed an obvious talent for reporting, and his love of the job was matched by his passion for football, in which he also showed considerable talent. He even managed to combine both, playing for the local semi-pro football team, Sheppey United, whose matches in the Kent League were covered in the Sheppey Gazette, another title owned by the Kent newspaper group for which Hoggins worked. He once wrote a report on a game in which he had played – a fact jokily alluded to in the headline.
Hoggins’s real gift, however, lay in sub-editing and he joined the East Kent Gazette’s subbing pool, which worked across all the group’s titles. He had found his calling and was soon a key member of the team.
After more than 10 years of dedicated service, Hoggins set his sights on national newspapers and, following a few subbing shifts on the News of the World, where he remembered doing little except pocketing a wad of cash each time, he found his spiritual home at The Daily Telegraph. There his talent was soon recognised and he progressed to revise sub, then chief sub and deputy night editor.
He had a particular passion for overseas news and in his later career established himself on the foreign pages, proud of his patch and not mincing his words when his best stories were pinched for use in the front of the “book”. Hoggins shunned any suggestion of promotion, though, choosing to stick closely to the daily work of presenting the news.
That is not to say that his skills were not used elsewhere by the Telegraph. He revised the newspaper’s style guide and when the website, launched in 1994, was in its infancy, he was asked to run his eyes over its pages. His report was scathing but laced with the humour for which he was known.
He counted up the errors in punctuation (85), grammar (48), and style (87) in the 20 stories he assessed. One of his conclusions, in characteristic plain language, on whether readers would pay for the website was: “It seems to me that some people have failed to grasp the fundamental truth that crap is crap, whether it is digital or scratched on papyrus with a goose quill. Crap is hard to sell.”
Away from the Telegraph, Keith enjoyed spending time helping his wife Sue and daughter Danielle to care for their horses. He gave up playing football, but got his fix by watching his son, Matthew, on the pitch; the pair also took many trips up to Old Trafford to support Manchester United.
In a lifetime of avid reading his favourites included Dickens, Patrick O’Brian and anything on the First World War. An annual pleasure was rereading Ludovic Kennedy’s Pursuit: The Sinking of the Bismarck.
Keith Hoggins married, in 1977, Susan Young, who survives him with their two children.
Keith Hoggins, born August 13 1955, died November 7 2024
Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email