Guardian and The Hack: ITV drama sparks intra-press scrutiny as review clamps down on celebratory narrative

A seven-part ITVX drama about the Guardian’s historic phone-hacking investigation has ignited a rare public spat inside the paper it portrays, after the Guardian’s own reviewer handed the series a guarded setback. The Hack, which aired its first episode on Wednesday, chronicles the Guardian’s investigation that helped topple News of the World and reshaped British media regulation. Yet Lucy Mangan, The Guardian’s long-serving critic, offered a two-star verdict, calling the televised treatment “astonishing” in subject matter but “remarkably dull TV” in execution, and describing the script as lacking spark with moments of cringe and odd, dream-like sequences.

The drama is built around Nick Davies, the Guardian reporter whose reporting helped drive a major shift in British journalism, with David Tennant cast as Davies. Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian editor during the period of the hacking revelations, is represented by Toby Jones. The seven-hour running time aims to dramatize a sprawling narrative and has drawn comment on its pacing and scope. The Guardian’s current editor, Katharine Viner, was not expected to welcome a dramatization that casts the paper and its former colleagues in heroic light, but Mangan’s review makes clear that the paper’s own perspective on the project diverges from the program’s emphasis on individual triumphs in the newsroom.

Inside the column and across media coverage, the debate quickly pivoted from the TV show’s merits to the Guardian’s own internal dynamics. Stephen Glover, who writes about media and culture, notes that The Guardian remains a highly regarded institution but is not immune to acrimony. He points to years of internal disputes over slavery and trans issues, and the sale of its sister title, the Observer, as evidence that even the paper’s most vaunted strengths sit alongside fracture lines. In his assessment, the drama’s depiction of Davies as a near-messianic figure sits uneasily with a broader sense among contemporaries that the project valorizes a particular strand of newsroom activism more than it honors the labor and complexity behind investigative work.

Glover highlights a history of backstage tensions, including power struggles between Katharine Viner and former Guardian figures who helped shape the paper’s direction. He notes that Rusbridger’s relationship to Viner has been complicated by disagreements over leadership choices, including the timing and manner of Observer’s sale. The piece also underscores the Guardian’s ongoing financial pressures, even as it benefits from a substantial cash reserve built up over years of investment, and it frames the network of disputes within a broader industry context in which newspaper groups face existential questions about audience, technology, and revenue.

The Hack focuses on more than just a single scoop. It chronicles a long tenure of investigative reporting that reshaped public understanding of the press’s relationship with power. Davies’s portrayal as a principled, if deeply flawed, figure sits at the center of the drama, while Rusbridger is shown grappling with the ethics of editors who shape not only news coverage but also the careers of colleagues. Critics have noted that the program’s structure—seven hours in a single series—tests the tonal and narrative limits of biographical journalism on screen. The Guardian’s own reaction to the project—rooted in a complex mix of pride, trepidation, and editorial posturing—serves as a metanarrative about how institutions evaluate their past and present.

Glover’s reflections extend beyond a single production. He argues that The Guardian is a good newspaper—an essential voice in British public life—but that its culture can resemble a “nest of vipers,” a description he says reflects the paper’s well-known internal divisions. He catalogs episodes from the past decade, including staff walkouts around the Observer sale, disputes over editorial direction, and controversies surrounding the use of artificial intelligence and site redesigns. These threads, he contends, complicate any clean, celebratory retelling of the Guardian’s role in the phone-hacking story, suggesting that even celebrated journalism carries internal conflicts that deserve equal attention.

In detailing the show’s portrayal of Davies, Mangan’s review notes a tension between admiration for the investigative work and criticism of the way the series dramatizes personal conflict and workplace dynamics. Davies is rendered as a principled outsider, a portrayal that some contemporaries dispute in real life, arguing that Davies’s approach could be seen as polarizing and, at times, dismissive of colleagues who did not share his political views. The reviewer also revisits a controversial moment from Davies’s reporting on the News of the World, the Dowler voicemail incident in 2011, which later required correction in light of subsequent reporting. The Guardian review points to that misstep as a reminder that even celebrated investigations can be haunted by errors of judgment, complicating the hero narrative that some characters in The Hack appear to embrace.

The broader context is critical here. The Guardian’s finances, while still robust due to its long-standing endowment and investments, have remained a challenge for the organization, with losses trimmed only in recent years as digital strategies and cost controls take effect. The paper’s leadership has faced repeated scrutiny from staff and industry observers over shifts in strategy, including the Observer sale and debates over newsroom governance and transparency. These realities add texture to the reception of The Hack, illustrating how a drama about a landmark investigative achievement can provoke a reconsideration of the institution’s own history and trajectory.

Ultimately, the debate surrounding The Hack, and the Guardian’s response to it, underscores a central tension in culture and entertainment reporting: the desire to celebrate courageous, influential journalism while acknowledging that any institution’s record contains both admirable milestones and difficult, sometimes uncomfortable, chapters. The Guardian, while praised for its historical impact on investigative reporting, continues to wrestle with internal standards, leadership dynamics, and financial pressures. In a free society with a plurality of voices, observers say the paper’s willingness to engage in its own contradictions—and to scrutinize its own past while telling new stories—remains a defining characteristic of journalism that aspires to accountability. The Hack may not satisfy every viewer, but it has reignited a conversation about the power and limits of press-led pursuits in a modern media environment.