hold the front page - National Union of Journalists...hold the front page Journalists as others see...
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MAGAZINE OF THE NATIONAL UNION OF JOURNALISTS WWW.NUJ.ORG.UK | AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2016 hold the front page Journalists as others see us
Transcript of hold the front page - National Union of Journalists...hold the front page Journalists as others see...
M A G A Z I N E O F T H E N A T I O N A L U N I O N O F J O U R N A L I S T S
WWW.NUJ.ORG.UK | AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2016
hold the
front page
Journalists as others see us
02 | theJournalist
”This edition we’re going to the movies,
and flicking through some books. Our cover feature by Sarah Lonsdale is about how journalists are depicted on screen and in print – heroes, villains,
powerful and oppressed. And it’s not just a vain self-interested exercise – the way journalists
are portrayed in popular culture is important for the way the profession is more widely regarded and the importance we place on journalism.
The way journalism is regarded is especially important as it continually struggles with cutbacks, closures and downward pressure on pay. On pay issues, Ruth Addicott asks whether it is time to name and shame employers who pay badly or not at all.
It certainly isn’t an easy time to be a journalist, if it ever was. But some journalists have even more to contend with. Michelle Parry writes our Viewpoint column about trying to juggle part-time work with a young family. It’s not so much the work-life balance that’s the problem, difficult though that can be, but the perception that editors may have of a part-time working mum. Like our cover feature, it’s another question of the impression that journalists make…
This is what’s in the magazine. Sadly missing, though, are letters and comments from you. To save our letters page please see page 27.
Christine BuckleyEditor@mschrisbuckley
Main feature14 Fact or Fiction
Journalism on screen and in print
News03 BBC News Channel saved
Union welcomes decision not to merge
04 Call for police to work with journalists NUJ urges ‘collaborative’ approach
05 Jobs to go at BBC Monitoring Cuts part of £4 million savings plan
06 Backing for NUJ on surveillance IFJ to establish working group
07 Wales to get media scrutiny body Assembly endorses call from NUJ
Features10 Let’s go to Cork
Media life in Ireland’s second city
12 Media to mayor Profile of Bristol’s Marvin Rees
20 Is it time to name and shame? What to do over low pay and no pay
Regulars09 Viewpoint 17 NUJ and me26 And finally
Contents
Arts with Attitude Pages 24-25
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Cover picture AF archive / Alamy Stock Photo
Raymond SnoddyPage 23
Steve Bell 27
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news
The NUJ has welcomed the announcement that the BBC News Channel
and BBC World News will remain as separate channels.
Tony Hall, BBC director general, told staff that the News Channel would not be closed or merged, but both channels would have to find significant savings.
The NUJ had argued that the two offered very different services and were important and popular in their own right.
While the BBC News Channel is funded through the licence fee, BBC World News is commercial,.funded through advertising. The union argued that a merger would blur the lines between the licence fee and profit making.
Sue Harris, NUJ broadcasting organiser, said: “This is good news and I am pleased the BBC has acknowledged that the two channels provide distinct services.
in brief...
“I would like to thank Martine Croxall and David Campanale, our reps at the News Channel and BBC World, and both chapels for their amazing campaign to save the channel, and to all the MPs, peers and other supporters who wrote to the BBC in its defence.
“We are being told it will mean 10% cuts; the union is prepared to discuss with management how savings can be made without reducing the headcount. Staff at both channels are already
TRINITY MIRROR TO CUT NATIONAL JOBSTrinity Mirror has begun targeted cuts of editorial staff at its national titles including the Daily Mirror and the Sunday People. The move follows a big drop in the publisher’s share price. An email to staff from Lloyd Embley, editor-in-chief of the national titles, said the company would try to keep the cuts to a “minimum”.
AFP AIMS TO GRAB PHOTO RIGHTSAgence France Presse is demanding that photographic stringers in offices outside France sign contracts that include the full assignment of their authors’ rights without any additional remuneration. The International Federation of Journalists is advising photographers not to sign them.
HOPE FOR IRISH FREELANCE RIGHTSA significant hurdle in the battle for freelance rights in Ireland has been overcome with the all-party acceptance, at committee stage, of the Competition (Amendment) Bill. The bill, if accepted, would end the legal impediment of freelance journalists being barred from collective representation by unions.
JOHNSON QUITS TELEGRAPH COLUMNBoris Johnson is giving up his £275,000-a-year column for the Daily Telegraph after being appointed foreign secretary. Johnson’s weekly Telegraph column may have made him the UK’s best-paid journalist. He said in the register of MPs’ interests that he was paid £22,916.66 a month for 10 hours’ work by the Telegraph.
VOGUE GOES TOTHE MIDDLE EASTVogue is to launch an edition for the Middle East this autumn. Editor in chief is Deena Aljuhani Abdulaziz. She told the Financial Times: “The Arab world consists of 250 million people, and they have never had a Vogue.” The magazine’s headquarters will be based in Dubai, with the aim of reaching a wider audience across the Middle East.
Journalists on North Wales’s Daily Post have voted to take strike action over Trinity Mirror’s plans that include potential redundancies. Staff have been told that several
posts are going although new positions will be created in other areas.
The proposals will result in unfilled roles, including the newspaper’s executive editor, and the abolition of one digital reporter. This follows two former Daily Post reporters being transferred within Trinity Mirror and not being replaced.
Members at the Trinity Mirror North Wales chapel believe the changes will result in understaffing and create unreasonable workloads, especially for print production staff who are already under-pressure.
Journalists will also be asked to work additional weekend shifts and may be required to work weekends twice as often as they do now.
The cuts at the Daily Post are part of wider job losses at Trinity Mirror’s regional papers.
Strike vote over job losses at Wales daily paper
The NUJ is seeking urgent talks after the sudden closure of the
award-winning investigative news website Exaro. The site was closed last month by parent company New
Sparta just days after a new leadership was put in place.
Exaro had announced that David Hencke, the former Guardian journalist who has been behind some of
the organisation’s biggest stories, would take over as head of the operation, sharing responsibility for running the site with another existing Exaro employee, Mark Conrad,
who was to be news editor.Laura Davison, NUJ
national organiser, said:“This has been a huge
shock to staff. We will be seeking urgent talks with management.”
Merger of ‘distinct’ BBC news services called off
under a lot of strain because of heavy workloads and the effects of previous cuts.”
The BBC said:“We did detailed work on the proposal for a new single channel, including a financial model, and listened to what both audiences and BBC staff told us… We concluded that [a single channel] would not be the best way of offering a UK audience and global audiences the news agenda that is most directly relevant to them.”BBC Monitoring jobs to go, page 5
INVESTIGATIVE WEBSITE EXARO CLOSES
“We did detailed work on the proposal for a new single channel, and listened to what both audiences and BBC staff told us
”
4 | theJournalist
ARCHANT LAUNCHES POP-UP EUROPEANArchant has launched what it has called a “pop-up newspaper” – The New European. It is intended to appeal to people who voted to remain in the European Union. The European is planned to be produced this month with future editions planned if the sales of the previous edition are strong enough.
TIME TAKES CYCLING TITLES OFF THE ROADTime Inc is closing two cycling magazines to focus on its Cycling Weekly title. Cycling Weekly will now be the publisher’s only cycling publication. Monthly magazines Cycling Active and Cycle Sport are being axed and resources directed into the weekly. The closures follow Time’s shutdown of the quarterly Cycling Fitness earlier this year.
IT’S NO MORE FOR MERCURY MAGAZINEThe Leicester Mercury’s weekend magazine supplement, More, has been closed following cuts to the newspaper’s features team. Some of the supplement’s regular content, including its entertainment coverage and food and shop reviews, will be published in the paper instead.
GUARDIAN’S NICK DAVIES TO RETIRENick Davies, a high-profile Guardian reporter, will retire in September after 40 years on the paper. He is best known for investigating hacking at the News of the World and the subsequent cover-up. The scandal led to the paper’s closure , the hacking trial and the Leveson inquiry.
SUICIDE VERDICT FOR BBC’S JACKY SUTTONA verdict of suicide has been recorded for the death of a former BBC reporter described as “fearless”. Jacky Sutton, a veteran war reporter, was found to have taken her own life in the toilets of Ataturk airport in Istanbul after missing her flight, an inquest was told. The 50-year-old had been scheduled to catch a connecting flight to Erbil in northern Iraq.
in brief...
The Derry North West Ireland Branch has honoured NUJ stalwart
and peace campaigner Eamonn McCann to mark his life membership.
Felicity McCall, job-share chair of the NUJ Irish executive, presented
him with a reproduction of a painting by Northern Irish artist John B Vallely. Fittingly, the print showed a group of Palestinians.
Branch member Darach MacDonald told how McCann signed him up for the union 40 years ago,
while he was in his first job. “If I get in trouble again,
there’s nobody I’d like more in my corner than Eamonn,” MacDonald said.
Thanking the branch for the print, McCann said: “If I said anything more, I’d embarrass myself.”
The NUJ has called for an “open and collaborative relationship between the police and the press” in its submission to
the College of Policing consultation on draft guidelines for police and media relations.
It said: “The British policing model is based on consent. For this to work, the public needs to have confidence in its police. The media plays a vital role as a watchdog and in holding the police to account so the public can have this confidence.
“This is only possible when there is an open and collaborative relationship between the police and the media.”
The union challenged the guideline stating that in most cases communication between the police and journalists must go through press officers or police corporation communications departments (CCDs). This could severely hinder a journalist working on a tight deadline.
As one CCD member admitted: “The practical effect is that CCD-authorised briefings of journalists are often significantly delayed and information will not reach reporters until after deadline.”
Journalists must be able to speak to officers to obtain and share information. One member noted that sometimes journalists are ahead of the police in an investigation. Restricting communication to CCDs, said the submission, would do little to aid “open, honest and transparent communications which enhance confidence in policing”.
The union backed Hayley Court, a media officer working for South Yorkshire police during the 2016 Hillsborough inquest. She said she was “bullied” into spinning for the police rather than being allowed to respond to the inquiry’s findings fairly.
Iain McBride, a former journalist who was head of media for Kent Police, says he believes there has been a fundamental shift in the way police media teams are structured.
He said: “Years ago, police press offices were staffed by officers, then they were ‘professionalised’ and journalists were brought in … Now police press officers seem to come increasingly from a PR/marketing background and their sole interest is positive promotion, rather than constructively handling the negative stories/critical incidents.”
A cross-party group of peers has recommended that
Channel 4 should not be sold, stating that it is financially strong enough to weather the aftermath of the Brexit vote.
The House of Lords communications committee said that a new owner of
Channel 4 could not be held to commitments to news, film production and the broadcaster’s record of diversity programming.
The committee rejected the claim by John Whittingdale, then culture secretary, that the commercially funded, state-owned broadcaster could be better off in private
hands. Mr Whittingdale had argued that a new owner would be able to invest more in the channel.
Lord Best, chair of the committee, said: “Channel 4 boasts an array of innovative and creative programming as well as a strong commitment to public service broadcasting.”
“The British policing model is based on consent. For this to work, the public needs to have confidence in its police
”Peers back public ownership of Channel 4
Call for police to work openly with journalists
news
LIFE MEMBER FITS THE PICTURE
CYBERSTOCK / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
GRADING STRIKE AT PARLIAMENT CHANNEL
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Staff at BBC World News walked out for 24 hours over rota changes that will require them to work more hours.
Many at the station work unsocial, irregular and night shifts. There is a longstanding agreement that allows flexible hours, in an acknowledgment of the health risks of unsocial shifts and working late. The BBC now wants to cut costs by imposing new rosters.
The BBC decision ignored an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive into conditions at BBC World News, which reported staff working “excessive hours”.
David Campanale, father of chapel of BBC World News, said: “We care about the quality of our output and these roster changes will mean many of us working substantially more hours, putting our health at risk.”
Almost 100 jobs are to be cut at the BBC Monitoring service in Caversham, Berkshire.
Staff were told that BBC Monitoring had been set a tough savings target of £4 million, which had to be achieved by April 2017.
Nearly one in three posts in the editorial and related support teams will be closed, with a net loss of 98, as posts will be created. Monitoring’s overseas offices have had staffing cut by about 20 per cent; 40 per cent of staff in the UK face dismissal.
The BBC said Monitoring would move out of Caversham Park, its base since 1943, to London. IT and other non-editorial teams will face cuts once the editorial operation shrinks.
BBC Monitoring surveys the world’s broadcast and print media, selecting and translating reports from 150 countries in 100 languages. Its consumers include government bodies, commercial organisations, NGOs, other media organisations and the BBC.
Monitoring was paid for by government bodies and the BBC until 2013, when the BBC took it into the licence fee under a 2010 deal. There were deep funding cuts and job losses in 2006, followed by redundancies in 2011. This latest contraction effectively means the end of
its ability to keep a constant, global watch.Stuart Seaman, NUJ father of chapel at BBC
Monitoring, said: “This is a classic case of knowing the cost but not the value. Users have always praised our reporting on other countries through their media. But, all too often, our paymasters have seen Monitoring as an easy target for savings. The world is an increasingly difficult place and we need to not only know what is happening but also make
AUDIT OFFICE PRAISE FOR WORLD SERVICEThe National Audit Office has praised the work of the BBC’s World Service. It said that the service reached, on average, 246 million people around the world each week with impartial and independent news and current affairs. It said that it had reduced its annual expenditure by £46.8 million by 2014-15.
SIR CLIFF CAMPAIGNS FOR ANONYMITY LAWSir Cliff Richard, broadcaster Paul Gambaccini and Conservative MP Nigel Evans have joined together to campaign for a change in the law that allows people accused of sexual offences to be named publicly. All three men were accused of such offences before the cases against them were dropped. The three also want to set up a support group for those who have been wrongly accused. NEWS CORP BUYS WIRELESS GROUPNews Corp, the owner of The Times and The Sun, is buying Wireless Group, the owner of TalkSport, for £220 million.The radio business was originally founded by Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of The Sun and a current columnist on the paper, who sold it to UTV in 2005 for £98 million.
NEW TRINITY MIRROR REGIONAL CHIEFSTrinity Mirror has appointed the Evening Gazette’s George Oliver as editor of the Leicester Mercury. Oliver was executive editor at the Gazette in Teesside. The publisher has also appointed David Bartlett, executive editor of the Liverpool Echo, as editor-in-chief of the Cambridge News
EX CHRONICLE EDITOR TAKES OVER AT BQ Paul Robertson, an editor of the Newcastle Chronicle who left his role five years ago to set up a media consultancy, is to run a regional business magazine. He has become the editor of the North East and Cumbria edition of the business magazine, BQ.
in brief...BBC Monitoring service to lose nearly 100 jobs
“Staff were told that BBC Monitoring had been set a tough savings target of £4 million which had to be achieved by April 2017
”
news
MPs and peers were lobbied about the treatment of BBC
journalists working on the Parliament Channel during a one-day strike in June.
Staff at the channel handed out leaflets outside
the London Millbank studios during a 24-hour strike over pay grading levels.
The strike ballot had a 100 per cent turnout and 100 per cent vote in favour of action where union membership was at 100 per cent.
The strike follows a prolonged period during which staff raised the pay grade disparity issue with managers.
The majority of those who produce content for BBC Parliament are broadcast
assistants – grade 5 within the BBC’s structure – compared with colleagues at the BBC News Channel and BBC World, who are grade 7 broadcast journalists, although they do the same work.
Walk-out at World News over rota changes
© JEFFREY BLACKLER / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
6 | theJournalist
GUARDIAN SCRAPS STUDENT AWARDS The Guardian has ended its Student Media Awards after nearly 40 years of operation to save costs. The awards, which celebrated student reporters, writers and photographers, began in 1978 after The Guardian teamed up with the National Union of Students.
QUADRUPLE WINNER TAKES REDUNDANCYA four times winner of Weekly Reporter of the Year at the Regional Press Awards has taken voluntary redundancy from the Croydon Advertiser. Gareth Davies spent nearly eight years at the Trinity Mirror-owned title, where he began his career as a trainee reporter. Davies won his last Regional Press Award in the spring after winning a two-year fight with the Metropolitan Police over a harassment warning.
SOUTH WEST EDITOR DIES OF CANCERZena O’Rourke, who edited the Cornish Guardian and the Somerset County Gazette, died recently from cancer. She edited the Cornish Guardian from 2009 until March 2015 when she took over at the Gazette, which is based in her home town of Taunton.
DEATH SENTENCE CONFIRMED IN EGYPTAn Egyptian court has upheld the death penalty given to NUJ member Ibrahim Helal, the Al Jazeera journalist sentenced in absentia in May after a two-year legal process.The judge referred repeatedly to the so-called “betrayal” by the journalist.
PHOTOGRAPHER KILLED IN FALLUJAHA photographer was killed by a mortar round in Fallujah in June. Fadil al-Garaawi, 45, was employed by Iraq’s Interior Ministry forces and contributed to Iraqi news outlets, according to media reports.The NUJ has joined International Federation of Journalists affiliate the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate to call for more safety for journalists working in the Iraqi war zones.
in brief...
news
Racist attacks and xenophobia following the Brexit vote were
top of the agenda at a recent meeting of the NUJ’s Black Members’ Council.
At the meeting it said it would also lobby to build on the proposed changes around diversity to the BBC’s charter set out in the government’s white
paper. Council members said they would demand the corporation brought in penalties for corporation executives who do not reach agreed targets.
The BMC decided to work to recruit more black journalists to the union, including young people working in digital media.
The International Federation of Journalists has backed an NUJ
motion to set up a working group on surveillance.
The group will aim to: increase awareness of surveillance and build a culture among journalists to secure their information and communications; defend journalists’ fundamental human rights against government surveillance; attempt to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding the use of intercept powers; campaign to defend cases where journalists’ ability to protect journalistic sources is attacked and challenge bulk collection of telephone, email and internet data; and work with other professionals such as lawyers, doctors and social workers to build a coordinated global movement to rein in surveillance powers.
The motion noted that “the widespread use of smartphones, emails and social media over the last decade has given the
intelligence agencies access to private data on a scale few would have imagined possible” and it applauded the work of Edward Snowden who had “unravelled the most extensive global surveillance operation ever seen”.
More than 300 delegates, representing journalists’ unions across the world, gathered in Angers, France for the 29th World Congress of the International Federation of Journalists in June.
They marched through the city to commemorate
journalists killed while working and laid a white rose in front of the commemorative plaque for Camille Lepage, who was killed in 2014 in the Central African Republic. The 26-year-old journalist was caught up in fighting near the border with Cameroon and the circumstances of her death remain uninvestigated.
Philippe Leruth, member of the Belgian Association Générale des Journalistes Professionnels de Belgique, was elected as the new president of the IFJ.
Irish journalists recently marked the 20th anniversary of the murder
in Dublin of the journalist Veronica Guerin. The killing led to the creation of the
Guerin principles, which were agreed by the NUJ, the Association of Independent Radio Stations, the National Newspapers of Ireland (now NewsBrands Ireland) and
the Provincial Newspapers Association of Ireland (now Local Ireland). They support: a fair, free media; freedom of expression; and resources for investigative journalism.
“The group will aim to increase awareness of surveillance and build a culture among journalists to secure their information
”BLACK MEMBERS FOCUS ON BREXIT VIOLENCE
Global journalists’ group backs surveillance drive
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The NUJ has won recognition at the South Wales Argus
in Newport. The move follows a long campaign after contact was first made with the newspaper’s publisher, Newsquest Media, in November 2014.
John Toner, the union’s national organiser for Wales, said: “We are delighted that the Central Arbitration Committee [the adjudicating body] has accepted our evidence that the majority of the journalists working at
the Argus wish to be represented by the NUJ.
“We look forward to negotiating a house agreement with the Newsquest management, and to having a constructive relationship with the employer that will
benefit our members.” He added: “This would
not have been possible without the energy and enthusiasm of Hayley Mills, the mother of chapel, who has worked very hard at recruiting her colleagues to the union.”
in brief...
UNION RECOGNISED AT SOUTH WALES PAPER
Welsh Assembly sets up media scrutiny body
news
“A strong Welsh media is crucially important to the Assembly’s work and the health of Welsh democracy
”
ITN RENEWS WORK WITH CHANNEL 5ITN is to continue making Channel 5’s news programmes until 2020. As part of the deal, the 5 News team will move to ITN’s headquarters from their studio in London’s Northern & Shell building in which Express newspapers are based. Viacom bought Channel 5 from Express owner Richard Desmond two years ago.
NEWS UK PUMPS CASH INTO VIDEONews UK is to invest heavily in original video across its newspapers. The group said it would create thousands of videos each year for The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun websites. It plans to produce more than 100 live videos a month, including on Facebook Live. Recently, The Telegraph launced an online video hub producing original content.
VICE PUSHES INTO44 MORE COUNTRIESVice News, an international news network aimed at a younger people, has expanded its broadcasting network to include 44 more countries. The move takes its reach to 51 countries.
PROFITS BOOST AT EVENING STANDARDThe London’s Evening Standard’s latest accounts show that it more than tripled pre-tax profits.The title, which has a free daily circulation of 900,000, reported a pre-tax profit of £3.4 million on turnover which increased 13 per cent to £71.3 million for the year ending September 2015. It made a pre-tax profit of just over £1 million for the year to the end of September 2014.
FREE WOMEN’S SPORT MAGAZINE LAUNCHEDA magazine about women’s sport has been launched in Scotland. The glossy magazine is distributed free across the country. A digital edition is available and its sportswomanmag.co.uk website carries news. The magazine is published by former daily newspaper executive Derek Watson and distribution is planned to reach 20,000 by 2017.
The National Assembly for Wales has responded to NUJ calls for greater
scrutiny of the media by establishing a culture, Welsh language and communications committee.
In a letter to NUJ representatives, presiding officer Elin Jones AM said “a strong Welsh media is crucially important to the assembly’s work and the health of Welsh democracy”.
The NUJ had called for a media and communications committee to be set up but Jones said the new committee, with its broader remit, would provide “greater prominence to this important area of policy within the committee structure and will ensure that it receives due attention”.
In a letter to Ms Jones, the NUJ stated that “a strong Welsh media is crucial to the democratic process, holds the powerful to account and
offers a voice to those who might otherwise be ignored”.
It added: “The Welsh Government has law-making powers in areas including health, education, local government, transport, housing, agriculture and the environment and the media is a crucial overseer of the way in which that influence is wielded.
“With the Wales Bill expected to pass through Parliament in the next 12
months, devolving further policy areas to Wales, a strong Welsh media is as important today as it ever has been.”
There was cross-party support in the Welsh Assembly for the NUJ’s position and members in Wales are looking forward to working with the new committee.
The assembly’s decision to establish the committee is subject to political approval, but it is expected to meet before the summer recess.
This follows a campaign by the NUJ in Wales to address the media crisis and growing democratic deficit.
In November, it launched its Media Manifesto for Wales, calling on Welsh politicians to pay more attention to media policy and, in March, national executive member Paul Scott and Cardiff and South East Wales branch chair Martin Shipton addressed AMs at the Senedd.
University strengthens links with The Voice
Journalism students of Jamaican heritage could receive financial help as
part of Nottingham Trent University’s partnership with The Voice newspaper.
The university and the Jamaica National Building Society, which owns The
Voice, are extending an existing agreement.
Under the new arrangements, students of Jamaican heritage who have an offer of a place at the university will be able to apply for one of three Jamaica National Foundation Legacy
Scholarships worth £6,000 towards tuition fees and living costs. The Voice
also will offer work placements at its headquarters in London.
Voice staff will be invited to be student mentors and give lectures at the university. The university will offer staff training in subjects such as video skills and media law.
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08 | theJournalist
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Reporting Poverty The Film
Manchester and Salford Branch is keen to work with The Reporters’ Academy to
make a short publicity film for the National Union of Journalists’ Reporting Poverty
campaign We need your help
Our campaign aims to challenge the stereotypes used when reporting poverty.
We want to work with The Reporters’ Academy introducing them to our union and to our shared belief in ethical reporting. A team of young people – some of whom have experienced poverty themselves – will be trained to research, film, edit and produce a publicity film for the NUJ campaign at Media City. The total cost is about £2,700. All money raised will go toward the making of the film with any funds remaining going to the continuation of the Reporting Poverty campaign. Donations can be made to Manchester and Salford branch by contacting [email protected] or via gofundme.com/ReportPovertyFilm
We think these young people are uniquely and perfectly placed to contribute to and benefit from our campaign on Reporting Poverty
magazines are women, so why aren’t they hiring in their likeness?
More and more women work in business and reach the highest echelons. We, as business journalists, have regularly criticised company boards for not ensuring more women make it to the top. So why aren’t we seeing more female business columnists?
Perhaps editors have not noticed they are not representing the changing face of their readership. Perhaps the prose is well crafted and topical, and there is no good reason to change columnists. I am defi nitely not advocating hiring women for the sake of it. But why, when the pool of excellent female business journalists blossoms, do I still see so few women columnists in the business press?
Maybe it is time to listen to our own criticisms and consider our unconscious biases when it comes to selecting columnists to engage audiences.
Michelle Perry is a part-time freelance business journalist
We need to be mindful of unconcious bias, says Michelle Perry
Afew months ago, I heard a news clip on Radio 4 about the rise of robots and which jobs robots were likely to steal fi rst.
I am not talking about 50 years from now. The report was focusing on a much nearer future, with one study predicting that within a decade a quarter of jobs would be automated.
I remember uttering a huge sigh of relief and a comic “phewee” to distract my then 10-month old son (pictured) from his pea-scattering when the broadcaster said journalism was not likely to be one of those jobs stolen from humans any time soon.
I didn’t pay any more attention to the broadcast because it suddenly hit me that it was not robots that I had to worry about but other journalists, as the ranks of the freelance community had swollen during my maternity leave.
Despite being a seasoned freelance journalist, the return to work suddenly felt very daunting. The post-baby fug is not a myth but, that aside, I was returning to a fast-changing journalism environment. I have chosen to work on a part-time, freelance basis. My partner’s job does not cater for modern part-time or parental job sharing practices. So the onus to work fl exibly has fallen on me – like most women.
Often part-time freelancing is trickier than freelancing full time. Do I tell editors I work part time? Will I be judged as less reliable? Or less fl exible? To be fair, most editors are well organised and plan far in advance, providing generous deadlines. But it means working both days and evenings (once the kids are in bed) is becoming the norm.
Over the past four years, I have taken two years off work (a year for each child) after holding permanent,
full-time senior editorial positions at various business magazines over my almost 20-year career as a journalist.
During those “out-of-work” periods, my networking has been nonexistent and there have been a lot of staff changes. Editors have moved on and/or up. Publishers have closed down print magazines in favour of digital editions. Newspapers and magazines have been increasingly haemorrhaging journalists over the past fi ve years. And the future promises more of the same.
All of these factors have infl ated the ranks of the previously fairly exclusive band of freelance business journalists I belonged to.
Not only have I lost a variety of contacts but also many excellent editors I worked for have gone freelance. The competition is much greater than I have ever known and, although arguably with digital journalism word counts are limitless, there are fewer and fewer quality newspapers and magazines in which to be published.
For the past fi ve months, I have been slowly renewing my contacts and forging new ones. I am now working comfortably again.
To refresh my sector knowledge, I pore over what remains of the printed business press to see what has been covered and how, and who is writing it. What I have noticed is that, although more and more women have become business journalists over the 16 years I’ve been covering business, the regular columnists in most business magazines are still male, pale and, dare I say it, stale. Today, many editors of business
8 For all the latest news from the NUJ go to www.nuj.org.uk
If we preach it, we should practise it too
viewpoint
“Freelancing part time can be tricky. Do I tell editors I work part time? Will I be judged as less reliable? Or less � exible?
” theJournalist | 9
Y ou’re going to do well to fi nd anyone in and around Cork city who doesn’t truly believe that Cork lives up to its nickname of ‘the ‘real capital’,” says Noel Baker, senior reporter at The Irish Examiner. “Cork is not referred to as
‘the rebel county’ for no reason; there is undoubtedly a strong, independent streak here.”
The Irish Examiner has a long history in the city. First published in 1841, the broadsheet has always had its main offi ce in Cork. Today, it is owned by Landmark Media, which also publishes its sister paper the Evening Echo and is the main media employer in Cork.
“The Examiner is a unique publication in being the only national newspaper with a head offi ce outside Dublin,” says Baker. “Our sports coverage is acclaimed, we have a
very dedicated news staff and, politically, we plough an independent furrow. Our recent news stories have been setting the national news agenda regarding a Garda [police] whistleblower and how he and his allegations were treated by
Garda management.”Other titles in the city include free weekly The
Cork Independent. The Southern Star, another free weekly, is based in nearby Skibbereen. Various print, online and broadcast media often have southern correspondents based in and around Cork.
The other main media employer is RTÉ Cork. RTÉ (Raidió Teilifís Éireann) is Ireland’s national public service media organisation and has studios and correspondents in the city. RTÉ’s radio service started in 1926, and its television broadcasts began in 1961. Local radio stations include Cork96fm and RedFM.
Paschal Sheehy is southern editor with RTE news in Cork. He says: “I cover the region of Cork and Kerry, and it’s an incredible region to work in for news. Cork is Ireland’s second city, so a lot of news happens here. It’s got its share of crime and fi nancial stories.
“I would also argue it’s one of the most spectacular regions anywhere in the world. We have a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Skellig islands – which act as the backdrop for the recent Star Wars movie – and they’ll be in the next one too. They’re on the Wild Atlantic Way on the west coast of Ireland.
“As it’s so beautiful, we get famous people visiting all the time, so we get those stories cropping up on a fairly regular basis.”
Cork as a city has a population of just over 100,000 people – it also has West Cork, East Cork and Kerry on its doorstep.
Freelance food writer Joe McNamee says: “Cork was built on marshland – it’s named after the Irish word for marsh – and that is refl ected in the humidity. We get a lot of rain here! A lot of the streets are former canals.”PA
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Garda management.”
Cork Independent. The Southern Star, another free weekly, is based in nearby Skibbereen. Various print, online and broadcast media often have southern correspondents based in and
public service media organisation and has studios and correspondents in the city. RTÉ’s
broadcasts began in 1961. Local radio stations
news hub
Ireland’s second city o� ers crime, � nancial and celebrity stories in a spectacular setting, says Linda Harrison
Once an important part of the British Empire, the city saw waves of immigrants who added to Cork’s continual reinvention, McNamee says. “The city has a history of looking out from Ireland,” he adds.
Robert Nodwell, journalist with the Cork Independent, points to local pride in the county with the most southerly point in Ireland.
“Geographically, Cork is the largest of the 32 counties on the lusciously green island of Ireland but it could be argued that, charismatically, it is larger than all the other counties combined. The local folk take more pride in their home than a mother in her newborn baby,” he says.
He adds that sport is a major part of the city: “Corkonians are a diverse bunch, with sport one of the driving factors behind their epicness.” Former Manchester United duo Roy Keane and Denis Irwin are from Cork.
“The county is perhaps best known for its exploits in hurling, with a sea of red adorning the sweet spots of the under-renovation Pairc Ui Chaoimh on warm summer days,” he says.
“Cork has won the Liam McCarthy Cup an astonishing 30
theJournalist | 11
Paschal Sheehy RTE southern editor: “We have a nice compact city – if you walk down the main street, you’ll probably see two or three people you know. It’s vibrant, welcoming and enjoyable.”
Joe McNamee, food writer: “The quality of life is fantastic. We’re 25 minutes from the beach. There’s world-class food and produce in Cork – it’s known as the Irish food capital.”
Noel Baker, senior reporter at The Irish Examiner: “Cork took a few blows during the recession and maybe the recovery wasn’t as quick as it was in Dublin. But the situation has improved hugely, with redevelopments taking place in the city centre.”
Robert Nodwell, journalist at the Cork Independent: “It can be argued that the jewel in the crown is west Cork. The coastline and beaches are stunning, with Inchydoney Strand recently winning the Ireland’s Best Beach award for the third successive year.”
RTÉ: Ireland’s national TV and radio broadcaster has around 30 sta� based in the city centre. It also uses freelance sta� on a project-by-project basis. RTÉ Cork has a news team and production centre that work on factual programmes. Output includes RTÉ One/2, Radio One and RTÉ news.
Landmark Media: Landmark, owner of the Irish Examiner, employs about 200 sta� in Cork. The Irish Examiner’s
head o� ce is in the city plus it has an o� ce in Dublin, four political correspondents based in and around Leinster House (the parliament building in Dublin) as well as sta� in Limerick. It also uses freelancers around the country. The company produces online news platform news.ie.
IFN Newspaper Group: About 15 sta� in the city in total, including sales, at free weekly newspaper The Cork Independent.
Words from the streets
Where the work is
times, a feat surpassed only by kingpins Kilkenny, whose obsession with the hurl is a distinct advantage considering Cork’s eclectic palette when it comes to fi eld sports.”
Nodwell adds that Cork is also a strong force in Gaelic football, soccer and rugby. The incredible stretch of coastline also means that water sports are played.
C ultural events are always taking place, according to Baker. It’s also not a bad place if you’re a foodie.
“This is the part of the country where modern Irish food originated,” says
McNamee, pointing out that Ireland’s fi rst Michelin star restaurant was in Cork back in 1973.
Nodwell adds: “Without doubt the food capital of Ireland, Cork has dozens of restaurants to suit every need, with a host of new eateries lining the streets of the city over the past 18 months, while the nightlife is also brimming with character and activity.
“The infl ux of non-nationals in recent times has given the city a major lift, with thousands of young people giving Cork a vibrant boost which has enriched the culture even further.”
And how does it compare to Dublin?“In general, Cork has a few economic advantages over
Dublin as a place to work,” says Baker. “Rents and house prices are generally less.”
The city was, of course, badly hit by the recession of the mid-noughties and beyond but has been rejuvenated. Nodwell says this has happened in the past two years in particular.
“There is a plethora of pharmaceutical companies on the outskirts of the city which have helped the county get back on its feet,” he explains. “Foreign multinationals know that if you want a job done properly, then you call a Corkman.”
And it’s clear that the skill for which the Irish are famous is in plentiful supply.
“The locals are known for their boundless ability to spin a line,” says Nodwell. “Visitors to the area are able to acquire this unique talent by kissing the renowned Blarney Stone, which is in one of the most majestically maintained areas in the whole of Ireland.
“We are more than verbally profi cient – but it is the pen that we excel at. The award-winning University College Cork boasts by far the most stunning campus in the country and consistently produces academic royalty. A degree from UCC is more treasured than the sword of King Arthur himself.”
news hub
Former journalist Marvin Rees came to national prominence when he was elected mayor in May this year. The success was particularly poignant because it happened in Bristol, one of the most important slave ports
in the UK at the time of that evil transatlantic trade. After beating the incumbent, gaining a whopping 63 per
cent of the vote, Rees told me: “I’m the descendant of people who were enslaved in Jamaica and now I’m mayor of Bristol.”
Rees, 44, says his two passions are politics and journalism. And the former won out after he spent five years at the BBC.
His father was a Jamaican who came to the UK aged 12 and his white Bristol-born mother was a nursery nurse. Father Valentine worked on Bristol’s buses after black workers were given jobs after anti-racist campaigner Paul Stephenson led a famous boycott in 1963 against the bus company’s refusal to employ black or Asian drivers or conductors.
When his parents split up, Rees’s mother raised him and his younger sister, Dionne, on her own.
He did well at secondary school and went to Swansea University where he graduated in 1993 with an honours degree in economic history and politics. Rees stayed on for a couple of years to do a master’s degree – the first of two – in political theory and government.
From 1996 to 1998, he was youth coordinator for Tearfund, an international Christian aid and development agency working to end poverty and injustice in some of the world’s poorest communities.
Then he went off to the US to do outreach work for campaigning and community-organising groups – including the Sojourners, a Washington DC-based evangelical Christian social justice organisation that produces Sojourners magazine.
In his late 20s, Rees did a six-week community radio production course in the city’s poor, black St Paul’s neighbourhood where he grew up. He then returned to the US to do more voluntary work.
This experience clearly shaped Rees’s politics. Rather than using the clichés of many UK lawmakers (“hardworking families” etc), he talks in inspirational terms that link specific issues to big causes like a US politician.
He was active in the Jubilee 2000 international coalition, which aimed to wipe out $90bn of debt owed by the world’s poorest nations. Rees said the experience convinced him that the power to begin to “change the world” lay within not just politics but also “good-quality journalism”. So he wanted to do both.
Convinced that journalism and politics could change the world, Marvin Rees decided to both. Marc Wadsworth talks with him about the choices
12 | theJournalist
profile
Media to mayor
“People think ‘that’s not for someone from my background’ and therefore are not going for careers they could pursue
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His break was at BBC Radio Bristol when he came back from America in 2001. He won a BBC diversity scholarship, which he described as “a bit of a double-edged sword because it tagged me as a guy who came in on a diversity programme rather than a guy who came in with a brain”.
Rees said he enjoyed the challenges of working as “a general, jobbing broadcast journalist”, some of the time as the only black one in the newsroom. He secured a six-month attachment to BBC world affairs, the highlight of which was presenting a half-hour programme on America’s religious right for BBC Radio 4’s award-winning Crossing Continents foreign affairs documentary series in 2004. He travelled to Philadelphia and Washington DC, looking at the “US cultural wars” over, for example, whether creationism should be taught in schools. “I enjoyed doing meaty journalism,” he said.
Throughout his time at the BBC, he was an NUJ member. After he left the corporation, he freelanced for several media outlets, including The Voice, supplying the black weekly paper with West Country community news.
Rees travelled to London to do shifts on BBC Radio 5 Live and at ITN. He said: “It was tough juggling all my commitments to do that. But in the end, with all the travel it wasn’t working,”
Is that why he eventually gave up journalism to become a health service manager? Rees replied: “I haven’t really [given up journalism]. I still want to do it. But you just get to a point where you do politics or journalism.”
Despite his new job, Rees still found time to present his own Sunday evening magazine show on BBC Radio Bristol for a year.
As the Labour candidate, he was favourite to win the newly created post of Bristol mayor in 2012 but lost to independent George Ferguson. Four years later, backed by a rainbow coalition, Rees defeated Ferguson – the turnout was over 60% higher than the previous one. He was helped by his campaign’s communications director Tim Lezard, a veteran NUJ activist.
Rees says he would jump at the opportunity to do a radio show again. “I’d really love to continue to do it … if the opportunity came along, provided I could square it with the family and the day job.”
As a black ex-BBC employee, what are his views about the diversity debate championed by celebrity Lenny Henry? He says: “I think there’s a problem. But it’s not unique to journalism. What about politics, the criminal justice system,
the police, the teaching profession and academia, especially when you get to the higher levels? It’s a national problem that needs to be taken seriously and tackled.”
He describes the root causes as “lack of social mobility, educational inequality, health inequality, institutional racism, overt personal hostilities. There’s also going to be an element of self-censorship going on. People think ‘that’s not for someone from my background’ and therefore are not going for careers they could pursue.” Solutions included organisations recognising that diversity was not just “a nice thing” but was “essential to their economic viability”.
Rees adds, vehemently: “Diversity matters. It gives you an economic advantage. Organisations need to introduce good-quality work experience to benefit from the huge pool of untapped diverse talent available to them … not just fire fight today’s crises in inner-city schools.”
What about the debate around the government’s welcome inclusion of a diversity clause in its BBC charter renewal white paper – should there be employment targets enforceable by law, with penalties for executives if they are not achieved? At first, Rees is the cautious politician: “I don’t know. I wouldn’t necessarily go there.” However, using a sports metaphor – he is a keen jogger – he adds: “What I would say is it’s a matter of competence … If you have a senior leadership that is unable to recruit a diverse workforce and are not putting the right players on the pitch, that’s a matter of competence. You’d get rid of a football manager if they weren’t putting the right players on the pitch.”
Marc Wadsworth is chair of the NUJ’s Black Members Council
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Media to mayor
theJournalist | 13
journalist and author Annalena McAfee, founding editor of the Guardian Review, and who wrote her own novel about newspapers, The Spoiler in 2011, said: “I’ve only ever met one journalist who didn’t want to write a book.” And many of these books are newspaper fi ctions (I also have one in my bottom drawer). Exploring the contradictions of our working lives, in fi ction, is perhaps a way of coming to terms with living in Absurdistan. Some, like Philip Norman’s Everyone’s Gone to the Moon, set on a ridiculously exuberant Sunday Times Magazine in the 1960s, are barely disguised autobiographies.
Others, like Eric Clark’s Cold War thriller The Sleeper, attempt to unravel the close ties between the work of the journalist and the work of the spy: following leads, amassing mountains of detail, occasionally betraying people or one’s
It was the recently departed Christopher Hitchens who put his fi nger on why Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop is time and again named as journalists’ favourite novel. Even though the foreign correspondents who gather in the
fi ctional Ishmaelia to cover a will o’ the wisp war are incompetent liars, there is somewhere in Waugh’s prose an incontestable truth, argued Hitchens. Deep down every journalist knows the intellectual terrain they inhabit, as they attempt to explain an inexplicable Universe, is “Absurdistan”. As well as being fantasy, Scoop is also, said Hitchens, a work of “pitiless realism”.
Maybe that is partly why so many journalists, obsessive chroniclers of their own trade, have written novels, plays and screenplays about their lives and their work. The
Sarah Lonsdale looks at how journalists are portrayed in novels and fi lms
14 | theJournalist
Scoop by Evelyn Waugh (1938)Mendacious press pack hilariously fl oundering around in fi ctional Abyssinia. Contains the matchless satire of ‘country notes’ writing: “Feather-footed through the plashy fens passes the questing vole.”The Quiet American by Graham Greene (1955)The master of C20 English fi ction at his alienated best. World-weary foreign correspondent Thomas Fowler muddles up jealous love with political commitment in war-torn Saigon.The Pathway of the Pioneer by Dolf
Wyllarde (1906)Long-forgotten evocation of pioneer Edwardian women journalists eking out a living in cheap boarding houses – a kind of New Grub Street for women. The Upper Pleasure Garden by Gordon M. Williams (1970)Dark account of a newspaper reporter who sells his soul for the sake of a good story. Briefl y surfaces to consider his shortcomings before returning because he is trapped in “the only job where they paid you a wage for fi nding men who built the Taj Mahal out of empty beer bottles”.
Keeping Up Appearances by Rose Macaulay (1928)Twenties ‘it’ girl hides a dreadful secret – she is in fact a women’s page journalist writing inane articles such as ‘Should Clever Women Marry?’ The strain of disguising
her true self splits her personality into three. Everyone’s Gone to the Moon by Philip Norman (1995)Luscious evocation of the Sunday Times Magazine in its mid-sixties heyday. Contains an interesting and not altogether fl attering portrayal of the great Harry Evans.The Enormous Shadow by Robert Harling (1955)Action-packed Cold War thriller about a journalist on the trail of a defecting nuclear scientist aided and abetted by a Labour MP.Uncommon Danger by Eric Ambler (1937)Superb thirties thriller
wherein likable freelance Desmond Kenton becomes unwittingly involved in a Nazi plot to destabilise Romania. The Work of Oliver Byrd by Adeline Sergeant (1902)Poignant tale of a gifted female journalist who can only get on in a fast-expanding Fleet Street by pretending to be a man.Yellow Dog by Martin Amis (2003)Amis at his objectionable best. Clint Smoker, reporter of the Lark calls his readers ‘wankers’ and fatally falls for a woman whose language is even more denuded than his own.
10 Best British Novels about Journalism
depicting journalism
Fact or fi ction
own personal politics, looking for a narrative in reams of data.Still more, like the Marxist writer and journalist
Christopher St. John Sprigg, who wrote the superb 1933 thriller Fatality in Fleet Street, want to get their own back on the capitalist newspaper proprietor whose greed and rightwing politics prevent journalists from writing what they really want to say. It’s amazing how many press barons in fiction come to horrible ends: stabbed, vaporised, executed, humiliated or losing their nearest and dearest.
Having nothing better to do, I went hunting for novels written by, and about, journalists since 1900 and stopped reading at 160. Nearly two thirds – 98 – were written by former or practising journalists. That’s a lot of professional frustration.
What is fascinating is the way portrayals of journalists fluctuate over time, depending on the state of the news industry. Virtually all the Edwardian novels depict journalists as truth-seeking heroes, holding power to account, giving a voice to the underdog and even, in Guy Thorne’s 1903 Bestseller When it was Dark, saving the Christian world from anarchy and destruction. This was a time when, with an expanding popular press, a new breed of reporter, saved from
the cotton mill or farm because they could now read, took pride in writing news for the newly literate masses.
In the interwar period, things are very different: it is hard to find a journalist who isn’t a liar or a scumbag such as Hector Puncheon, the cub reporter in Dorothy L. Sayers’s detective novel Murder Must Advertise. Puncheon, keen to make it on Fleet Street, is particularly proud of the interview he conducted with a cat, who informed him how she saved a night watchman from a warehouse fire.
During the post-war period, most of the fictions written by journalists exhibit severe signs of incipient madness, bewilderment and disillusion as the popular press began to march downmarket, asking its reporter-foot-soldiers to fabricate and distort in the hunt for circulation. The best of these is the dark meditation on the trade, Gordon M. Williams’ The Upper Pleasure Garden. The hero, reporter Andrew ‘Ming’ Menzies doorsteps the bereaved, the corrupt and the innocent in equal measure, once wistfully admitting: “I wish I could go back to everybody I ever wrote about and tell them I was sorry.”
By the time we get to the twenty first century, “this moment of mind-blowing uncertainty in the evolution of
theJournalist | 15
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16 | theJournalist
know it’s never as simple or easy as that. I’ve written stories such as ‘My Dog Earns More than Me’.”
Broady hopes that the opportunities for discussion after the screenings will help explain to people the realities of journalism. “Even Spotlight, which puts journalism in a very good light shows that journalism must be paid for and that if a major news event such as 9/11 comes up then investigations must be dropped and it’s all hands to the pump.”
John Le Carré wrote, in his novel about spies and journalists, The Honourable Schoolboy: “It is not the English habit, as a rule, to accord distinction to journalists.” It is not indeed. Whether on social media, or on the big screen, journalists are too often reduced to lazy stereotypes: the shabby and untrustworthy male hack; the ambitious female reporter who sleeps with her contact or her editor, or both, to get a story. At a time when we need good journalists more than ever, how about some journalist-heroes for a change?
journalism”, as one usually sober academic commentator said recently, journalists, novelists and fi lm makers don’t know which way to turn. In James Meek’s The Heart Broke In egregious tabloid editor Val Oatman establishes a sinisterly unaccountable online celebrity-skewering website: the inference being that even at their very worst our tabloids are not as bad as the online wild west. In Kevin Macdonald’s fi lm version of State of Play (2009) the best of both worlds – the footslogging traditional hack and the cheap, fast blogger -combine to uncover political machinations on Capitol Hill. But even in this nostalgic paean to a fast-receding world of Fourth Estate newspaper journalism, reporter Cal McAffrey is morally ambiguous, torn between being a friend and a reporter.
One reason for this, says the journalist and author Eric Clark, is that ‘good’ journalists don’t make for great fi ctional characters: “People with faults, the morally compromised, are much more interesting.”
Former Guardian journalist and author James Meek agrees, saying that today, particularly in the post-Leveson era, a “preachy” do-gooder journalist character just wouldn’t be believable to audiences. Since the public mostly gets its ideas about journalism from the big screen it is clearly a problem when they are more often absorbing images of Rita Skeeter than the hard working hacks of Spotlight.
Journalist and broadcaster Rich Peppiatt whose documentary fi lm One Rogue Reporter addresses many of the inherent tensions in the news industry says: “I must have watched every single fi lm about journalists while hunting for archive footage to use in One Rogue Reporter. You do start to see a pattern: the archetype of the fl awed character recurs again and again.” He says that while the industry “does tend to attract waifs and strays and interesting people”, often fi lm portrayals tend to omit the crucial fact that “most journalists start off their careers by wanting to do the right thing. But their idealism tends to get crushed by the need for sales or by the proprietor’s politics”.
This problem of the public image of journalists is now being addressed by the Manchester and Salford NUJ branch which earlier this year launched a fi lm club showing fi lms about journalism followed by discussion of the issues the fi lms raise. So far the club has shown the American classic Ace in the Hole starring Kirk Douglas as a low rent scumbag reporter, Shattered Glass, another American fi lm about a journalist who makes up copy, and Veronica Guerin about the Irish crime reporter murdered in 1996. Viewings are open to the public at £4.00 a ticket. “The idea came up during a branch meeting when we were discussing things we could do to address the damage recent events, particularly phone hacking, have done to the reputation of journalists,” says Rachel Broady, branch joint secretary and Equality Offi cer (and another journalist who has written a novel). “There’s a lot of debate on social media about how vile journalists are, how we fail to hold power to account any more. I think people tend to assume that journalism is this romantic job where you can storm into your editor’s offi ce and say: ‘I’m not writing this rubbish!’ if you’re asked to write trivia. But we all
depicting journalism
“I’ve written stories such as ‘My Dog Earns More Than Me’
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Defence of the Realm (1985)Gabriel Byrne and Denholm Elliott star as shambolic investigative hacks who uncover a secret service plot implicating their own proprietor.The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961)A Fleet Street disaster movie. See if you can spot the cameo appearance by legendary Daily Express editor Arthur Christiansen.Citizen Kane (1941)Consistently voted by fi lm critics as the best fi lm of all time, charts the fi ctionalised life of William Randolph Hearst.Spotlight (2015)Oscar-winning account of the Boston Globe’s investigation into the
paedophile priest scandal.Ace in the Hole (1951)A scoundrel of a reporter allows a man to die following a car crash for the sake of a story.All the Presidents Men (1976)The classic account of the Washington Post’s Watergate investigations starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoff man.His Girl Friday (1940)Classic screwball comedy
with ex-husband and wife editor and star reporting outdoing each other with one-liners.Philadelphia Story (1940)Jimmy Stewart stars as the puck-like tabloid reporter who re-unites a warring celebrity couple with his piercing ability to expose the truth.State of Play (2009)Old-time newspaper hack and shiny new blogger team up to expose corruption against a backdrop of a struggling newspaper industry.Making a Living (1914)Charlie Chaplin’s fi rst Hollywood fi lm about a down-on-his-luck chancer who takes a job as a news reporter. Hilarity ensues.
The Journalist in British Fiction and Film by Sarah Lonsdale is published by Bloomsbury, £19.99 (paperback)
10 Best Films about Journalism
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theJournalist | 17
What made you become a journalist?I looked at the careers chapter in an encyclopaedia when I was 16 and fell in love with journalism. I tried it out by being editor of my sixth form school magazine and then Head of News at my university’s student radio station. I walked into PR after I started freelancing at the Government News Network at COI in 2004.
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And the best?I was President of Bradford University Students’ Union for a year, which was a full-time job. Even though it was 16 years ago, I learned so much from that one year.
What other job might you have done?Due to parental pressure, I tried studying Dentistry and Software Engineering but couldn’t continue as my heart wasn’t in it.
What are your hopes for journalism over the next � ve years?Citizen journalism that relays the true horrors in places like Syria will increase and I think that’s a good thing.
How would you like to be remembered?As easy-going, friendly, cheerful, someone who loved politics and was a pleasure to know.
When did you join the NUJ and why?In 2002 as a student member after I won the NUJ’s George Viner Memorial Fund Award. The panel urged me to be more involved in the NUJ.
Are many of your friends in the union?My journalist friends are members but the rest of my friends look at me with a sense of bewilderment if I can’t make a social event because I’m popping along to an NUJ branch meeting.
What’s been your best moment in your career?Being at the centre of ground breaking stories whether within PR or as a journalist. I was on a work placement at Channel 4 News during the fi refi ghters’ strike, I was at the Department of Health during the Swine Flu outbreak and the Junior Doctors’ dispute has been very interesting at Acas.
Who is your biggest hero?Within the NUJ - Pete Lazenby! He taught me how to write a motion to help get it passed when I was a student member of the Leeds NUJ Branch. My non-NUJ one is Barack Obama. I went to the US to campaign for him twice as I was a big fan (and wanted to keep the Republicans out of the White House).
And villain?Donald Trump.
What made you become a journalist?
encyclopaedia when I was 16 and fell in love with journalism. I tried it out by being editor of my sixth form school magazine and then Head of News at my university’s student radio station. I walked into PR after I started freelancing at the
Q&A
NUJ & MeWhich six people (alive or dead) would you invite to a dinner party?JFK, Tony Benn, Gandhi, The Queen, Malcolm X and Jesus Christ – just to see the sparks fl y.
Shumon Ali-Rahman is senior media manager at Acas
What is the worst place you’ve ever worked in?My worst job was at a supermarket warehouse but I needed it to pay the bills at university.
What advice would you give someone starting in journalism?Be inquisitive, curious, committed and competitive and just be yourself.
Martin Sabbatella’s victory was short lived. No sooner had a court allowed the head of Argentina’s media watchdog back in his offi ce than the police arrived to expel him again.
Today the doors are locked, the staff evicted and AFSCA – the body set up to oversee the implementation of a law to limit the dominance of big media corporations and create space for smaller, alternative voices – has been axed. The groundbreaking law – praised by the UN as “an example for the rest of the world” – was abolished by presidential decree.
Sabbatella’s case, which he calls “an increasingly brutal attack on freedom of expression”, is far from unique.
Mauricio Macri’s government, which took power in December 2015, has wasted no time in tackling those who opposite it and its supporters. One backer is media conglomerate Grupo Clarín, whose publications promoted and helped fi nance Macri’s presidential campaign.
Hundreds of journalists have been sacked, programmes axed and stations closed in an atmosphere described as “oppressive, suffocating and terrible for democracy”.
At Radio Nacional, prominent journalists were sacked for political attitudes evident from their social media profi les. At Grupo Indalo, 25 journalists who had been critical of the government were sacked in a “business reorganisation”. Dissidents on radio, TV and in newspapers have been targeted.
Among those was award-winning journalist Victor Hugo Morales. He was due to air a programme on the government’s fi rst month in offi ce; minutes before his show on Radio Continental – where he had worked for 30 years – management prevented him from entering the studio and fi red him.
“They want to bring journalists in line and to discipline them by pursuing those who cause them too much trouble”, says Morales . “If there is a dissenting voice like mine – confrontational, well known and credible – it must be silenced.”
He points to the government’s use of its advertising purchasing power to silence criticism. “The media needs advertising. Now you have a government that terrorises the media, withholds money owed and withdraws advertising. For the fi rst time in our history, the three major sources of advertising revenue are in the hands of one government party. It means most media organisations take the decision to follow a pro-government editorial line and stop journalists from having any say over editorial policy.”
Cynthia García, who worked with Morales, was also fi red: “We’re being kicked out because the company needs
government advertising ... No radio station in Argentina can survive without government ads. They can’t mess with Macri.”
Accused of not paying for advertising booked by the previous government, the regime is starving papers into submission. Titles and stations have been bankrupted and forced to close. Journalists at Grupo 23, Radio Rivadavia, Tiempo Argentino and others were not paid for months.
Facundo Falduto, editor of Perfi l, a newspaper based in Buenos Aires, is worried: “How can any small publication survive if it doesn’t align itself with the government?”
The president has appointed new heads of Radio Nacional and national news agency Télam, which has said it will change its editorial line.
When Macri appointed Hernán Lombardi as manager of Channel 7, the station said it would no longer air the award-winning 6, 7, 8 current affairs programme.
Cynthia García, a 6, 7, 8 journalist said: “Our programme and Victor Hugo’s questioned the role of the corporate media. We can see this as an attack on freedom of expression.”
Lombardi, head of the Federal System for Public Media and
Since its new government took power, Argentina has seen independent media outlets shut and a progressive media law axed. Jeremy Dear reports
18 | theJournalist
Payback time for media giantArgentina’s dominant media corporation, Grupo Clarín – which owns more than 250 newspapers, radio stations, TV channels and cable stations – is celebrating.
The media law it fought so hard to stop has been abolished. Restrictions on how many outlets one company can own have been scrapped.
Many believe president Mauricio Macri owes his narrow election victory to
fi nancial and media support from Clarín, which has sought to monopolise Argentinian media for a decade.
Media regulator AFSCA stood in its way; a new communications ministry was created to override AFSCA’s authority.
Martin Sabattella, head of AFSCA, says: “Monopolisation means voices other than the government’s will be harder to hear. Now the protections have gone, all
to favour their paymasters, Clarín.”
Since the law was abolished, Clarín has been able to acquire mobile phone operator Nextel.
It now controls most of the country’s communications - radio and television stations, major newspapers, cable operators, internet companies and the mobile phone and 4G market.
In some cities in Argentina, Clarín owns all media organisations.
Sti� ing dissent
International
Content – a new post – changed the directors of Radio Pública and Televisión Nacional and has begun to close programmes and sack journalists. Broadcasts by international channels such as Telesur and Russia Today have also been suspended.
“The Argentine press tides have turned dramatically since Macri was sworn in,” media analyst Marcelo García says. “Most printed voices now endorse the new government.”
Telesur correspondent Laureano Ponce adds: “The objective of Macri’s government is to silence all critical voices.”
Ricardo Forster of Carta Abierta agrees. “There’s never been so brutal a hegemony of a single outlook,” he says.
In 2009, a law sought to cap the number of outlets one media company could own. Forster says that Macri’s move to change it represents “an attack on freedom of expression”, is “unconstitutional” and “represents a return to the privileges enjoyed by monopolies in Argentina, an era we hoped was over”.
Sabatella explains: “It took 30 years of democratic debate and discussion, the involvement of millions of people and five years of legal challenges from corporations to create a truly democratic media law. All that has been wiped out.”
Macri invoked his powers to rule by decree on the grounds of “presidential necessity and urgency”. He merged the two regulatory bodies into a new entity headed by a member of his party and called on existing regulators to resign. When they refused, the police were called to prevent them entering
EITAN ABRAMOVICH
theJournalist | 19
their offices. Macri accused them of an “act of rebellion”.Edison Lanza, special rapporteur on freedom of expression
at the Organization of American States, says the action “puts the media watchdog back in the times when governments had full control. What’s happening is an infraction of democracy. We’re talking about media outlets, not beer companies. Media concentration hurts democracy. Strong democracies put limits on media concentration.”
Frank LaRue adds “It’s media consolidation, rather than direct government censorship, that threatens the freedom of the press and speech the most today.”
As legal and constitutional cases rumble on, the battle continues. Upwards of 20,000 people have marched in defence of Sabbatella and the media law. When Victor Hugo Morales was fired, demonstrators filled Buenos Aires’ main square. #VHMCensurado trended globally. There have been strikes and protests over unpaid wages and sackings. In June, more than 3,000 people marched against “dismissals, censorship, low wages and prosecutions designed to silence critical voices”.
Sabattella says the fight is central to Argentina’s future. “Democracy needs us to wage the fight; freedom of expression needs it. We are ready.”
Jeremy Dear is deputy general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists.
International
When a freelance journalist received an email from an editor asking if she could write some articles, she said yes and enquired about the fee. “There’s no fee,” he said. “We’ve got people queuing up to write for us.”
She didn’t join the queue. For far too many freelances, it’s a familiar story.
The growth of the internet has seen not only budgets slashed but also journalists being asked to work for free, which is hitting not only quality but also the future of the entire industry.
A report in 2015 by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford showed that one in five journalists have gross yearly earnings of less than £19,200 and are on incomes either close to or below the “living wage”.
The number of journalists working online has risen from 26% to 52% since 2012 – their average wage is significantly lower than those working in print.
A survey by Press Gazette also showed that two-thirds of journalists earning less than £15,000 a year were freelance.
NUJ freelance organiser John Toner says: “All journalists are finding there are would-be publishers who cannot grasp the concept of paying for work. Photography has been particularly badly hit, as there are now many publishers who would prefer to publish inferior quality images than pay a photographer for professional work. This damages the credibility of our industry.”
With editors often expecting journalists to provide images for free, it also puts writers in an uncomfortable position with their colleagues.
In his book The Myth of Meritocracy, journalist James Bloodworth explores why “working-class kids still get working-class jobs”.
“If anyone is serious about diversity in journalism, they should be paying writers,” he says. “For a budding working-class journalist, getting paid is often the difference between sticking at it and doing something else.”
Having encountered many trained journalists who dropped out early on because they were not being paid, he says: “It tends to be journalists from working-class homes who feel the strain first, even if they possess more ability than their middle-class counterparts.
“Ensuring people are paid for their work is a really basic starting point for any campaign to get more working-class kids into journalism, especially when so many local newspapers – which once offered a route in for working-class kids – are closing down.”
In 2013, a report by the National Council for the Training of
Should we go public when employers offer little or no pay, asks Ruth Addicott
20 | theJournalist
low pay, no pay
Is it time to name and shame?
MAK / ALAM
Y STOCK PH
OTO
Journalists revealed that 82% of new entrants to journalism had done an internship, of which 92% were unpaid.
One writer gave up his job in a shop and flat in Leicester to spend a year sleeping on a friend’s floor in London to do an unpaid internship. He could not claim benefits as he had given up his job, and there was no guarantee of work at the end of it.
However, it is not just students who are affected. Sarah Drew Jones, a journalist and editor for 25 years, says freelances are increasingly being asked to work for free or for ‘peppercorn rates’ especially as the blogger culture grows more powerful. At one point, she was asked to blog for an international brand in exchange for a notebook.
“In what other industry do trained, talented, professional workers have to ASK if they’re going to be paid before they agree to do a job?” she says. “When you have edited national magazines, books, a weekly newspaper supplement and interviewed global celebrities, it’s jarring to be told that writing a 1,000-word piece for free will be ‘good for [your] reputation and great exposure’. Turning down unpaid work is not about ego but fairness.”
Sarah adds that brands or PR agencies also ask her to “look over a proposal and share any thoughts” because it may lead to exciting work in the future”.
There have been calls on Facebook recently for journalists to name and shame. The No 1 Freelance Ladies’ Buddy Agency, which has 3,000 members, is regarded as an invaluable
NUJ pay platforms include the Freelance Fees Guide and the Rate For The Job.
In 2013, the NUJ campaigned to get payments for intern journalists and for those asked to stay in a work experience position for longer than they had anticipated.
The Unite union created a web tool for reporting employers suspected of not paying the minimum wage to interns to HMRC. It worked with the NUJ
and other unions and with Intern Aware to encourage employers to pledge to pay at least the minimum wage to interns.
In 2015, the NUS and Intern Aware set up a whistleblowing hotline for reporting unpaid internships.
A free rights for interns smartphone app, which has been produced by the TUC, allows interns to check if they are entitled to pay.
The Stop Working For Free Facebook group
has more than 20,000 members and offers support to journalists and photographers.
The International Federation of Journalists supports naming those that offer good work experience as well as those that do not.
IFJ general secretary Anthony Bellanger says unions should seek workplace agreements, adding: “A best of/worst of database would allow young workers to make informed choices.”
Help to tackle poor pay
source for contacts, commissions and case studies, but the group’s ethos is clear: “No naming, no shaming, no bitching, no exceptions.”
The admin team (themselves volunteers and working journalists) introduced the rule after members began complaining of late-paying clients.
The team issued a joint statement, saying: “We believe naming and shaming is a bad idea as what, in the heat of the moment. can seem utterly justified can actually turn out to be inaccurate, embarrassing and potentially very damaging – to both the person you name/shame and to yourself – if it turns out that you got your facts wrong.”
They point out that posts on a closed Facebook page can be cited in defamation proceedings and say the team do not have the time or expertise to check each case out.
When award-winning freelance investigative journalist, Nate Thayer was asked to write a 1,200-word article “by the end of the week” for The Atlantic magazine and told there would be no fee, he published the exchange on his blog.
When James Bloodworth was asked to write an unpaid piece for the Huffington Post (ironically in relation to his book that was about working for free), he took to Twitter.
Bloodworth believes the problem has escalated since the recession with an increasing mindset of “think yourself lucky you have any work at all”.
He also believes journalists fear blowing the whistle in case it affects their chances of getting published.
Another freelance (who does not wish to be named), says: “If people aren’t being paid or are being paid badly, they don’t want to talk about it. We all want to appear successful, and there’s an assumption that earnings equate to ability. That’s rarely true, but publications like the Huff Post promote the idea that if you’re struggling financially, it’s because you’re a bad writer.” fter losing 80% of her magazine clients in the recession, that freelance was forced to accept lower and lower rates, until the company eventually changed their terms to “payment on publication only”. “I had to draw a line somewhere, so I walked away,” she says. “It’s a pattern I’ve seen over and over.”
Freelances are increasingly being told there is no budget for celebrity interviews and reviews as PR companies provide them for free. “I’ve even had PRs approach the magazines I’m working for and offer the editor the interview I’d pitched for free,” says one writer.
The fact that many journalists now earn a side income from PR complicates the issue further.
Toner has floated the idea of a national minimum “wage” for freelances, but says calculating this would have difficulties and not all freelances would welcome it.
“At EU level, we have been lobbying for collective bargaining rights for freelances but, if that does come to
low pay, no pay
Is it time to name and shame?
theJournalist | 21
pass, it is likely the UK would be excluded as a result of the referendum vote,” he says.
Unions such as Bectu are also making representations to the Low Pay Commission and calling for more resources at HMRC to combat non-compliance with minimum wage regulations.
Until these changes come into effect, it is up to journalists to know their worth.
“Naming and shaming may not be the perfect answer, but it is AN answer and we have to try to stem the tide,” says Sarah. “Journalists are angry about it, and the way it’s changing media, and we need to take action before we have no power left at all.”
22 | theJournalist
Preparing yourself for a career in Journalism is all about seizing opportunities. Being
reluctant to take risks and playing it safe is a guaranteed way to set yourself up to fail.
Luckily, opportunity is all around us and chances to try something new and fi ll your CV come along often for student journalists like myself; if you know how to spot them, you’re halfway there.
There are plenty of opportunities at university. Student media is always brilliant for the CV and provides a very helpful way to ease yourself into the habit of writing copy for a deadline. As well as being helpful in increasing your time-management skills, writing for the student newspaper helps you get used to the idea that strangers will read your work and will, without doubt, have an opinion on it. I’ve contributed to the University of Portsmouth’s student newspaper for the entirety of my time there and I have found that, with time, my articles have become less clunky and now fl ow much more smoothly.
If you’re fortunate enough to attend a university that hosts NCTJ exams, it’s crucial that you try and obtain the NCTJ diploma while the university is willing to pay for you to sit the exams. Although the assessments can be gruelling and topics like public affairs and essential media law require a lot of revision, it is important to understand that these are professional qualifi cations and every little helps when you’re compiling your CV for future work. I made the mistake of not taking these qualifi cations seriously in my fi rst year and, as a result, I had to
retake essential media law in my second year.
Although I’m only two qualifi cations away from obtaining the diploma, I could have saved myself a lot of aggravation and work had I taken the NCTJ exams more seriously when I started university. Journalism students don’t have the indulgence of spending a year getting along by the skin of their teeth with pass marks and going out every night – as soon as we get to university, it’s game on.
As well as seizing chances within university, it is important to seek opportunities outside it.
Whether online or in print, local media is a great place to start when it comes to compiling a portfolio of published work to show to potential employers.
Local publications are often looking for unpaid freelance contributors (see also Page 20) and this is also a fantastic way to practise your writing. I have been added to the contributor list of local lifestyle magazine Mayhem! and wrote a piece for it on how manners open doors. This kind of work is great for honing your writing skills. The About My Area website is also always looking for local students to contribute and is probably available anywhere in the country.
Experience in a workplace is also important. I’ve spent time at GT magazine and Kazoo PR. As well as being brilliant additions to your CV, work placements are useful for learning how to navigate a journalistic or public relations environment.
Although interning at GT helped my hone my writing skills, my internship at Kazoo was especially helpful in improving my administrative skills. You would be surprised how simple activities like covering the reception desk and putting together media lists are good practice for when you graduate. Internships are also great for building your networks and forging professional connections with employers and perhaps future colleagues.
We often get hung up on missed opportunities and chances we never took, but it’s always important
to remember that we cannot go back and change what’s in the past and opportunities are everywhere.
Always bear in mind that, if your job applications aren’t successful, you should never take it personally. Journalism is very competitive; even unpaid internships can be hard to line up sometimes. Every position will most likely have a lot of applicants; you will probably have to face some rejection before you land your break into journalism.
Filling your CV with as much experience as possible is important if you are to stand out from the crowd. It’s vital to remember that persistence is king and, while it’s important to take risks and chances when they come along, you must go out and search for them with as much nerve and enthusiasm as possible.
Ryan Smith says seeking out opportunities while at university is essential to landing a journalism job
� rst person
StartingOut
@smith_ry
“Writing for the student newspaper helps you get used to the idea that strangers will read your work and, without doubt, have an opinion on it
”
Some more good news for newspapers. Independent research for newsbrands promotion organisation
Newsworks, based on no fewer than 500 econometric case studies, shows that on average advertising with newspapers triples overall return on investment.
At the same time, newspapers – more than any other medium – have a multiplier effect when combined with other media. Add newspaper advertising to a television campaign and the effectiveness of TV doubles, while online display becomes four times more effective.
We have long felt instinctively that the length of time people spend reading a newspaper and concentrating on the content surely must have a greater impact than the fl eeting images online.
Now we have some serious evidence to back up instinct.
The argument now goes that the pendulum has swung too far away from print in the sometimes unthinking direction of digital. Between 2013 and 2015, newspapers’ share of display advertising fell from 11.4 per cent to 7.6 per cent.
The research, by Benchmarking, part of the Omnicom media group, suggested that adding newspapers to a campaign increases effectiveness by: 5.7 times for the fi nance sector; three times for travel; 2.8 times for retail; 1.7 for automotive; and 1.2 times for fast-moving consumer goods.
A swing of the pendulum back in the direction of print, a correction, is therefore overdue. It is in the fi nancial interests of advertisers.
However, there is just one small problem. Among the industrial sectors
making a mad dash for digital has been – the newspaper industry.
Just as proof emerges of the effectiveness of print, it seems destined to become ultimately less effective because of the relentless decline in newspaper circulations.
The Independent is hardly in a position to take advantage of the commercial effectiveness of print any more. And there is a grave danger that others could march into a digital-only world whistling cheerfully.
Has the newspaper industry put as much effort into shoring up its print circulation as it has on the admittedly necessary involvement in digital?
Rather than patting itself on the back over its newly found advertising effectiveness, it should be preserving that very effectiveness by making a greater effort to boost newspaper sales.
There is also a big downside to this newspaper effectiveness – the right-wing tabloids were all too effective as uncritical cheerleaders for Brexit. They did not create social alienation in working-class areas but they exploited it. Over many years, they undermined the reputation of the EU, often with daft, untrue stories.
They also carried anti-migrant stories by the bucketful and magnifi ed the Brexit campaigning of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express all wallowed in “independence day” style coverage even though they must have at least suspected that Brexit would make the circumstances of
8For the latest updates from Raymond Snoddy on Twittergo to @raymondsnoddy
newspaper circulations.The Independent is hardly in a
position to take advantage of the commercial effectiveness of print any more. And there is a grave danger that others could march into a digital-only world whistling cheerfully.
Has the newspaper industry put as much effort into shoring up its print circulation as it has on the admittedly necessary involvement in digital?
Rather than patting itself on the back over its newly found advertising effectiveness, it should be preserving that very effectiveness by making a greater effort to boost
There is also a big downside
effectiveness – the right-wing tabloids were all too effective as uncritical cheerleaders for Brexit. They did not create social alienation in working-class areas but they exploited it. Over many years, they undermined the reputation of the EU, often with daft, untrue stories.
They also carried anti-migrant stories by the bucketful and magnifi ed the Brexit campaigning of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express all wallowed in “independence day” style coverage even though they must have at least suspected that Brexit would make the circumstances of
For the latest updates from Raymond Snoddy on Twitter
on media
the disgruntled very much worse.Very effective indeed.With general elections – at least until
now – newspapers were widely believed to have only a marginal impact because people leaned on families, friends and traditional political loyalties. With such loyalties breaking down, encouraged by the divisive referendum campaign, turmoil could be the enduring shape of the future.
In the midst of such turmoil, newspapers, alongside social media, could grow in infl uence in coming years.
Very effective. Damnably effective.
Newspapers can be key to campaigning
Print proves to be infl uential – for now, says Raymond Snoddy
theJournalist | 23
“Has the newspaper industry put as much e� ort into shoring up its print circulation as it has on the admittedly necessary involvement in digital?
”
history support the views of the Party.Exploring a dystopian future where
individualism and independent thought are outlawed, the show follows Winston as he begins writing a diary and falls in love under the watchful eye of Big Brother.http://1984theplay.co.uk
FILMThe ConfessionOn limited release from 12 AugustFrom supporting the Bosnian mujahideen to being imprisoned in Bagram and Guantanamo, from the rebel training camps in Syria to the cells of Belmarsh prison in Britain, Moazzam Begg (pictured) has experienced a generation of confl ict. He has never been convicted of a crime nor brought to trial.
This is his fi rsthand account of what forced that confession – a story of terror, torture and rendition. It looks at the rise of modern jihad, its descent into terror and the disastrous reaction
of the West.http://dogwoof.com/theconfession
BOOKThe Day the Music Died: a Life Lived Behind The Lens
by Tony GarnettConstable, hardback, £20Tony Garnett – working-class hero, socialist revolutionary and ultimately Hollywood producer – is responsible for some of the most memorable television to appear on our screens. Up The Junction, Cathy Come Home and This Life were landmark dramas that changed the way television was made and, in some cases, changed society. He pioneered the gritty social
24 | theJournalist
artswith attitude
Comedy inspired by nail bars and tax avoiders, 1984 is back after its international run, Moazzam Begg’s confession, gritty realism on screen, traditional Irish music, the Green Man Festival, industrial photographs, and war, peace and knitting
COMEDYMarcus Brigstocke: Why The Long Face?In Edinburgh, then on tourAusterity, Donald Trump, cheese strings, George Osborne, being single, Isis, the Daily Mail, tax avoiders and the inexplicable popularity of nail bars has prompted comedian and broadcaster Marcus Brigstocke to hit the road with Why The Long Face?
He follows a 10-night run in Edinburgh in August with a nationwide tour in September, boasting that during his last tour “there was a fi re and almost no one died”. www.marcusbrigstocke.com
THEATRE1984 Until 29 OctoberPlayhouse Theatre, London NUJ member George Orwell’s classic tale of government surveillance and censorship returns to London following its acclaimed international tour in Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan’s hugely successful adaptation.
Set in the year of its title and inspired by the novel’s appendix, this stage version charts the story of Winston Smith, an employee of the Ministry of Truth who spends his working days rewriting newspaper articles to make
Some of the
best things to
see and do with a
bit of political bite
For listings email:
of the West.http://dogwoof.com/theconfession
BOOKThe Day the Music Died: a Life Lived Behind The Lens
“there was a fi re and almost
Orwell’s classic tale of government
arts
On the eve of the First World War, 66 pupils in a rural Norfolk school walked out of their classroom in support of their sacked teachers. They never returned.
This September, musicians will be singing their praises from a stage at the school built to replace the one they abandoned during the longest strike in UK history.
This year’s Burston Strike School Rally takes place on 4 September with music by Steve White and the Protest Family (pictured) Attila the Stockbroker and bands from the NASUWT and the Banner Theatre.
Speakers include TUC president Liz Snape, ASLEF general secretary Mick Whelan and, at the time of going to press, shadow chancellor John McDonnell.
White told Arts with Attitude: “We’ve often said that you’re as likely to � nd us singing on a picket line as you are to � nd us in a music venue, so performing at the Burston Strike School Rally will be like a home from home for us. As a band of trade unionists and activists, we’re honoured to be part of rally.”
Teachers Tom and Kitty Higdon were dismissed on 1 April 1914, found guilty by the Norfolk Education Authority of gross discourtesy after Kitty was
reprimanded for lighting a � re without permission; she had lit it so children who had walked three miles to school in the rain could dry their clothes.
However, the couple’s real crime was to complain to the authorities about the condition of the school itself, namely the damp, poor heating and lighting, lack of ventilation and general unhygienic conditions.
Of the school’s 72 pupils, 66 went on strike in support of their teachers. The authorities cracked down on parents, but truancy � nes were paid by well-wishers as the strike became a central issue for trade unionists and school reformers.
Lessons resumed on the village green and, later, in a local carpenter’s premises until a national appeal, supported by unions, raised enough money to build a new school. Lessons continued there until 1939.
The rally is one of several UK Labour movement cultural events, along with the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival in Dorset, the Women Chainmakers’ Festival in the West Midlands, the Matchwomen’s Festival in London and Merthyr Rising in the Welsh valleys.
https://burstonstrikeschool.wordpress.com/2016-rally/
Rally
Songs for the longest strike
by Tim Lezard
theJournalist | 25
realism in TV drama that we now take for granted, and the notion that politically aware work can be both compelling and help to effect change.
The Day The Music Died is a unique and revealing behind-the-scenes story of his battles to bring brilliant, unforgettable programmes to the screen – a gripping account of the drama involved in making drama.http://tonygarnett.info/the-day-the-music-died/
MUSICMasters of Tradition17-21 August Bantry, County CorkMasters of Tradition has become one of the most popular festivals in the Irish traditional music calendar. Curated by the internationally renowned fi ddler Martin Hayes (pictured below with guitarist Dennis Cahill, who will also perform at the event), it celebrates traditional music in its purest form and creates the space to showcase the heart of the tradition.
Taking place in St Brendan’s Church and the intimate, candle-lit library of Bantry House, the concerts enable audience members to hear unforgettable collaborations between some of traditional music’s fi nest performers. www.westcorkmusic.ie/mastersoftradition/
Green Man FestivalCrickhowell, Powys, Wales18-21 August Green Man is an independent music and arts festival in the Brecon Beacons. Now in its 14th year, it has evolved into
artsa four-day, 20,000 capacity event which includes live music, literature, fi lm, comedy, theatre and poetry. Ceilidhs, all-night bonfi res and secret gigs all add to the festival’s unique identity. Known for its non-corporate, ethical approach, it is the largest contemporary music and arts festival in Wales.
This year’s line-up includes Belle and Sebastian, James Blake, Wild Beasts, White Denim, Battles, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Jason Isbell, Julia Holter, Michael Rother, Floating
Points, Songhoy Blues, Ezra Furman, Jagwar Ma, Cate Le Bon, Fat White Family, Miracle Legion, The
Besnard Lakes, Nikki Lane, Phil Cook and the Guitarheels, Joan Shelley, Meilyr Jones, Daniel Norgren, Trader Horne, Formation, Mothers, Sunfl ower Bean, Kelly Lee Owens, Palace Winter, Ardyn and the Deep Throat Choir.www.greenman.net
EXHIBITIONSWool Against Weapons – 100 Years of Women Campaigning for PeaceScottish Storytelling Centre, EdinburghAn exhibition highlighting the work of women campaigning for peace, starting with those who tried to bring harmony in the First World War – including Edinburgh’s Chrystal Macmillan – and ending with
samples of the Scottish section of 2014’s Wool Against Weapons seven-mile long peace scarf.http://tinyurl.com/wool-weapon
Grafters: Industrial Society in Image and WordUntil 18 SeptemberPeople’s History Museum, Manchester Grafters documents the rise in workers recording their lives in industry, bringing in a whole new era of social documentary photography. Then, as British industry went into decline, the exhibition examines the trend for photographers to journey to the gritty north to capture bleak post-industrial ruins, contributing to this stereotypical image of the area.
Chris Burgess, curator at the People’s History Museum, says: “At the heart of this exhibition is the worker, but what the worker actually represents changes throughout the images. Initially, we saw the exhibition as one of history, charting working lives in a Britain that now seems distant.
“However, Grafters is so much more than a memorial to industrial life – it offers an evolutionary record of working life. The exhibition’s most recently taken photograph is from 18 December 2015 of the last shift from Kellingley, the last deep pit in the UK.
“Grafters questions what the term work and pride in it mean in 21st century Britain.”http://www.phm.org.uk
Green Man is an independent
Holter, Michael Rother, Floating Points, Songhoy Blues, Ezra Furman, Jagwar Ma, Cate Le Bon, Fat White Family, Miracle Legion, The
arts
A musical whirlwind is unleashed this autumn as The Tuts tour their debut album Update Your Brain.
The uncompromising pop-punk trio from west London are noted for their impassioned songs about sexism, feminism and everyday life-isms.
They have appeared at
Glastonbury’s Left Field and played with The Undertones, The Saints, Thee Faction, Adam Ant and The Selecter, whose singer Pauline Black described them as “infectious guitar-led pop wrapped around � ery drums, sharp tongues and splendid harmonies”.
Bass player Harriet
Doveton told Arts with Attitude: “Releasing this album is the most important thing we’ve done in our lives and we’ve done it ALL o� our own backs.
“We can’t wait for everyone to hear it and to play some sweaty, hair- whipping, out-of-control live shows around the UK.
“We are a three-tone, intersectional feminist girl band. Just us existing is a political statement. So jump on board and come see us live in your town!”
The Update Your Brain tour starts on 14 September.
http://tinyurl.com/tuts-update-brain
Book review
Spotlight
The Tuts: ‘just us existing is a political statement’
It was while he was working at the Financial Times that Matt Kennard began to feel a sense of deep disquiet about the massive concentrations of private wealth in corporations, banks and insurance companies. Hearing about a sit-in at the Bank of America, he went to take a look.
Since then, he has travelled the world to chronicle the rise of corporate power and the resistance to it.
Kennard recently spoke about his book, The Racket: a Rogue Reporter vs The American Elite, at Bookmarks Bookshop in London, alongside his father, photomontage artist Peter Kennard. This was the � rst time
they had appeared together to discuss their work.
He said: “The people who really run our country – the racket – are a small collection of � nanciers, bankers and businessman. They don’t do losing. They back all the horses. And, if they don’t back you – well, good luck.
“They own our media, our economy, our housing, increasingly our schools and hospitals and, most importantly, you owe them money. That’s your credit card and mortgage.”
Kennard is no conspiracy theorist. Whatever you think about his conclusions, this is a � rst-class piece of radical investigative journalism.
The Racket: a Rogue Reporter vs The American Elite, Matt Kennard, £9.99, published by Zed Books, Review by Andrea Butcher
The Racket: the power of the secret global elite
I’d cut down an alley to avoid the driving
rain when, through the darkness, I
saw two wide fi gures step out in front
of me, blocking my path. I turned.
Another sinister form obstructed any
retreat. This was it. I knew what was coming.
The taller of the front two walked slowly towards
me until his face was inches from mine. He lifted a
card and held it for me to read.
“NUJ,” he said. “Code of practice enforcement.
Come with me.”
They faced me over a bare table in a sparse
basement in the road of the Gray Inn. The thickset
fi gure in the middle drew on a cigarette. After rubbing
out his doodle, he lit up. He began quietly enough.
“You covered the EU referendum.”
I nodded.
“So. You know the rules. Article one. You’re obliged
‘to uphold the right of the public to be informed’.
Article two. You ‘strive to ensure information
disseminated is accurate and fair’. Is that right?”
“Yes, well …”
“So did you write that leaving the EU would mean
we’d have an extra £350 million a week to spend on
hospitals and schools?”
“Well, yes. I was reporting …”
“And did you subsequently write that leaving the
EU would lead to recession, job losses and wage cuts?”
“The thing is …”
“And did you write that leaving the EU was going to
lead to a fall in house prices?”
I looked up indignantly. “No, I did not. I’ve never
worked for the Daily Mail.”
They checked their paperwork, exchanged glances
and continued.
“But the fi rst two, you did?”
“Yes, but …”
“They contradict each other.” He leant over the
table. “So they can’t both be right, can they? At the very
minimum, half of what you wrote was misinforming
the public. Half at least was inaccurate and unfair.”
“Yes but …”
“Articles one and two.”
I was about to plead insanity when he continued.
“Article four. Did you ‘differentiate between fact
and opinion’?”
“I had a go. But I could hardly include a par saying,
‘The bogus information offered to me and contained
in this report is, in fact, pure speculation and
contains nothing that should be considered in any
way to resemble certitudes or even probabilities’.’’
“Why not?”
“It would never have got past the subs.”
“We’re dealing with them later. So is that your
defence? ‘The subs made me do it’?”
“It was a diffi cult time. Facts were as scarce as chins
in the royal enclosure at Ascot racecourse. So I just
wrote down what each side told me.”
He sneered. “Don’t try that one on me.” He
leaned back. The sharp-suited, white-faced fi gure
to his right read: “A person is guilty of libel if he
or she publishes untrue allegations made by
another person, if those allegations are false.
It is no defence to claim that the accused was
only quoting someone else.”
I was getting desperate.
“If I’d stuck to facts, I’d
have had no copy to fi le. I
couldn’t even say who was
on which side, especially afterwards.”
They didn’t look impressed.
“After the election, were you responsible for the
article headed ‘Who is to blame for the result?’ ”
I knew I was fi nished. I nodded, wordless.
“You said in that piece that the following
people were to blame: Jeremy Corbyn; Mr J
Corbyn, the younger brother of climate
physicist Piers Corbyn; the MP for Islington
North; and Jeremy Corbyn.” He paused.
“Do you think this was fair and accurate?”
I sobbed. “Only in comparison with the Chilcot
report,” I confessed.
Like an unfi nished article, I awaited sentence.
When it came, it was horrendous.
“By ignoring the union’s code of practice, you
have shown yourself to be unprincipled, deprived
of morality, careless, irresponsible and a scar on
mankind. So what are we to do with you?”
I held my breath. The verdict was devastating.
“You are to leave the scribbling profession as of
today,” the chairman intoned. “And begin work as
an estate agent on Monday.”
And through the exit go the facts
in this report is, in fact, pure speculation and
contains nothing that should be considered in any
way to resemble certitudes or even probabilities’.’’
“It would never have got past the subs.”
“We’re dealing with them later. So is that your
defence? ‘The subs made me do it’?”
“It was a diffi cult time. Facts were as scarce as chins
in the royal enclosure at Ascot racecourse. So I just
wrote down what each side told me.”
He sneered. “Don’t try that one on me.” He
leaned back. The sharp-suited, white-faced fi gure
to his right read: “A person is guilty of libel if he
or she publishes untrue allegations made by
another person, if those allegations are false.
It is no defence to claim that the accused was
only quoting someone else.”
I was getting desperate.
have had no copy to fi le. I
couldn’t even say who was
on which side, especially afterwards.”
They didn’t look impressed.
“After the election, were you responsible for the
article headed ‘Who is to blame for the result?’ ”
I knew I was fi nished. I nodded, wordless.
“You said in that piece that the following
people were to blame: Jeremy Corbyn; Mr J
Corbyn, the younger brother of climate
physicist Piers Corbyn; the MP for Islington
North; and Jeremy Corbyn.” He paused.
“Do you think this was fair and accurate?”
I sobbed. “Only in comparison with the Chilcot
Like an unfi nished article, I awaited sentence.
When it came, it was horrendous.
“By ignoring the union’s code of practice, you
have shown yourself to be unprincipled, deprived
of morality, careless, irresponsible and a scar on
mankind. So what are we to do with you?”
I held my breath. The verdict was devastating.
“You are to leave the scribbling profession as of
today,” the chairman intoned. “And begin work as
an estate agent on Monday.”
Chris Proctor comesa cropper over EU claims and counterclaims
26 | theJournalist
and � nally
theJournalist | 27
STEVE BELL THE OWNERS
There is something missing from this edition of The Journalist, which I think is a great shame – the letters and feedback pages.
For some time our letters have been thin on the ground and we’ve tried to boost the contributions by inviting short comments and printing the tweets we receive.
But sadly this time there weren’t enough contributions of any sort to � ll even a half page, the minimum space we could run.
Other magazines similar to ours have unfortunately had to dispense with their letters and comment pages. But I think to do that would be a real setback for The Journalist.
So I’d like to encourage as many people as possible to send their comments and observations to [email protected] or tweet to @mschrisbuckley please. As an incentive we will pay £30 for the best letter or extended comment (max 200 words) and £10 for the best tweet.
I know that busy working journalists have little time but I do hope we can keep our letters and comment section alive.
Christine BuckleyEditor
A call-out for your comments
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