Ron Hall: Influential newspaperman who helped make the 'Sunday Times' Insight team pioneers of investigative journalism

That Ron Hall never achieved the national newspaper editorship he surely merited was due in large measure to his reluctance to ingratiate himself with overbearing proprietors. Though little known outside the industry, he was one of the most influential and talented journalists of his time. As an architect of the Sunday Times Insight pages he pioneered techniques of investigative journalism that altered the nature of much of the British press in the second half of the 20th century.

In 1962 Michael Heseltine, then an ambitious young publisher, launched a news magazine called Topic, aimed at analysing the key events of the week in depth. He hired the 28-year-old Hall from the Daily Mirror as chief sub-editor. Although its approach to the news won admirers in Fleet Street, Topic was a commercial failure and closed after less than a year.

One of the national editors impressed by the experiment was Denis Hamilton of the Sunday Times. At a time when newspapers were increasing in size after the lean postwar years he wanted to use some of the extra space to introduce a regular section in which news stories would be subject to detailed analysis, answering the question "why?" as well as the "who?" "what?" "when?" and "where?" that were the recognised building blocks of conventional reporting. Since this was broadly what Topic had been trying to do it was natural that when it closed Hamilton should approach its editor, Clive Irving, for help in setting up his new unit. Irving agreed to join the Sunday Times, but only if he could bring with him his two principal lieutenants from the magazine, Hall and Jeremy Wallington. Predictably, the arrival of the three whizz-kids, with all the impatience and self-assuredness of their comparative youth, provoked resentment among the paper's old guard. "So insensibly rude," was how one veteran described them.

The first Insight pages appeared in February 1963, a few weeks before the breaking of the Profumo scandal that would eventually bring down Harold Macmillan's Government. This gave the trio the chance to hone their technique on a major story, pulling the various strands together into a coherent and sensational narrative. A few weeks later came the first truly investigative article, written by Hall: an account of the life and misdeeds of Peter Rachman, the corrupt slum landlord who had been marginally involved in the Profumo affair and who had died a few months earlier.

The following year, when Irving was promoted to a senior executive role, Hall became editor of Insight, overseeing notable investigations that ranged from the political to the domestic, such as the scandal of cheap Algerian wine being labelled as vintage Beaujolais. He recognised that the most important element of this kind of journalism was meticulous attention to detail. When Harold Evans succeeded Hamilton as editor in 1966 he quickly warmed to Hall, a fellow northerner. In his memoir My Paper Chase, Evans describes him as "a scholar in scepticism", adding: "For me as editor it was comforting to see Hall, a pipe clamped in his mouth, slowly taking a reporter through the back-up for his assertions and analysis."

Born in Sheffield in 1934, the son of a builder, Ronald Hall attended the local grammar school (where he met Ruth, his first wife), before taking a degree in mathematics and statistics at Cambridge. His first job in journalism was on the Glasgow Herald, from where he moved to the Daily Mirror in London. There for a time he was responsible for the popular "Old Codgers" column, giving information and homespun advice to readers in response to their letters, only some of which were authentic.

His 19 years on the Sunday Times, the zenith of his career, ended in brutal fashion. When Rupert Murdoch bought Times Newspapers in 1981 and transferred Evans to The Times, Hall, then editor of the Sunday Times colour magazine, was one of the front-runners to edit the main paper. The other in-house contender was Hugo Young, the political editor; but instead of choosing between them, Murdoch appointed Frank Giles, the foreign editor, as interim editor, with Hall and Young as his deputies. He envisaged them engaging in a no-holds-barred contest for the succession, from which he could judge who was the more likely to be a successful Murdoch editor.

"Use your elbows, Ron," was his advice to Hall – but both deputies were reluctant participants in the contest and Murdoch decided he had to look elsewhere. In 1982 Giles, at his proprietor's behest, fired Hall – the first of two brutal sackings he was destined to endure – and demoted Young. The following year, when Giles was persuaded to resign, he was replaced by Andrew Neil from The Economist.

Hall was soon hired to edit the Sunday Express magazine but in 1984, when the Express group was acquired by United Newspapers, he was summarily dismissed by David Stevens, the new chairman. John Junor, then the paper's editor, described in his memoir, Listening for a Midnight Tram, how Stevens summoned Hall to his office and proceeded, in the presence of Junor and some subordinates, to criticise the magazine so harshly that Hall had no option but to step down. "It was a less than agreeable way in which to treat a distinguished journalist," Junor wrote.

In 1986 Hall was recruited as associate editor of the London Daily News, launched by Robert Maxwell's Mirror Group as a rival to the Evening Standard. The paper was trounced in the resulting circulation war and closed after a few months. Hall then became consultant editor to another new title, Scotland on Sunday, before taking on his final post as London editor of the magazine Condé Nast Traveler.

He spent his last 10 years suffering from Parkinson's disease. His first wife, his schoolmate Ruth, a journalist and musician, died aged only 48. In 1982 he married Christine Walker, who had worked for him at the Sunday Times. They were divorced, and in 2008 he married Pat Glossop. He had no children.

Ronald Hall, journalist: born Sheffield 28 July 1934; married firstly Ruth (died 1981), 1982 Christine Walker (divorced 2002), 2008 Pat Glossop; died London 20 January 2014.