Numerous contributors to PoliticsHome, including editor-in-chief, Andrew Rawnsley, have resigned from the news aggregator and polling website in a row over its new owner – Michael Ashcroft, the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party.
Charlie Beckett’s post on the POLIS blog tells the story so far, with some comment thrown in:
“It’s interesting because of what it says about political journalism ethics. It is also interesting because of what it implies about the profitability of quality ‘balanced’ online political media.”
The all-party report led by former cabinet minister Alan Milburn, has triggered a nationwide debate on issues of social mobility and whether social class divides can be overcome to provide equal career opportunities to all. Journalists found their profession branded ‘one of the most exclusive middle-class professions’. The industry was urged to provide financial support to interns from less wealthy backgrounds and adopt a best practice code.
Media organisations were accused of recruiting trainee journalists for internships for as long as one year, without payment, as a means of filling staffing gaps instead of providing appropriate training. The unpaid placements automatically filtered out students to only those who could afford the experience, usually middle class ones, or those willing to incur massive debts.
The National Union of Journalists immediately welcomed the outcomes of the report and heralded the best practice code for internships as ‘a first step in tackling bogus work experience‘. The union has been campaigning for years against exploitation of work experience placements, proposing the payment of a minimum wage to students on training. Speaking in a release issued earlier in the week, the NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear said that the report ’shows how the use of unpaid internships has undermined the diversity of our profession’. “Too many employers see internships as a way of getting work done for free, without any thought towards their responsibilities to provide would-be journalists with a learning opportunity.”
In his Guardian blog, Roy Greenslade talked about his humble beginnings as a working-class journalist, alongside others of the same social class at regional newspapers until he was struck by the class divide between the middle-class broadsheets and the working-class tabloids in Fleet Street. Although boundaries are now less obvious between the papers, higher tuition fees at universities meant education was dearer, and less accessible. As journalism became increasingly popular in the 1990s, degree holders were preferred over school-leavers, starting the unfair selection process which favoured the middle class.
A report in 2006 by the Sutton Trust [PDF at this link] showed that more than half of editorial posts at leading national newspapers had been educated at private schools, that is to say, middle class. As middle-class senior editors tend to appoint others like themselves, birds of a different, less privileged feather cannot find a way into the flock.
The Milburn report also pointed out that ‘qualification inflation’ is a barrier towards equal social opportunities. If once an academic degree or an MA were considered desirable for a career in journalism, some people, such as Press Gazette’s Dominic Ponsford, believe it is not the case any more as theoretical courses often do not provide the practical skills needed in a ‘real’ newsroom.
Degrees do not come cheap. Whereas a full-time MA at City University will set back an aspiring journalist by £8,000, a number of institutions offer NCTJ-accredited courses of much shorter length.
The Brighton Journalist Works, for instance, offers a 10-week fast-track course leading to a Certificate in Production Journalism for £3,600. Journalist Works MD Paula O’Shea, who set it up in April 2007 in The Argus’ Brighton offices, says the course is intense as it exposes students to as many hours as they would in an academic year on an MA, but graduates had landed jobs at The Argus, Johnston Press, Time Out, local TV stations and B2B magazines.
There is recourse for students who could not afford the fast-track course: “Our course is accredited by the Learning and Skills Council, so students can apply for a career development loan (www.direct.gov.uk) or the Journalism Diversity Fund (www.journalismdiverstityfund.co.uk),” says O’Shea.
A lack of diversity in news media could pose a problem for journalism, says Charlie Beckett, director of the journalism think-tank Polis. “If the news media is not diverse then it will not reflect the wider population,” he says in his blog.
“At a time of crisis in the industry and the wider economy, that is not a good thing economically, let alone politically.”
Charlie Beckett, POLIS director and author of SuperMedia, looks at the relationship between politics, PR and news media. They’ve got one thing in common he says. They’re all losing the trust of the public.
Some of his concluding thoughts:
“This does not mean that there is no difference between politicians, PR and journalism. I think that it is important to have some robust, critical scepticism between all three. But we all three inhabit a networked world.”
And:
“All organisations are becoming media organisations. In an Information Age the public expect us to be transparent and responsive. This is what we can do through new media technologies and practices. The public has shown immense enthusiasm for a networked world, it is about time the rest of us joined in.”
“Who is responsible for the risks taken by citizen journalists who become ‘accidental’ reporters in dangerous situations?” Charlie Beckett is prompted to ask, after a question raised during his talk to a group of students from the London School of Economics.
A More4 News feature on how citizen journalism is changing the news scene, in light of recent events, namely the G20 protests and the Damian McBride affair.
Charlie Beckett, director of POLIS, is interviewed: The importance is connecting the citizen with the journalist, he says. “(…)These stories would never have the impact if they had just stayed on the blogosphere…”
A call by the More4News team for Twitterers to meet outside the office to participate in the feature didn’t bear fruit, however.
“The power of the internet to shape politics – from Obama’s campaign to online petitions – is widely recognised. But blogging has now become an intrinsic part of the political process,” it is reported on the Today programme’s site.
So, would Orwell have been a blogger? Charlie Beckett, director of Polis, says yes.
“He was a contrarian, he loved a row and he didn’t mind people having a go at him,” he says.
Follow this link for a discussion with director of the prize, Jean Seaton, and longlisted blogger Hopi Sen, of the ‘from the Backroom’ blog, on whether blogging ‘has become as respected as novel writing or journalism.’
The Shadow Culture Secretary, Tory MP Jeremy Hunt, today made a keynote policy speech on the subject of public service broadcasting, at a Polis event. He talked about opposing BBC local plans, in a wide-ranging speech. You can download Hunt’s full speech here.
@bowbrick on Twitter reported that: “Nothing radical in Hunt’s analysis. Presumably a great relief to the BBC”.
“Hunt was careful not to call for anyone to be sacked. He believes that politicians shouldn’t go around trying to get private individuals fired. But he was scathing about the BBC response to the incident and the outrage it has provoked.
Hunt said this was not risky comedy, it was ‘offensive, juvenile behavour’. But what worried him was that the BBC’s slow and limited public response indicates that “the BBC doesn’t understand the huge influence the stars they employ have on the public”.”
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