Professionals or Newsworkers Analysing Journalism Week 3 Aims

Professionals or Newsworkers? Analysing Journalism Week 3

Aims • To review key changes in working practices for journalists • To assess whether journalism can be described as a profession • To debate the future of investigative journalism

Defining a Profession A Profession = a vocation or calling especially one that involves some branch of advanced learning Oxford English Dictionary Using this definition are journalists professionals?

Defining a Profession “Professionals…gain their position largely from their possession of “credentials” – degrees, diplomas and other qualifications. As a whole they enjoy relatively secure and renumerative careers and their separation from people in more routine non-manual jobs has probably grown more pronounced. ” - Anthony Giddens (sociologist) Using this definition are journalists professionals?

Professions and Power • Max Weber • Doctors and lawyers use professionalisation to secure their “market position” • E. g. British Medical Association established in 1857 • BMA claims to protect the public but actually controls the supply of medical labour Another sociologist

Journalism and Professionalisation • Like the NUJ and RCN, journalists have never secured the equivalent of the 1857 Medical Registration Act • Traditionally weak market position • Job Insecurity • Relatively low pay • Unionisation rather professionalisation

Occupational tensions • 1907 split over the question of professional status between NUJ and Institute of Journalists • Hardt argues employers encouraged the professional image in order to weaken unions • 1977 Royal Commission worried that ‘lowly paid, lowly educated’ journalists were being radicalised • But the 1977 Commission also claimed that journalists were ‘more professional’ I. e. ‘a man or woman of integrity, judgement and a sense of vocation’ (see Bromley ‘Journalism Reader’)

Occupational tensions • Bromley argues journalists mystify their own position – exaggerate claims to professional autonomy and proximity to stars and celebrity • The ‘heroic model’ e. g. Bernstein and Woodward • The ‘celebrity’, high profile model

But for many … • Bromley argues – polarisation between elite journalists and majority • NCTJ training developed in 1950 s – emphasised work place craft skills, not “professional knowledge” • Pay continues to be relatively low for the majority

Pay and Conditions of Journalists in the UK

Some data… • Starting pay: £ 12, 000 to £ 15, 000 • Average salary: £ 24, 500 • For those with over 10 years experience: £ 22, 000 to £ 39, 000 • National average wage: £ 26, 000 • 80% of journalists do not earn enough to get a mortgage • Graduate Journalists starting pay £ 7000 less than graduate average

From journalist to newsworker? • Hardt: ‘significant changes in the newsroom culture of the press’ • Growing corporate control over news organisations • Increased pressure to commodify news • Pressures to reduce staff costs • Bureaucratisation • Introduction of new technologies

From journalist to newsworker? • • Changes in the work routine: multi-skilling De-specialization Impact of convergence V-Js may have to use cameras, check sound, edit video and audio, edit copy, and manage live data stream / transmission • This could be seen as skilling up? Discuss!!

From journalist to newsworker? • But there are losses, too • According to Hardt: enhanced technical expertise in information retrieval • At the cost of a decline in ‘critical competence’ • In other words …journalists process more information now but have fewer opportunities to investigate or develop critical lines of enquiry • …loss of professional autonomy

From journalist to newsworker? • After Wapping fleet Street declines • Pressure to be more productive • Loss of old professional networks • Example: History of the Labour and Industrial Correspondents’ Group • See ‘Spinning for Labour: Trade Unions and the New Media Environment’ Manning (1998)

Elite and ‘Star’ Journalists • Sutton Trust Report shows senor journalists and editors come from mainly elite backgrounds: private school and Oxbridge • Only 14 of the ‘top 100’ had been to comprehensives – see report on Learning Network • May have more opportunities to think outside the box but will their background shape the kinds of questions they ask? • There are critical ‘star’ journalists… • But are they ‘professional’?

Star Journalist? : Pilger http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=J 1 z. ZNbqi 53 o

Sicko

Star journalist? : Moore http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=V 2 s. FT 7 T 0 m. Cs But how many journalists become star investigative journalists or documentary makers?