What the cuts mean for British journaliam

26 Oct 2010 | Uncategorized

If you ever imagined that, over time, British journalism would inevitably adjust to the society it serves by becoming less white and less middle class, now is probably the time to abandon that idea.

For a few exciting years it looked as though improvement might be on the way, but sharp increases in university fees will surely put paid to that. Like it or not, for at least another generation your news and current affairs will continue to come to you through that white, middle-class filter.

The window of hope that is now closing was opened by the universities, which over the past 20 years quietly took over responsibility for most journalism education after the big news organisations, national and regional, cut down or shut down their training schemes to save money.

At first the media studies departments did the teaching, but now universities teach journalism as a subject in its own right, often at both undergraduate and MA levels. This transformation has been almost entirely state-funded, which means the news industry pulled off the clever trick of nationalising its own training.

But if this change has given employers a free, trained talent pool (they ask for their applicants to be “newsroom-ready”, like so many supermarket chickens), it has also had the potential to bring valuable long-term change to the industry.

For one thing, universities teach students to think about journalism as well as do it; they teach about the ethics, responsibilities, history, politics and social function of the job – never high priorities when the industry was training its own. Call me an idealist, but I think that could only improve the news culture in this country.

For another, the universities have operated open, transparent recruitment and admissions policies which gave applicants from ethnic minorities and from poorer backgrounds a far better chance than before of getting an education in journalism.

There are drawbacks. Experience of the workplace is important in journalism education, as was recognised in the old sandwich courses. Universities can’t provide that themselves, or at least they can’t provide enough of it, and the result is the journalism work experience phenomenon, a powerful filter that halts the progress of many who can’t afford to work for several months for no pay.

None the less, university journalism departments have been quietly turning out able, independent-minded, thoughtful graduates who, though they are by no means a perfect reflection of the society they live in, collectively reflect it far, far better than the industry itself does. In other words, more people from poor backgrounds, more people from the ethnic minorities, more disabled people, more women…

The idealist in me fondly imagines this generation, over time, moving through the system and helping to change the way that British society sees and understands itself.

But a big hike in university fees, combined with other effects of the reforms proposed by the government and Lord Browne, will cut this precious experiment short.

Of all the professions, journalism is surely among the most vulnerable when it comes to the kind of touch cost-benefit analysis that school leavers and parents will have to do in a world of higher fees. Undeniably, the news industry is in existential crisis: yes, it offers thrilling new possibilities, but it is distinctly short on security.

In this environment, whatever Vince Cable and Nick Clegg may say, poorer students — by which I mean students who are not middle class — are more likely to back away than risk the big debts that will accompany a journalism degree.

The next generation of journalists, therefore, will probably have just the same social profile as the generation currently supplying us with news, even though the country around us will have changed.

It reminds me of those generals in the Crimean War whose mindset equipped them to fight only in the way that Wellington had fought Napoleon 40 years earlier. They made a terrible hash of it.

Brian Cathcart is professor of journalism at Kingston University London.