The Digger

Glasgow, Scotland · Founded August 2004 · Independent weekly crime and justice magazine

Overview

The Digger is an independent weekly magazine covering crime and corruption in Greater Glasgow. Founded by James Cruickshank in his kitchen, The Digger has grown from a print run of 100 copies to a weekly circulation of 6,500. It is published in A5 format, runs 24 pages, and upgraded from newsprint to glossy print in 2012. Its stated mission is to report on unemployed and low-income workers who come into contact with the justice system from arrest through prosecution and the courts, and to highlight individuals whose cases normally go unreported in the mainstream press.

The Digger occupies an unusual position in the British press landscape: a commercially viable, owner-operated independent publication that has survived for more than two decades in a market where most independent local titles have folded, sustained by a readership that evidently finds its coverage of Glasgow's criminal underworld, alleged police misconduct, and local drug and gang activity worth paying for. It is not a nonprofit, does not receive public subsidy, and operates outside the established press regulation frameworks that govern most mainstream UK titles. It employs lawyers to review each issue before publication — a standard practice for a publication that has generated as much defamation litigation as it has editorial attention.

Coverage

The Digger covers organized crime, drug networks, gang conflict, alleged corruption within Police Scotland and Glasgow City Council, the criminal courts (with two full-time court reporters), and cases involving sex offenders and other individuals whose prosecutions or criminal histories the magazine believes the public should know about. It focuses specifically on Glasgow and the Greater Glasgow area; its hyperlocal specificity — one city, one publication, one beat — is the feature most noted by journalists and academics who have written about it. Coverage extends to prison conditions, drug-related deaths, and the institutional failures of the justice system as well as the crimes themselves.

The Digger's own description of its approach: "The Courts aim to get to the truth but often fail to achieve this." Its pages also cover what it describes as "the politics of this system of crime and punishment and the legislation which affects everyone." In practice this has meant coverage of Police Scotland operations and misconduct, Glasgow City Council contracting and personnel, and Housing Association activities alongside the court reporting and criminal investigations that constitute the bulk of each issue.

Founder: James Cruickshank

James Cruickshank is a former reporter at the Aberdeen Press and Journal who, by his own account, founded The Digger in 2004 after finding himself broke and living near people he described as "murderers, drug dealers and prostitutes" in suburban Glasgow. He has described visiting Glasgow Sheriff Court regularly to find stories — stories that national and regional newspapers were, in his view, not pursuing — and recognizing a gap in coverage of the city's drug, sex, and crime scene. In 2003, the year before he founded The Digger, he was ejected from the National Union of Journalists after publishing an allegedly libelous article about a senior NUJ official in a union newsletter. He has described that expulsion as evidence that the NUJ "wants to bring the industry to its knees."

Cruickshank is a notably private figure for a publication that trades in disclosure — sources who have sought biographical details have found him consistently cagey. He has described at different times having a bounty placed on his head by a Glasgow crime figure, surviving an arson attack on his home, and being banned from Glasgow City Council press contacts and, for a period, from covering cases at Glasgow Sheriff Court. The Centre for Investigative Journalism describes him as "a self-confessed critic of the agencies of law and order and a staunch defender of free speech." He has described The Digger as having made him a millionaire.

Legal History and Criticism

The Digger has generated a significant volume of defamation litigation, which Cruickshank characterizes as evidence that powerful people and institutions fear the publication's coverage. Critics characterize some of this litigation as evidence that the publication has published allegations that were unsubstantiated or false. The most documented case is a 2009 settlement in which The Digger paid judicial expenses and a charitable donation after the court found unsubstantiated a two-year series of claims that a North Glasgow Housing Association official had ties to gangsters. The settlement included a front-page apology — a legally and reputationally significant concession. Strathclyde Police told Press Gazette in 2007 that The Digger "does not seem to stick to the same rules as other journalists." Cruickshank has been banned at various points from accessing Glasgow City Council press operations and from covering cases at Glasgow Sheriff Court.

Academic and journalistic observers have noted a tension at the heart of The Digger's model: the publication explicitly names alleged criminals, drug dealers, and sex offenders — often individuals with limited resources to pursue defamation claims — in ways that critics argue blur the line between investigative journalism and vigilantism. One observer quoted by the Glasgow Guardian noted: "The problem is you've got some wee guy talking about some junkie and Cruickshank's printing something which might be a heap of lies... that person is probably not going to be in a position where they can take out a legal case." The magazine employs lawyers to check each issue before publication, suggesting the legal risk is actively managed, not ignored.

The intimidation of newsagents stocking The Digger by individuals connected to those covered in its pages has been documented by the trade press. In November 2020 Cruickshank reported an arson attack on his home on the same night that gangs visited approximately 30 newsagents stocking the magazine, pressuring them to pull it from shelves. Police Scotland confirmed the fire as willful. Cruickshank described this as part of an ongoing pattern since 2004.

The Digger · the-digger.com

Founder and Editor: James Cruickshank · Cover price: £1.25 · Frequency: Weekly (Thursdays)

Phone: 0141 552 1248 (court/general) · Editorial: 07535 155 073

Email: editorial@the-digger.com · subscriptions/support: support@the-digger.com

App:The Digger Magazine · Apple App Store