HACKS
A six-part returning television series
Hated, outdated and in fear for their jobs, a hard-bitten team of newspaper hacks fight for survival… and the truth.
Newspapers are dead. Everyone says so. The advertisers know it. The readers know it. It’s only the poor bloody hacks, churning out copy on a relentless conveyor belt, who can’t quite grasp the grim 21st century reality.
So when the managing director of the Milton Keynes Mail announces he’s looking to squeeze the numbers in the editorial department still further, the paper’s blunt editor JERRY NORTHOVER, 52, knows he has a battle on his hands. Besides the routine daily cycle of finding front-page splashes to boost the dwindling sales figures, and the back-stabbing antics of the advertising department, he’s got to hold his hard-bitten team together as the pressure mounts and the in-fighting grows. His ultimate aim: the survival of his newspaper.
The dishevelled, cynical ALEX PARKER, 33, may have an instinctive nose for the hottest stories, but it’s suave chief reporter SIMON CHAPMAN, 30, who somehow snatches the best bylines. And while old-school news editor FRANK THORNTON, 56, nurses a secret gambling addiction, his boss, deputy editor JANEY ARNOLD, 40, walks a precarious tightrope between holding down her job and caring for her paraplegic teenage son. All of them are in the firing line. Only their wits, their talent and – maybe – their editor can save them.
As the darkly comic drama series plays out amid the hunt for stories – nailing a paedophile teacher, revealing corrupt councillors on the take, defending the city’s comedy image – it’s a race to the final deadline that exposes everyone’s personal and professional lives to the closest scrutiny and asks of them all one tough ethical question: just what the hell do they think they’re doing?
For the full pilot episode script, Death Knock, click here.