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WWW.NUJ.ORG.UK | DEC-JAN 2016
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Don’t mention the sponsors
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Contents Main feature
14 Spot the difference?
The advertising invasion of journalism
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ow, more than at any other time of the year, our world is awash with advertising as retailers fight for their share of our Christmas spending. Obviously you can see Christmas advertising a mile off, that’s the idea, there is usually little subtlety employed. But advertising is making increasing forays into our professional world, often in more disguised forms. David Crouch looks at the march of advertising into hitherto sacrosanct areas of editorial. Partnerships, sponsored reporters, branded content and other forms of low-key advertising are gradually changing the nature of parts of our newspapers. But are they also helping to pay for quality journalism? Hyperlocals may want to get in on the act if they can. This expanding form of journalism is popular, as Nicholas Fearn reports. But it is finding it hard to pay its way with much of the work being done by enthusiasts, sometimes on a voluntary basis. Meanwhile the BBC continues to be in the news as the organisation’s future faces review and more cuts are made. Much to think about, and funding issues will dominate the agenda for journalism next year. But in the meantime Christmas and the New Year beckon. Wishing everyone a happy and peaceful time.
Christine Buckley Editor @mschrisbuckley
Editor journalist@nuj.org.uk Design Surgerycreations.com info@surgerycreations.com Advertising Melanie Richards Tel: 01795 542417 ads@journalistmagazine.co.uk Print Warners www.warners.co.uk Distribution Packpost www.packpostsolutions.com
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NUJ 308-312 Gray’s Inn Road London WC1X 8DP info@nuj.org.uk www.nuj.org.uk Tel: 020 7843 3700
Manchester office nujmanchester@nuj.org.uk Glasgow office nujscotland@nuj.org.uk Dublin office info@nuj.ie
Cover picture Image courtesy of advertisingarchives ©Coca-Cola Company.
News
03 FT pensions talks
Strike ballot forces negotiations
04 More job cuts at Newsquest
Attacks continue on local news services
05 Dr Who fights to save BBC
Cyborgs join battle for proper funding
06 Journalists struggle over pay
Fifth of members earn less than £20,000
07 Reports from NUJ Irish conference
Collective bargaining hope for freelances
Features
10 Let’s go to Belfast
Challenges of working in the historic city
12 News on the doorstep
Funding is scarce for hyperlocals
18 Coping with the aftershock
The dangers of post traumatic stress
Regulars 09 Viewpoint 17 NUJ and me 26 And finally
Arts with Attitude Pages 22-23
Raymond Snoddy Page 21
Letters & Steve Bell 24-25
news
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he Financial Times’ management has made a new offer over changes to journalists’ pensions as its staff prepared to take strike action. The NUJ chapel has agreed to talks, but as The Journalist goes to press it is leaving the option of strike action open. The FT’s new owner Nikkei had planned to take £4 million a year from pension funds to pay for rent on the FT’s headquarters by the side of the Thames and other costs. Then, before the concession was offered, Steve Bird, FoC of the NUJ chapel, said the mood at the FT was the angriest he had ever seen, triggering a huge vote in support of strike action. The FT Group NUJ passed this motion: “The near 92 per cent Yes to strike action… shows the strength of the anger felt by FT editorial staff over pensions cuts and highlights the unity between all members, whether they
are in the final pay or defined contribution pension sections. “We note management’s proposal to restore £4 million to the pension budget for one year but we believe that a longer term solution remains vital to bring security to FT Group journalists. “We welcome this short-term concession but pensions are long-term benefits and we would look to management to come forward with a substantive offer that gives staff the equivalence they were
in brief...
DAVID ADAMSON / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
FT pension talks begin after huge strike vote
COMPLAINTS OVER SUN MUSLIM STORY The Independent Press Standards Organisation received more than 2,000 complaints over a Sun report that one in five British Muslims has sympathy with the Islamic State. The story was based on a Survation poll of 1,000 British Muslims.The Sun was accused of misrepresenting the statistics and Survation distanced itself from the reporting.
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Strike action was supported by 91.8 per cent over what has been termed a “£4 million pensions robbery “
promised at the start of the process.” Strike action was supported by 91.8 per cent over what has been termed a “£4 million pensions robbery”. Staff had condemned Nikkei and FT management for failing to honour promises to maintain equivalent terms of employment following the takeover from Pearson and for plans to use cost savings to pay for rent on their building, which is still owned by Pearson, and for other costs.
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Industrial action ballots over clickbait targets
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UJ Trinity Mirror chapels are balloting for action against the company’s “individual digital audience goals”, where reporters’ stories are measured in terms of the digital traffic they generate. There are ballots in Newcastle, North Wales, Birmingham and Coventry. Other chapels are also meeting to consider holding a ballot. The new goals are being trialled at the Manchester Evening
News and Trinity Mirror has indicated it intends to introduce them across the group from January. The union has been given some reassurances by senior management about the scheme, but members are concerned at the impact individual targets are likely to have on the culture of co-operation and collaboration in their newsrooms and believe they will become divisive and harm the teamwork necessary for quality journalism. M A G A Z I N E
PRINT COPIES CLARIFICATION
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he Journalist has received many emails following the story in the last edition about new members receiving a digital version by default instead of a print copy. Many existing members thought that their print copies were under threat and asked to continue with print. At present only
new members are receiving digital first following a decision by the union’s executive. New members can request a print copy if they prefer that format to digital by email journalist@nuj.org.uk. Letters, Page 24
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| OCT-NOV 2015
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PRESS GAZETTE MARKS 50 YEARS The Press Gazette, the specialist media online publication, has celebrated its 50th anniversary. Over the past 10 years the magazine, which has campaigned strongly over journalists’ sources and other issues, has closed twice, gone from weekly print to monthly and then online only two years ago. THE WEEK AIMS AT YOUNG READERS The Week magazine has launched a new edition aimed at readers aged between eight and 14. The Week, owned by Dennis Publishing, was launched 20 years ago. In the first half of this year, children’s magazines were among the best performing magazine groups. NCTJ IS TO TEACH PUBLIC RELATIONS Public relations is to be added to the range of subjects taught by the National Council for the Training of Journalists. The new module will be optional. The NCTJ accredits 82 journalism courses at various colleges and universities around the country, as well as running its own diplomas. IRANIAN JOURNALIST FREED AFTER 4 YEARS Aliezra Rajaee, journalist and board member of the Association of Iranian journalists (AoIJ) has been released after more than four years imprisonment. The International Federation of Journalists called on the Iranian authorities to reopen the offices of AoIJ. Alireza Rajaee, who worked for former Iranian newspaper Khordad, has been held on charges of acting against national security. theJournalist | 03
news
Newsquest rolls out more job cuts at several titles
in brief...
TIM ROACHE IS THE NEW GMB LEADER Tim Roache is the new general secretary of GMB. He succeeds Paul Kenny, who was the union’s leader since 2005. Mr Roache was the GMB’s regional secretary for Yorkshire & North Derbyshire. He beat Paul McCarthy by a margin of 57 per cent to 43 per cent in the election for the post. LAST OF THE LADS MAGS ARE CLOSED The last of the lads mags are to close after Bauer Media said it is suspending publication of FHM and Zoo. The proposed closures, which will also affect websites, leave 20 editorial staff at risk of redundancy. The move follows the closure of Loaded - which relaunched as a website last month - and Nuts, which ceased publication last year.
NEW TELEVISION RESEARCH CENTRE The University of Warwick’s Department of Film and Television Studies, in collaboration with the Centre for Cultural Policy studies, has opened a Centre for Television History, Heritage and Memory Research.The new centre will focus on history and heritage and research, learning and training in co-operation with the industry. 4 | theJournalist
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This is very worrying news and shows how difficult it is to keep local newspapers going
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some of the job losses were falling on staff with ill-health. The latest cuts have sparked concern from politicians about the implications for news coverage. Helen Jones, MP for Warrington North, said: “This is very worrying news and shows how difficult it is to keep local newspapers going. The Warrington Guardian is well respected and plays an important role in our community. These job losses will inevitably mean increased workloads for staff and have an impact on the quality of the paper.” Yasmin Qureshi MP for Bolton South East, said: “The Bolton News plays a vital role in serving our local community with news and information. These devastating cuts will make it more difficult to deliver the high quality content its readers and advertisers want.”
Time to strengthen Welsh media
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f Wales is to have strong democracy it needs a strong press and measures must be taken to ensure the strength and effectiveness of the media. This was the message of the NUJ’s media manifesto for Wales launched at a conference with the theme of “Who will pay for Welsh journalism?” Paul Scott, who represents Welsh members on the NUJ’s national executive council, said: “A number of pressures on the media sector has led to a diminution in the provision of quality journalism in Wales and has led to an escalating democratic deficit. This crisis in the Welsh media requires intervention and democratic leaders must accept there is a need to tackle today’s unsatisfactory and incomprehensive coverage of Welsh life.” Among the demands of the manifesto was grant support from the Welsh government for news start-ups.
TRINITY IS LARGEST REGIONAL PUBLISHER
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nion representatives at Trinity Mirror titles are looking for assurances after the group took over the regional publisher Local World. The £220 million deal makes Trinity Mirror the country’s largest regional newspaper publisher with 180 titles.
The group, which owns the Daily and Sunday Mirror and People, plus the Birmingham Mail, Manchester Evening News and Liverpool Echo, will now produce 36 daily newspapers, 88 weekly paid-for newspapers, five Sunday newspapers and 43
weekly free newspapers. Martin Shipton, FoC of the Trinity Mirror group chapel, said: “The union will be seeking assurances and clarifications over the ramifications of the takeover for staff and the continuation of existing titles.”
DAVID CRAUSBY / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
MUSGRAVE LEAVES TOP JOB AT DRAPERS Eric Musgrave is leaving the editor’s role at the fashion industry title Drapers. He returned to the magazine in 2013 seven years after leaving from his first term as editor. He is being replaced by Keely Stocker who joined Drapers as online editor in 2012 and became the deputy editor in August.
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ewsquest is making yet more job cuts at titles across the country. At the Warrington Guardian it is cutting nearly a quarter of the editorial workforce with the loss of 12 jobs. The Bolton News is also facing a staff reduction of a similar proportion with 10 jobs to go. Six jobs are to go on the Lancashire Telegraph including the cutting of two staff with nearly 80 years’ collective service. At newspapers in Essex 11 jobs are to be lost and in London eight positions are to be transferred to production centres in Weymouth, Dorset and Newport in Wales. Newsquest also announced the only photographer and one of two reporters are to be made redundant at the Sale and Altrincham Messenger which is effectively a 50 per cent cut of the editorial staff. Last year in the north west, 30 jobs were lost at Newsquest titles including the Warrington Guardian, Lancashire Telegraph and Bolton News, as production moved to Newport. In the autumn the publisher targeted photography jobs at several newspapers. Jane Kennedy, the NUJ’s assistant organiser for the Midlands and the North, said that
JOSEPH CLEMSON / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
ORWELL PRIZE 2016 OPEN FOR ENTRIES The Orwell Prize for political journalism has opened for entries. The award has a number of categories including the journalism prize, the book prize and the Joseph Rowntree prize for exposing Britain’s social evils. Applications can be made for work published in 2015 until January 15th. Go to theorwellprize.co.uk
news
Dr Who and the cyborgs battle for BBC’s future
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ime Lords, cyborgs and stars from Dr Who demonstrated their support for the BBC and the NUJ’s Love it or Lose campaign. Peter Davison, a former Doctor Who, joined fellow actors Bertie Carvel and Sophie Aldred; Dr Who fans in costume; June Hudson, who created Tom Baker’s iconic scarf; and members of the NUJ, Bectu, Equity, Musicians’ Union and Writers’ Guild outside the BBC’s
headquarters in London. They were protesting as the corporation’s future is put under threat as it faces charter renewal. John Whittingdale, culture secretary, is challenging the size and scope of the BBC and whether popular programmes such as Doctor Who, Strictly Come Dancing and the Great British Bake Off should be left to commercial broadcasters. The BBC has announced that it will make cuts of £150 million with the news budget
FIGHTING TO KEEP CURRENT FOI RIGHTS
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he public consultation on Freedom of Information (FoI) legislation ended last month amid concerns that the existing arrangements could be restricted. The Commission on Freedom of Information is reviewing the laws and it is feared that restrictions could be imposed in order to cut the costs of FoI. The NUJ argued that FoI is an important journalistic tool to hold public bodies to account. The union teamed up with the pressure group 38 degrees to get members to make their views known on the future of FoI and its role for the media. Meanwhile last month the Oxford Mail launched its own campaign publishing 15 pages of news that had been generated by FoI requests by its journalists.
facing a reduction of £5 million and online services a fall of £12 million. The biggest savings will be in sport and the BBC is considering scrapping its red button interactive service that allows viewers to choose between different feeds from events such as Glastonbury and Wimbledon. Drama will be protected. The BBC said cuts to news “will include efficiency savings from a review of working practices, terms and conditions”. Sue Harris, NUJ national broadcasting organiser, said: “It is essential that any cuts being made to make up the shortfall caused by revenue lost by the iPlayer loophole must have a minimum impact on staff jobs. Jobs could be lost at BBC Monitoring; this is a direct consequent of the dire deal agreed during the last licence review.”
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The BBC has announced that it will make cuts of £150 million with the news budget facing a reduction of £5 million and online services a fall of £12 million
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Photo call The Journalist is considering having a new page devoted to a single picture which tells a story, whether the story is clear from the photo or whether it comes from how the photographer got the particular shot. In order to run a series such as this we need a good supply of photos that have both good visual and narrative impact. Please send suggestions to journalist@nuj.org.uk
in brief... MAIL OWNER LOSES WELLER APPEAL Associated Newspapers lost its challenge to an award of £10,000 privacy damages to three of Paul Weller’s children. The singer had brought the case after the unobscured faces of his 16-year-old daughter and 10-month-old twins were published by the Mail Online. The Master of the Rolls Lord Dyson, Lord Justice Tomlinson and Lord Justice Bean dismissed the appeal. YEO LOSES HIS LIBEL CASE OVER ADVOCACY Tim Yeo, the former Conservative MP, faces a hefty legal bill after losing his libel action over a “cashfor-advocacy’’claim. Yeo had asked for substantial compensation over reports in the Sunday Times in 2013 which followed a lunch with two undercover journalists posing as representatives for a Far Eastern solar energy business. PRISON OFFICERS JAILED FOR LEAKS Two prison officers have been jailed for leaking information to newspapers. Grant Pizzey was jailed for two years and his wife Desra Reilly who acted as a conduit with Daily Mirror reporter Greig Box Turnbull, was jailed for a year for aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office. Separatly, Mark Alexander was given 10 months for selling tips to Box Turnbull. GQ FACES FINE FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT GQ magazine is facing a fine after committing contempt of court by publishing a prejudicial article during the hacking trial. The article was not read by any jurors. If it had been, Lord Thomas – the Lord Chief Justice – ruled that it could have led to the jury being discharged and a new trial being ordered. CITY AM’S ASHPLANT RETURNS TO METRO City AM’s digital and social media director Martin Ashplant is to return to Metro as digital director. He will be responsible for “delivering the paper’s digital content strategy”. He worked at Metro for over six years before joining City AM in 2014. theJournalist | 5
news
Journalists struggle with pay squeezes
in brief... RISE IN NUMBERS USING AD-BLOCKING Nearly one in five adults use ad-blocking software, raising concerns over the future funding of journalism. Media commentators have warned that too much use of ad-blocks could choke off vital revenue to news organisations. A survey conducted by YouGov for the Internet Advertising Bureau found that 18 per cent of adults use adblocks, up from 15 per cent last year. PC FORMAT CLOSES AFTER 24-YEAR RUN PC Format magazine has closed after 24 years. The Future Publishing title printed its last edition last month. When last audited by ABC, in 2012, PC Format recorded an average monthly circulation of 6,249. According to ABC, the magazine’s circulation has fallen every year since 2000 when it was more than 100,000. MILNE APPOINTED TO TOP LABOUR ROLE Seamus Milne has taken a leave of absence from The Guardian, where he was associate editor, to become the Labour Party’s executive director of strategy and communication. He was associate editor since 2007 after previously being comment editor and before that the Labour correspondent.. NEWS UK MEDIA CHIEF BOWS OUT Guto Harri, the News UK director of communications, is leaving after three years in the role. His departure follows that of head of PR Richard Brookes earlier this year. Harri, a former BBC journalist, said that the job of rebuilding the company’s reputation in the wake of the hacking scandal is complete. INDY’S EXECUTIVE EDITOR LEAVES The executive editor of The Independent and London’s Evening Standard has left his position. James Ashton, who was formerly head of business across the titles, commented: “The time is right to try something different and I’m looking forward to new challenges in journalism and beyond.” 6 | theJournalist
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Most men doing the same job as me are paid considerably more
ne in five journalists earns less than £20,000, an NUJ survey has found. The survey, which received more than 1, 250 responses, found that more than 80 per cent of staff and freelances said their income had not kept up with the cost of living. A quarter of staff and 60 per cent of freelances said they had suffered financial hardship. Many, particularly younger journalists, said it was a struggle to pay their rent and bills and the prospect of buying a house in London and the south east was impossible. A few commented their pay was below the national minimum wage and some freelances said they depended on tax credits, which they are now set to lose.
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One member who works in newspapers said: “All wages go towards my bills/rent leaving no money for emergencies. When my car broke, I had to borrow from a payday loan company to put a deposit on a newer one.” Two-thirds of those surveyed said they had received a pay increase of between 1-2 per cent, but almost 15 per cent had not had a pay rise for more than five years. Almost 90 per cent of freelances said their rates had not increased in the past year and more than one in five said they had been asked to do work for no pay. Another strong finding was that women said they were paid less than male colleagues for doing the same job. A woman working in broadcasting said: “Most men doing the same job as me are paid considerably more.” This summer, PRWeek reported that the average pay gap between men and women in the PR and communications industry stands at between £8,500 and £10,000 for the same role. An NUJ survey, carried out last September as part of the union’s evidence to the House of Lords communications committee inquiry into women in broadcasting, told a similar tale.
CATCHLIGHT VISUAL SERVICES / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
FAMILY COURT REPORTING WIN
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fter a battle with North Tyneside Council, journalist Louise Tickle won the right to report care proceedings in which a baby was removed from his mother at birth, and her struggle to get him back. She wrote about her
fight in It’s a Family Affair in October’s The Journalist. Newcastle family court granted Ms Tickle access to otherwise private court papers and transcripts, and permission to report from interviews with family, friends and professionals.
Mr Justice Bodey’s relaxation of section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960 has resulted in a judgment that also offers guidance to public bodies and journalists wishing to cover cases in the family law courts.
Sussex police apologise for searches
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ussex Police have apologised to NUJ members after police stopped and searched several journalists two years ago. The NUJ condemned police action when the journalists were driving
to Brighton to cover a far right demonstration. Nine NUJ members and other journalists showed their press cards and said they were not part of the protest. Seven journalists were subjected to a search for
offensive weapons under Section 60AA of the Public Order Act and Section 60 of the Terrorism Act, which Sussex police later said was a mistake. The NUJ argued there had been an unlawful use of the legislation.
conference news
Collective bargaining hope for freelances 2015 LOS ANGELES TIMES
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European Court of Justice ruling on the rights of Dutch orchestra members may prove to be music to the ears of Irish freelances, according to Irish Congress of Trade Unions general secretary Patricia King. The court found the Dutch Competition Authority was wrong when it classed the orchestra’s musicians as undertakings rather than atypical workers and that it had incorrectly branded their attempts to secure a collective agreement as price fixing. The case has many similarities with the plight of freelance NUJ members who are prevented by the Irish Competition Authority from setting across the board ‘rates for the job’ under the authority’s interpretation of European competition law. Ms King told the Irish
Biennial Delegate Meeting in Dublin: “We are reporting the Irish government to the International Labour Organisation because we believe your rights are being denied.” In his report to the conference, Irish secretary Seamus Dooley said that in the social partnership agreement Towards 2016, the state had promised to amend the Competition Act
so that freelance workers such as journalists, actors and session musicians would be able to set their rates and also to have collective representation. He explained: “With the collapse of the pay element of the agreement successive governments reneged on that commitment, but the NUJ regards the promise as a binding commitment which must be honoured.”
in brief...
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We are reporting the Irish government to the International Labour Organisation because we believe your rights are being denied
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TRAINING COURSES TRIGGER CONCERNS
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oor quality journalism training courses came under fire at the conference, with a motion instructing the Irish Executive Council to investigate the matter.
“We have students coming off some of these courses who don’t have a basic notion about covering the courts or covering the local authority,” said Judy Murphy of The Connaught
Tribune, proposing the motion on behalf of the West of Ireland branch. “We have had cases of students coming off journalist training couses barely able to speak English,
Where are the Irish?
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rish NUJ members perceive that Irish affairs are given a low level of coverage in the union’s magazine and have called on the editorial advisory board of The Journalist to look at the matter. Proposing a motion on behalf of the IEC, freelancer Bernie Ní Fhlatharta said: “The journalist is a bit like an English newspaper, there is no Irish news in it.“ Speaking against the motion, Ciarán ó Maoileoin of Belfast and District Branch said that there was no evidence that The Journalist was turning away sheaves and sheaves of Irish copy: “If we want Irish stories in The Journalist, it behoves us to write them.” The motion was carried.
let alone handle complex sentences or concepts. Part of the problem is that foreign students are being admitted because they pay more [for enrolment fees].” than Irish students .”
REGIONAL PAY CAMPAIGN IMMINENT With most Irish regional newspapers now back in the black, the union is due to start a campaign to secure salary increments due under the Towards 16 social partnership agreement brokered between the Irish government, employers and trade unions in 2005. UNION MEMBERSHIP IN IRELAND STABLE NUJ membership in Ireland has stabilised and numbers are no longer falling, general secretary Michelle Stanistreet told the conference. The decline in the number of journalists employed by national media organisations has been the largest factor in the fall in Irish NUJ membership numbers. ‘JOURNALISM, NOT JUST BUSINESS’ The Irish BDM was held under the banner ‘Journalism: not just business’. The aim of the theme was to highlight that ‘a strong presence of ethics and organised labour in a news room can ensure the necessary balance between reporting demands, commercial needs, and responsibility to readers, viewers, listeners, and to truth’. LIFE MEMBERSHIP AWARDS BESTOWED Seventeen union stalwarts received life membership awards at a ceremony in Dublin’s GPO.Among the better known names in the group were: television and radio journalist Mary Curtin, who serves as secretary of the Trade Union Group at RTE; tabloid journalism pioneer Colin McClelland, who was editor of the Sunday World; ADM regular and political rights activist Eamnonn McCann; BBC writer and children’s book author Gordon Snell, broadcaster Seán O’Rourke and Irish Examiner journalist Jimmy Woulfe, who regularly presents It Says In The Papers slots on RTE. Others who received lifetime awards were: Fergus Black, Colm Boland, Thomas Brady, Francis Carty, Pat Chatten, Ann Egan, Kevin Hughes, Patrick Kinsella, John Knox, Donald Lavery and Tony O’Brien. theJournalist | 7
news O’Hagan highlights impunity campaign
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he realities of the IFJ’s End Impunity campaign were underlined at the Irish Biennial Delegate Conference when delegates discussed the continuing failure of the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland to bring the killers of investigative journalist Martin O’Hagan to justice. According to the IFJ, only one out of 10 killings of media workers is investigated worldwide. “No one should be immune from conviction,” said John Ley of the Belfast & District Branch, which has provided £1,000 towards a £50,000 reward fund for information that might lead to a successful conviction of O’Hagan’s killers. “I was the last person in the union to see Martin alive, when I said goodbye to him on the steps of Transport House in Belfast the day he was killed. No one has been charged, even though the police are convinced they know who is responsible.”
Union wins growth at Northern Ireland’s Alpha
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he NUJ has substantially increased its membership in Alpha Newspapers, the Northern Irish publisher which owns titles including the Coleraine Chronicle, The Ulster Gazette, the Antrim and Ballymena Guardian, the Newry Democrat, the County Down Outlook and the Tyrone Courier. Union membership has risen from 29 per cent to 80
per cent with new members continuing to sign up. Nicola Coleman, NUJ Irish organiser, said: “Alpha is renowned for being one of the lowest paying media companies in Northern Ireland and is widely regarded as breaking up the NUJ’s sector-based collective agreement for journalists in regional newspapers. The results of this are clear when today in excess of 30 per cent
of journalists employed by the company earn less than a living wage of £14,976 per annum. In many cases this is in spite of years of service.” At a meeting in Belfast reps for each title were elected. It was fitting that the reps gathered by the trade union mural under the statue of James Larkin with Larkin’s famous quote “the great appear great because we are on our knees”.
IRELAND SETS OUT UNION VICTIMISATION CODE
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erald Nash, the Irish minister for Business and Employment, has brought into effect new codes of practice
on victimisation in the workplace. The new code of practice makes explicit that any adverse effect which is
experienced by an employee for refusing inducement – whether it is financial or otherwise – to forego trade representation by
a trade union constitutes victimisation. This follows from the 2002 European Court of Human Rights ruling in the case of
Wilson v UK, a case that was brought by the NUJ on behalf of its member David Wilson who worked at the Daily Mail.
Extra help for members For more than 100 years NUJ members and their dependants have been helped by NUJ Extra and its predecessors. Now NUJ Extra needs extra help from the next generation of journalists. We’re asking members to sign up to make regular donations of just £5 a month to continue our good work. During this time of austerity and cutbacks NUJ Extra must continue the level of support needed by journalists and their dependents. In addition to helping a small number of long-standing beneficiaries, we also help members in tight spots, sometimes a result of accidents and sudden illnesses. We can help out short-term and provide advice and support to come up with a long-term solution: for instance, we once paid for an advert in a major UK national newspaper to help sell a remote Welsh cottage at a price much above the local estate agent’s suggestion, and we bought a freezer for a member with Crohn’s Disease so she could stock up on special dietary food for when she felt too ill to shop or cook. Now we need an army of NUJ members to sign up to give £5 a month. You can do this through direct debit or through Payroll Giving. By adding Gift Aid, your £5 would be worth a bit more to us. It’s easy to do – just go to our website (www.nujextra.org.uk) or contact info@nuj.org.uk and we will send you the appropriate forms and information.
NUJ Extra has been doing that little bit extra for 100 years. Please, we need you to do that little bit extra now.
08 | theJournalist
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viewpoint Tom Clonan is standing for election to fight for his disabled son
The human costs of Austerity Ireland
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s an army officer, I was trained to ‘Leave no one behind’, that survival meant sticking together. As a young officer I found myself at the centre of an Israeli punitive operation against the civilian population in south Lebanon. Operation ‘Grapes of Wrath’ resulted in the killing of hundreds of Lebanese men, women and children in the Irish Battalion area. The worst experience was witnessing the killing of children. To lift their lifeless little bodies from the ground, tiny hands already stiff with rigor mortis. I recall two children in particular, a small boy with a Kermit the Frog T shirt. Kermit waving jauntily – the boy’s eyes open in death. A little girl in pink. A princess on her top with the words, ‘Un Belle Histoire’. Years later, as a parent, those images would return to haunt me. Then did I fully understood the barbarity of war. After I retired from the Army, I became a father to Darach, Eoghan, Ailbhe and Rossa. All were born healthy. At 18 months however, Eoghan, began to flounder a little. A slight nystagmus in the eyes. A faint tremor in his little pudgy hands. He was diagnosed as suffering from Pelizaeus Merzbacher Disease or PMD – a rare neuromuscular condition.During this period, which coincided with the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, as a freelance journalist and Irish Times Security Analyst, I travelled from Iraq and Syria to Guantanamo Bay and many points in between. In March 2009 I flew in a rickety Syrian military helicopter to the Iraqi border crossing of Al Walid Al Tanf in Al Anbar province. There were millions of Iraqi refugees fleeing west to escape
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Due to austerity measures and savage cuts to health services – we have lost many basic therapies
8 For all the latest news from the NUJ go to www.nuj.org.uk
Tom Clonan is the Irish Times Security Analyst and a former army officer.
TOMMY CLANCY
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the US occupation of Iraq and the Sunni insurgency. I was stricken by the sight of thousands of tiny children on the move in the most distressing of conditions and circumstances. Twenty four hours later, I was holding Eoghan’s hand on the school run. Despite all of the challenges, Eoghan is flourishing. He has recently begun secondary school and goes there with his assistance dog Duke. Small steps for most boys and girls. A huge step for a disabled boy in Austerity Ireland. Unfortunately, for thousands of disabled children and young adults – due to austerity measures and cuts to health services – we have lost many basic therapies. Eoghan has been stripped of almost all of his physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and surgical review. He has spent over two years in wheelchairs that are too small for him. He is developing a scoliotic curve to his spine and contractures in his legs. I have written about this in the Irish Times and I’ve spoken about it on Irish radio and television. To no avail. Shamefully, many Irish politicians, journalists and economic commentators seem happy to collaborate with and extend the false narratives of austerity. It seems that Austerity Ireland is leaving its most vulnerable citizens behind – the disabled, elderly, homeless and single parents.
Eoghan will never live independently and in this new, colder, harder Ireland, I am fearful for what will happen to him when I die. It is clear that I cannot fight for him as a journalist so I am running for office as an independent candidate for the Irish Senate. It is ironic that in 21st Century Ireland, 100 years on from the Easter Rising of 1916, my primary motivation for entering political life is fear and desperation.
theJournalist | 9
LORDPRICE COLLECTION / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Linda Harrison looks at Belfast. Once synonymous with violent news, its agenda is now much more positive
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elfast has experienced massive challenges and changes in recent years. The Troubles and the Good Friday Agreement were followed by major redevelopment and investment in the city – and a property bubble that burst in spectacular fashion. And these events obviously had a major impact on its journalists and the media. “You’re talking about a period that was intense – about stories of security, shootings and bombings,” says Jamie Delargy, business editor at commercial TV station UTV and a journalist in the city for about 40 years. “Now it’s turned into something else, it’s about politics and restoring the economy. “Belfast isn’t as newsworthy as it used to be – thank God. It’s
more rewarding doing stories about the recovery as opposed to shootings and massacres.” Belfast has a long newspaper history. Among the city’s historic titles is the Belfast Telegraph, a daily that dates back to 1870. It’s owned by INM – Independent News and Media – which also publishes the newspapers Sunday Life and Sunday World. The Belfast Telegraph’s landmark city centre offices are on Royal Avenue, the paper’s home for about 130 years. In August this year, INM announced it was to sell the building and close the printing operation within the premises, with the loss of 89 jobs. Editorial was expected to move elsewhere in the city. Another well-established title is The Irish News, a morning paper printed in a compact format. It was founded in 1891 and is still independently owned. There’s also daily paper the News Letter, which started in 1737 as the Belfast News Letter. It’s owned by Johnston Press. Meanwhile, the Daily Mirror has a base in Belfast – the Northern Ireland edition is published by Mirror Media Ireland. Online, there’s Mirror Media Ireland’s news and entertainment site Belfast Live. There’s also investigative news site The Detail. The BBC has a base in Belfast – BBC Northern Ireland produces a range of TV programmes plus Radio Ulster from its city centre studios. Another major name is Northern Irish commercial broadcaster UTV Media, which owns UTV television (launched in 1959). A number of British TV personalities started their careers on UTV, including Sky News presenter Eamonn Homes. In August it was reported that UTV planned to sell its TV division. UTV Media also has UTV Radio GB and UTV Radio Ireland. Jamie says: “There’s a tremendous appetite for local news in Northern Ireland. It’s quite remarkable.” Other commercial radio stations near Belfast include Downtown Radio (where Gloria Hunniford once worked) and Cool FM, both owned by Bauer.
news hub Words from the streets According to freelance journalist Denise Watson, the media industry in Northern Ireland is small: “I was once told that it was a goldfish bowl. You swim one way and meet the same people. That’s very true. So I’ve always been mindful never to burn any bridges in the industry. “In 2013 I left the BBC Sport department to go freelance in radio, TV and press and I can honestly say I love the freedom. I’ve built up a great network of media contacts who know I’m capable of doing good work so my diary is busy. “The good side is the wonderful people involved in sport here. Football, rugby, GAA [Gaelic Athletic Association] and motorbikes are the most prolific. The downside is when politics infiltrates sport and we see fighting over flags and anthems. I hate politicians using sport as a battering ram to get their point across. “In my opinion, sport unites Northern Ireland, not the other way round. There shouldn’t be a problem with an athlete declaring for either Northern Ireland or Republic of Ireland. It’s a personal decision.”
Where the work is BBC Northern Ireland
A total of about 650 full-time staff at BBC Northern Ireland, including studios in Belfast and Londonderry and a number of unattended radio studios. The Belfast studio in Broadcasting House produces TV plus Radio Ulster. TV includes current affairs series Spotlight plus Panorama investigations. It also makes programmes for BBC network TV, including Points of View and The One Show, while BBCNI Drama produces content such as BBC 2’s The Fall.
UTV Media
About 230 employees in the Belfast head office. The company owns UTV NI and
the U105 radio station plus digital marketing agencies Tibus and Simply Zesty.
INM
About 200 staff (at the time of writing) in Belfast. Dublin-based INM publishes daily newspaper The Belfast Telegraph and newspapers Sunday Life and Sunday World.
The Irish News
Approximately 120 employees plus 20 at its print plant (with sister company Interpress). Farm Week has six journalists and Q radio has approx 12 editorial staff. All three are separate companies owned by the same family (The Fitzpatricks).
Richard Morgan, broadcast journalist at Downtown Radio and Cool FM, adds: “Most of us know each other and with that in mind jobs can be hard to come by. But at the same time as you build a profile and become known there’s always that opportunity to be approached by another organisation. Pay wise I would say it’s industry standard but it is enough to manage on.” Magazines include lifestyle and society monthly Ulster Tatler – publisher Ulster Tatler Group’s other titles include Ulster Bride, Ulster Tatler Interiors and South Belfast Life. Richard says: “As for not being in London, I don’t feel like I’m missing out as Northern Ireland is a hotbed for news. Political instability, paramilitary activity and disorder as a result of community tensions make for a diverse and everchanging news agenda and output. We also attract much foreign investment now so jobs announcements would feature heavily in our news bulletins.” There’s also the housing market – Northern Ireland was hit especially hard when the property bubble burst in 2008. “At the time, property prices were approaching those in London – it was insane,” says Jamie. “Property prices are still about half of what they were at the height of the boom.” Meanwhile, the city itself is thriving with plenty of bars and restaurants. “The bar scene is a mix of pubs that have been around for as long as anyone can remember, to new clubs and restaurants,” says Richard. “Two of our eateries just earned a Michelin Star. Belfast is becoming more diverse and vibrant and a destination that people want to visit now the city is post-conflict.” One major boost is TV epic Game of Thrones. Belfast is home to Titanic Studios where the show is shot and other filming locations nearby include Castle Ward – or Winterfell Castle. There are Game of Thrones tours – fans can even go glamping in Winterfell forest. “There’s a real pub culture here,” adds freelance journalist Lyra McKee who grew up in the city. “Go to the pubs on a Saturday night and they’re packed. Belfast is like ‘Cheers’ – everybody knows your name. It’s small enough to still be cosy, it has the feeling of a village.” Lyra, who mainly writes for the Belfast Telegraph, adds that Belfast is one of the friendliest cities in the world. “You know who your neighbours are and they’ll look out for you,” she says. “The humour is also fantastic. It’s a very special brand of working class humour. It’s also a very dark sense of humour because of the history. People developed it as a way of dealing with what happened.” Jamie agrees that Belfast is a very special place to live, saying: “It sounds crazy for a place with a reputation for violence but it really is a very friendly city.”
Denise Watson, freelance journalist:
“There are definitely more European people living here now, which brings a cosmopolitan element. Dublin has that and Belfast is starting to grow. The only shame is that the recession meant a lot of shops had to close. But I think that it’s on the turn again.”
Richard Morgan, journalist at Downtown Radio and Cool FM: “Working in Belfast is fantastic. The people are friendly and approachable, which makes the usual nightmare vox pops bearable!”
Jamie Delargy, UTV business editor:
“It’s compact enough that you can quickly escape to the country.”
Lyra McKee, freelance journalist:
“It used to be that you would never go into the city centre on your own at night, you’d stick to your own area. But it’s not like that now. And we have some of the best restaurants and pubs in the world.”
theJournalist | 11
doorstep News on the
Hyperlocals are flourishing although funding is often scarce, finds Nicholas Fearn
The way we access local media is changing dramatically. Instead of popping down to the local newsagent to get a daily paper, we simply browse with a search engine or log on to social media. This technological (and social) change has also had a major effect on the way the very local news is produced. Anyone can create their own
blog or hyperlocal media source, connect it up to social media and start publishing content that interests them and their community. According to the Local Web List, there are now more than 500 hyperlocals across the UK. Here is what is driving some of them.
Cwmbran Life
Port Talbot Magnet
cal The Magnet is a hyperlo te bsi we d an er pap news was covering Port Talbot. It up gro a by set up in 2009 ers, of Swansea NUJ memb t jus d ha om wh many of nt. da un red de ma n bee Rachel Howells, who the plains how the loss of works for the paper, ex y: “It nit rtu po op w find a ne group’s jobs led them to s in an wa a are r ou in ry indust seemed that the whole d so an , spiral with job losses unstoppable downward ided dec we ir, our hands in despa rather than wringing .” up er pap ive and set the to do something posit ors, ten consists of four direct er pap Currently, the says, she , aim eir Th unteers. freelances and six vol nity mu com ble na tai sus y alit is “to provide a good qu . nt” pri Talbot, online and innews service for Port the t tha is s ces biggest suc Rachel believes that the its adm she h ug years, altho paper has survived five stacles. She says: “As a ob ny ma n bee there have -given we rely on a lot of freely volunteer-led project, ments mit in between other com hours, often squeezed . ing car d an l-time jobs, study such as parenting, ful d an les edu sch inating our That means that co-ord can be a challenge.” en pp ha to s getting thing iting cal landscape is an exc To Rachel, the hyperlo ess to acc re is a need for better place, but she says the ter bet d an – ough the internet funding – primarily thr s. die bo blic pu ncils and other co-operation from cou
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Cwmbran Life is anoth er example of a thrivin g hyperlocal media source , which is also based in South Wales. Commun ications professional Be n Black launched the site in 20 11 after reading an art icle about the emergence of hype rlocals and also after iss uing a local crime alert. He explains: “I did a Fac ebook post late one eve ning about car thefts in an area of the town and tol d people to go out and check the ir car was locked. Loads of people tagged their ma tes as a result.” But far from just warni ng about crime, Ben say s that Cwmbran Life ha s drawn at least one pe rson to the area. They made the decision to move to the town after looking at the site . Ben admits, though, tha t it can quite hard to run the site alongside family life . “I hate letting people down, and at times, it can tak e me a few days to sit down and reply to the many messa ges in my inbox.” He thinks that while the word ‘hyperlocal’ has bee n around for a while, he doesn’t think many pe ople run a hyperlocal as a full-ti me job. He explains: “I’v e been doing it for four years , and I’m only now ser iously thinking of approachi ng some local business es to advertise just to help me cover my costs and time. I’ve just paid £150 for website hosting and spend a lot of tim e writing stories and goi ng out to see people. That’s all done in my own tim e around my family and day job.”
hyperlocals
Altreading
Inside Moray
ago Inside Moray two years Stuart Crowther set up er ast adc bro for r ito ed munity after working as a com politicians. STV Local and then for P, I for my local MP and MS ng He says: “After worki , so fun re mo ch liticians was mu realised winding up po ray Mo ide Ins d ate d already cre I resigned. By then I ha pular STV sites were very po the t tha w with the vie na bee y the d ha lar pu re po but could have been mo ray Mo ide ray.” He says that Ins single site for all of Mo ws ne est lat munity with the aims to provide the com way. sed bia un presented in an s es as Ben, in that he run sho e sam the Stuart is in ople pe us rio va ile wh t tha says the site on his own. He the way, no one has lasted the ng alo t ou d lpe he have the d an y ne comes down to mo pace. This, he believes,
lack of it. from rviving against hostility His biggest success? Su local publications and some editors of established rly ula rtic pa ’s He s. say he government employees, re mo ted his website attrac proud that this August than 50,000 readers. : the hyperlocal landscape But he is realistic about at gre e som re the and while “I have a look around, . It takes a say it is mainly ‘patchy’ I’d re, the t ou es servic a service ly commit to providing lot for someone to tru ma the g nce of ever makin that has very little cha living. I can do it because I’m retired and have a civil service and military pension to live on.”
Altreading is an online publication covering Re ading. It was created by Niall Norbury last year when he moved back to the town in wh ich he had studied and felt tha t its arts and culture scene wasn’t getting much attention . He says: “I set up the we bsite to help show people the amount of events, busin esses, shows and performance s happening around Re ading.” Like the Magnet, Altrea ding relies heavily on a team of volunteers. Currently, the re are about 15 people involved in the site. Niall edits an d runs the operation an d there is a music and theatre edi tor helping to oversee various reviews and coverage of events. Niall believes that as the site has developed, its aims and values have chang ed: “We began focusing on promoting independent businesses with some cultural events too. However, we have since shifted to foc using primarily on arts and cul ture in Reading. We aim to produce content that is interesting, unique and not likely to be found in any other media outlets.” He says that Altreadin g makes people better informed about what’s happening locally. “Venues, artists , musicians and business -owners see increased footfall and interest as a result of the website.” In January, Niall and his team celebrated the we bsite’s first birthday by launch ing its own awards to hig hlight the best events, business es and venues of the pas t year. He comments: “The aw ards saw a huge surge in visitors, hundreds of nominatio ns and thousands of vot es. We got notable figures from the local community inv olved in judging and rather tha n hold a ceremony we had a local filmmaker make a video of each winner to help highlight their work.” While Niall sees lasting a year and a half as a ma jor success, he understand s the obstacles. He say s: “Most of our volunteers and I work or study full-time . We are constantly discovering more things to write abo ut but there just isn’t the time to cover everything hap pening in Reading.”
Reaching out from Cardiff University The Centre for Community
Journalism, based at Cardiff University’s school of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, is trying to help bridge funding gaps and offer upport for hyperlocals. Launched three years ago, the centre focuses on research, outreach, development and training to ensure the sector thrives and also helps to set up
new hubs. Emma Meese, who manages the centre, says: “We have been bold in our mission, in that we want to help revive local journalism and have started at grassroots level by creating community news hubs in areas of need. We aim to launch, or work closely with, 10 new hyperlocals in a five-year period.” So far, it has launched three
hyperlocals: Pobl Caerdydd, Rhondda People and Llais y Maes and is working closely with another two. The community journalists who run these resources benefit from being a part of a network as well as access to training. One of its programmes is the ‘Massive Open Online Course in Community Journalism’. Emma
says: “The first time we ran the course we had 8847 learners in 118 different countries, and the second time we had 14,651 learners in 117 different countries. “We try to help in practical ways. For example, we have created a Community Journalism Wordpress theme, which is free for anyone to use and is available in Welsh and English.“
theJournalist | 13
From branded content to funding reporters, advertising is increasingly invading news. David Crouch reports
T
ake your star investigative reporter. Film her in a new Volvo. Show her having a lighthearted chat with the biggest investor in Volvo’s sister company, where he is known as “the butcher” for demanding massive job cuts. Top and tail with Volvo ads. Publish on the website of a quality daily paper, billing the new interview series as the best thing since sliced bread. Now sit back and watch journalists hit the roof. http://www.svd.se/nar-det-val-brakarblir-det-brutalt/om/neuraths-toppmote “Investigative journalism can pack its bags and go home,” said the president of Sweden’s Press Club about the innovation at Svenska Dagbladet. Another columnist fumed: “I have just come from the hospital and received medication to lower my blood pressure. I am about to explode.” Across the world, journalists are wrestling with the new realities of “branded content” – so-called “native” online advertising that seeks to blend with editorial to create a seamless product that can get around the ad-blockers and temper readers’ urge to skip the commercials. Whereas it used to be all about “eyeballs” and clicks, now it’s about “engagement”. Staid and regulated media environments, such as Sweden’s, are being shaken up as publishers exploit new techniques and opportunities. The salary of a tech correspondent for one of the country’s big tabloids is now paid by Scandinavia’s largest telecoms company. Journalists fear a fresh assault on the separation of church and state, editorial and advertising. The BBC’s Robert Peston has called branded content a form of “Orwellian Newspeak”. “Over time the impression may be created that all editorial is for sale, and none of it to be trusted,” he said in his Charles Wheeler lecture last year. Its defenders hit back that native advertising is a vital source of revenue because “it suits how people go online to get information”, according to Clare O’Brien of the Internet Advertising Bureau. “Brands are inserting themselves with topics of importance and high ideals – it’s about delivering a story rather than selling something.” At its best, say its supporters, branded content delivers high quality journalism that would otherwise not see the light of day. “Branded content offers publishers the opportunity to generate additional revenues for investment in journalism, and to develop innovative projects and platforms that would not be possible on editorial budgets alone,” says Anna Watkins, managing director of Guardian Labs, the paper’s online ads division, pointing to Guardian Witness, which is built in partnership with telecoms giant EE. When the New York Times published a well-researched, 14 | theJournalist
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differe
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rence? ence?
advertising www.gettyimages.com
1400-word package on women’s prisons in the summer of 2014, complete with sophisticated multimedia, it was seen as a “Snowfall” moment that set a benchmark for native advertising – in this case for the Netflix series “Orange is the New Black”. The ad, and the approach it represented, was praised by Times journalists themselves, including the paper’s late media correspondent David Carr. http://paidpost. nytimes.com/netflix/women-inmates-separate-but-notequal.html Since then, native ads from the New York Times’ branded content unit, T Brand Studio, have included an interactive guide to capital markets, sponsored by Goldman Sachs, and a multimedia feature for Shell on future cities. In Britain, Guardian Labs says it aims to create “world class” content that delivers “influential stories”. It boasts a series on sustainable palm oil production funded by RSPO, an industry lobby, and a string of stories under the rubric “sustainable business” sponsored by companies such as Unilever, BT, HP and Nordea.
A
dvertisers are embracing native-style ads over standard banner or display advertising because of their high performance, particularly on mobile phones, says Mark Hoelzel, an analyst at Business Insider. “Native display ads enable publishers and advertisers to seamlessly embed ad units that fit with original editorial content, making it more likely to engage audiences.” Advertisers spent £509 million on branded content and native advertising in the UK last year, accounting for 22 per cent of display ad spend, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau. In the United States, native advertising spend is set to rise to $21 billion in 2018, up four-fold from $4.7 billion in 2013, according to Business Insider, although other estimates are more conservative. In one sense, media companies have broadcast or published sponsored content for decades. Proctor and Gamble first sponsored radio and television drama in the 1950s to market their soap, while advertorials are almost part of the industry’s DNA. The difference now is that native advertising – a term that emerged in the US about four years ago and became synonymous with the website BuzzFeed – is often produced by journalists or former journalists. “It is done to look like journalism, often with a minimal degree of anything that makes it clear that this is advertising, maybe a small label, but most people don’t read things so closely,” says Justin Lewis, professor of communication at Cardiff University school of journalism. “It’s about the degree to which the two worlds have merged ... ads dressed up as journalism. Once that line has been crossed, you have crossed it,” Lewis says. “Traditionally we have always assumed there is a boundary, and there have been instances in which that boundary has slipped. But here the slippage is the whole point.” Labelling sponsored content prominently to avoid confusion appears to be a simple solution – the Internet Advertising Bureau this year issued guidelines on native advertising to ensure the industry is fully aware of existing theJournalist | 15
advertising
regulations from the Advertising Standards Authority. “People’s trust in a brand or publisher can diminish if the origin of the content is unclear,” the Bureau said. http:// www.iabuk.net/about/press/archive/guidelines-for-greatertransparency-in-online-advertorials But recent research has questioned the extent to which a small label such as “brought to you by”, or distinct colours, fonts and layouts, are adequate to distinguish sponsored content from the editorial in which it is embedded. “No matter what steps publishers have taken, there is still significant confusion on the part of readers as to what constitutes an article and what constitutes an ad,” according to a study in September by Contently, a US content marketing company. “On nearly every publication we tested, consumers tend to identify native advertising as an article, not an advertisement,” it found. https://contently.com/ strategist/2015/09/08/article-or-ad-when-it-comes-to-nativeno-one-knows/ It is no news to journalists that confusion between ads and editorial is damaging. In Britain, the Daily Telegraph found itself on the defensive early in 2015 when its senior political correspondent, Peter Oborne, quit after alleging that the paper’s coverage of a tax evasion scandal at HSBC had been toned down to keep advertisers sweet. The hybrid logic of native advertising implies that the walls separating editorial and ad departments become more porous, advertisers say. “When you are a publisher that peddles native advertising, you’re more vulnerable to advertising pressure,” noted Advertising Age after BuzzFeed pulled three articles under pressure from advertisers. When US new website The Atlantic in 2013 published a sponsored article for the Church of Scientology hailing a “milestone year” for the religion, there was uproar among readers. It is “vital” that all branded content is distinctly labelled, says the Guardian’s Anna Watkins, with clear labelling guidelines that identify when the content is editorially independent, and when it is an advertisement feature paid for and controlled by the advertiser. “Such clear guidelines are critical to retaining the trust of our readers – publishers who blur the lines risk undermining their editorial integrity and relationship with their readers.” The controversy over native advertising has made some publications wary, however. The Financial Times eschews the term. “The FT has been doing content-based marketing for a long time, but the term ‘native advertising’ is ambiguous and doesn’t truly reflect what we do,” says a spokesperson for the newspaper. The FT’s new “paid posts” are clearly labelled and stand out from other content on the website’s home page. However, the paper has introduced sophisticated algorithms that match ads to the content of news articles, generating “up to 20 times higher click-through-rates than industry averages”. Ads for airports, for example, appear beside airline company news. The technique “differs from advertorials as we are able to semantically match the content with the right audience”, the spokesperson says. (Full disclosure: I was a news editor at the FT for eight years, and I now write freelance for the paper.) At the FT, none of the paper’s journalists are involved 16 | theJournalist
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There is still significant confusion on the part of readers as to what constitutes an article and what constitutes an ad
”
Spot the difference?
in writing paid-for content. At the Daily Mail, however, journalists are paid extra for writing sponsored material, “so it’s a popular gig”, according to a former reporter. While much of this is in the features section of the website, which is thick with ads and product placement, the newspaper has also carried sponsored content from the government on its home page, written in-house. The newspaper says that this type of advertising “needs to be of the highest quality that retains journalistic integrity so people genuinely want to read it”. Online advertising is evolving rapidly as advertisers and media managers work out what is most effective – for both sides – in the digital environment. The revenue that it promises to deliver could be a lifeline, but the potential for editorial to be influenced means that journalists need to take notice. “At its most grand, journalism is in the public interest, while native advertising is in the interest of whoever is trying to get their product sold,” says Michael Foley of the NUJ’s ethics council. “Sponsored content isn’t necessarily bad, and it is legitimate to represent a private interest – just so long as we know which is which.”
Protecting democracy The expanding grey area between advertising and editorial brought about by native advertising has potentially far-reaching consequences for US democracy, argues Tamara Piety, a professor of law at the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Over the past two decades, corporations and other commercial entities have used litigation to win more expansive First Amendment protections for “commercial speech”, including advertising. The First Amendment to the US constitution guarantees free speech, but there is a subcategory of “commercial speech” which is regulated to ensure advertising claims correspond to the truth.
By brandishing the first amendment, however, corporations are winning more space to make advertising statements outside the regulations. The advent of native advertising gives them a new argument, because it is increasingly difficult to distinguish commercial from artistic or political expression. “The trend towards native advertising and embedded product placement, and all similar stealth efforts, is that it strengthens the hand of those who want full protection for commercial speech. We should default to full protection for all,” Piety says. The courts are becoming more receptive to these arguments, she says. “A
decade ago many people might have said that the Supreme Court would never protect false speech or assert that false speech had inherent First Amendment value. But the court has done just that. “The whole point of an ad trying to appear as editorial content is to clothe yourself in the higher credibility of a newspaper or magazine, on the grounds that ads lack credibility. But as these techniques proliferate and become well known, the threat is that it will destroy the credibility of the very thing that makes this valuable in the first place. … The practice is parasitic and threatens to kills the host.”
Q&A MAIN IMAGE: MARK THOMAS
What made you become a journalist? I abandoned plans to study chemical engineering, because I admired the work of my neighbour, the political commentator Michael McInerney.
What advice would you give someone starting in journalism? Be sure that you really want to be a journalist, and treat all around you with respect. They have a lot to teach you. Oh, and don’t ignore grammar.
What other job might you have done/have you done?
And the best?
Probably not a chemical engineer, though two of my nephews are leading particle physicists, so maybe I lost my way.
Any newsroom I’ve ever worked in. I’m proud to be a journalist, and very proud of all my colleagues.
Who is your biggest hero? Nelson Mandela
And villain?
When did you join the NUJ and why?
The names should trip off my tongue, but I find it difficult to sustain hatred.
Fifty years ago, when I started work at the Irish Times. It would have been unthinkable then not to join and commit oneself to collective action and defence of others.
Are many of your friends in the union? All of my journalist friends are NUJ members.
What’s been your best moment in your career? Almost any day ‘on the road’ with a film crew, or in an editing suite. I’m a team player, and really enjoy working with others.
Which six people (alive or dead) would you invite to a dinner party?
NUJ & Me Broadcaster Eddie Barrett is an NUJ member of honour and former president
Excluding living friends and family: Nelson Mandela, James Connolly, my late partner Kate Hodges, Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, Malala Yousafzai
What was your earliest political thought? That poverty, particularly that which affects/affected the travelling community, was a blight on humanity As a schoolboy I was a founder member of the Irish AntiApartheid Movement
What are your hopes for journalism over the next five years? That more journalists join the NUJ, with the encouragement of their colleagues.
2012 AFP
What is the worst place you’ve ever worked in? The memory dims. But doing a story for Thames TV on one of the ‘Bovril boats’ which dump London’s human waste in the North Sea was pretty memorable. Don’t ask where the boats got their nickname.
And fears? That we fail to find a publication model which solves the problem of reconciling the appetite for digital news with safeguarding a market for print.
How would you like to be remembered? With considerable charity. theJournalist | 17
Coping with the
aftershock Simon Creasey on the dangers of post traumatic stress for journalists
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he first time Sebastian Junger knew something wasn’t quite right he was stood on a New York subway platform waiting for the C train downtown. Suddenly the US war correspondent, author and Oscar-nominated documentary maker was paralysed with fear. He backed up against a metal column and was convinced that he was about to die. After a few minutes had passed he summoned the courage to sprint out of the subway and walked home. It was the first of many panic attacks that Junger endured over the course of a few months, until one day the attacks stopped. A short time after the panic attacks ended he was chatting to a psychotherapist at a social gathering who asked Junger – who reported on his first conflict in Sarajevo in the 1990s – if he’d been affected by his experiences as a war reporter. He replied “no” to the psychotherapist’s question, but then he told her about the panic attacks. Her response was “that’s called post traumatic stress disorder”. Junger wrote about his experience of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in an article for Vanity Fair magazine earlier this year on the impact the condition was having on soldiers. But while awareness is steadily growing of PTSD amongst members of the military, what’s been less well documented is the toll that war reporting is having on media personnel. Reporters, photographers and cameramen embedded with the military endure the same exposure to the horrors of war that soldiers do and they’re therefore exposed to the same physical and psychological dangers. For instance, Junger experienced his first panic attack shortly after returning from a two-month assignment in Afghanistan, during which he’d spent an hour curled up in a trench as rockets exploded around him. He later wrote that the experience had left him feeling “deranged for days afterward, as if I’d lived through the end of the world”. Junger’s experience isn’t an isolated example. In 2002, neuroscientist Anthony Feinstein, author of Journalists Under Fire: The Psychological Hazards of Covering War, carried out a study of war correspondents. He found that 28.2% had suffered from PTSD at some stage during their careers. The problem is that, Feinstein’s research aside, until relatively recently there has been a lack of awareness of PTSD amongst members of the media. Junger says that it wasn’t really until American soldiers engaged in combat and 18 | theJournalist
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A lot of them don’t like talking about it because they think that they might be seen as vulnerable or weak
suffered psychological damage that people really started to talk about PTSD, however, it’s still not something that is openly discussed in media circles due to the stigma attached. And therein lies the problem. According to Dr Claudia Herbert, a chartered consultant clinical psychologist at The Oxford Development Centre, who has treated a number of journalists, photographers and cameramen for PTSD, the issue is that a number of journalists refuse to admit that they are suffering from the condition. “A lot of them don’t like talking about it because they think that they might be seen as vulnerable or weak,” says Dr Herbert. “Also if something is distressing internally then talking about it can bring out the distress initially so most people try and avoid it. They use other coping strategies like alcohol, drugs or maybe even over-working to try not to talk about it because it’s too painful.” The list of symptoms ranges from people feeling emotionally blunted, to sleeping problems and/or repeated flashbacks of distressing images. While the military is starting to identify these danger signs, most newsroom employers haven’t been trained to identify PTSD symptoms. One organisation trying to change that is The Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma, a project of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, which has created a trauma management plan for journalists and news organisations. “Often managers and editors may feel that they lack the skills to have conversations with staff about sensitive, emotionally-charged issues and so the role of trauma management gets parcelled out to people in the HR department, or to an employee assistance programme,” explains Gavin Rees, executive director, Dart Centre Europe. To address this Dart, which is running an anonymous online questionnaire to try and assess the various forms of occupational risk and stress encountered by working journalists (see https://utulsapsychology.az1.qualtrics.com/ jfe/form/SV_1UfNBxWhInGC24B for more details), is already working with some news organisations, such as ABC News in Australia, to develop ‘peer support’ programmes. One of the key challenges for organisations like Dart and media companies is establishing who is at risk of suffering from PTSD in the first place, because Rees says it’s not a problem that’s specific to war reporters, but also to people covering topics such as crime and sex abuse cases. “And then there are social media producers and editors sitting in newsrooms, watching, in some cases, a staggering amount of horrific imagery from Syria and Iraq in full HD,” he adds. His concerns are borne out by a recent study of newsroom
trauma GETTYIMAGES
workers tasked with editing ‘user generated content’ – photos and videos sent to news organisations by members of the public – called ‘Witnessing images of extreme violence: a psychological study of journalists in the newsroom’. “The problem is that there is almost no control because people don’t know what they’re going to see and what’s in those images,” says Dr Herbert. “They’re going to have first time exposure to the images without being able to screen it out. They’re going to screen it out for others and edit, but they can’t screen it out themselves .” Junger believes that media groups should be doing more to help journalists deal with these issues. “If you’re a salaried employee of a company and you hurt yourself psychically – for instance, you fall down the stairs and break your leg – the company has to take care of you,” says Junger. “If you’re a salaried employee of CNN and you’re psychologically traumatised by something I just have to assume that part of the insurance policy covers psychiatric care.” For him the even bigger issue here surrounds the relationship between freelances and media organisations. During the Arab Spring and conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, a growing number of freelances endangered their lives to secure more dramatic stories and footage from the frontline after news outlets withdrew their staff. Junger believes this group of reporters are more at risk of suffering from something like PTSD as they haven’t had the support they deserve from organisations that use their stories. Although it’s clear that the stigma of admitting to suffering from PTSD within the media remains, the good news according to Rees is that awareness of the condition is slowly but surely growing. “Twenty years ago, one would often hear senior news managers decrying the idea that any of their staff could get into any kind of trauma trouble,” says Rees. “That’s been changing steadily ever since the war in Iraq. Now with events in Syria and Ukraine, most news managers are well aware that their employees can be psychologically injured by exposure to work-related trauma.” The challenge is getting senior managers and media organisations to provide an appropriate support to make sure that their employees no longer have to suffer in silence.
How to be prepared Before an assignment: Locate allies – make contact with other journalists, UN staff and humanitarian workers in the area you’re reporting on so that you have a support network in place. Go over the ground beforehand – as part of a risk assessment ask colleagues in the area what conditions are like. Prepare a contact plan –
prior to departure discuss how family/friends should be contacted should something happen to you. Work on fitness – exercise builds resistance to stress. Don’t forget domestic matters – set time aside for family and loved ones. Be sure you are ready to go – if you’re feeling pressurised to go and it doesn’t feel emotionally
like the right time, then consider turning down the assignment. During an assignment: Look after you body – eat and sleep well, take exercise, drink water, watch your alcohol consumption, be careful with stimulants like caffeine. Pay heed to your emotional needs – develop daily rituals that take you out of the story,
acknowledge your feelings and talk to people you trust; never underestimate the importance of laughter, try deep breathing especially if distressed, try to form the habit of reframing negative situations. Support others – be available to listen, be a leader; if somebody is finding it hard to cope consider suggesting they concentrate on lighter practical tasks.
After an assignment: Take a day or two ‘decompression time’ before returning home. Try to keep your expectations of the return home in proportion. Develop connections with others who have had similar experiences. Take stock of your mental wellbeing and remember it is never too late to seek help. Source: Dart Centre
theJournalist | 19
first person
StartingOut Gemma Smith found inspiration and opening doors when she went to the University of Westminster
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ou have been accepted at the University of Westminster on the BA Journalism course’ read a UCAS email in 2013. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had finally done it. My preferred institution had accepted me! I knew at that moment that it was my time to embrace an offer that I had always dreamed of. Growing up I always loved to watch the news and listening in on people’s stories. A nosey character definitely adds to this! Going to university has allowed me to meet real-life, working journalists and there has been nothing more exciting. Seeing how the industry works at first hand is very useful for an aspiring writer, and my network of people in the media has broadened massively since joining. I always felt stuck in what I was doing before university. Waitressing in the evening and being a marketing assistant during the day was hard going, and even though the money was good, I was miserable. I knew that deep down my purpose was neither one of those jobs. I knew that there was so much more I had to offer, I just had to make that big step and now that I have, I can never look back. Gaining work experience with Spanish newspapers and magazines was fun. I had my own page called the InScene in a newspaper The Coastrider for nearly a year. I realised that the more versatile I was as a journalist the bigger readership I could 20 | theJournalist
potentially attract, so that’s what I set out to do. So I would write a little bit of everything; from culture to the latest fashion trends. I think one of the biggest tips in journalism for me if I could speak to myself is to let the enthusiasm show in whatever you do. It doesn’t matter if people reject you, your writing may not appeal to everyone, but there will be some that will appreciate it. When I got settled into my degree in second year I became the Editor-inChief for the university publication Smoke Magazine. I now have writers from across the institution sending their work for me to edit and it feels great. I’m reading a wide spectrum of writing styles and by editing the work I’m becoming a better journalist myself. During this time I decided to apply for work experience at BBC Suffolk and I got it. I went there for just under a week and absolutely loved it. Not only did I write for the online department and get my work published, but I also spent some time in the radio studios looking at the broadcast side of journalism.
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ollowing my time at BBC Suffolk I went to the Press Association at the Royal Courts of Justice where I shadowed a journalist for four days. There is nothing like working alongside a traditional reporter who encouraged me to see situations differently. Now I also really value the skill of shorthand much more after seeing it being used in various court cases.
As well as studying, in my free time I like to blog. I use WordPress, which I think is a great platform for a writer to start out on. I also love how I can blog on the move, using my mobile phone. While travelling, blogging became one of my favourite things to do at the end of each day.
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I joined the NUJ as soon as I began university and enjoyed the events that I got invited to
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joined the NUJ as soon as I began university and I enjoyed the events that I got invited to. I have networked a great deal at them and I think it helps to surround yourself with like-minded people as it helps for you to become what you need to be even quicker! By doing this I met a contact who asked me if I wanted to write for a starting-out newspaper, TCE Global, and now I contribute to them every other week. Journalism is undoubtedly a tough industry to break into as there are so many amazing writers, but I think what separates one from the next is the drive and passion. It’s way too easy to give up, but all that I know now is that this is just the beginning. The best is yet to come.
@gemmasmith7667
on media Raymond Snoddy despairs of John Whittingdale’s initiatives
Defending Channel 4 from a very daft idea
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ulture Secretary John Whittingdale is consolidating his determined attempt to become the worst holder of the post this country has ever had – including the time when the incumbent was known as the Minister for Fun. According to one discerning observer – a former Culture Secretary – Whittingdale has already scaled that peak. “Dreadful. He’s just a journeyman backbencher who was dispatched into the role,” the former minister sniffed. It will be difficult to make the award formal because there is a good chance that some of the dafter Whittingdale ideas will be overturned by Cabinet superiors, leaving him appearing more sensible than he actually is. His most dangerous incursion into media politics so far is his apparent enthusiasm for privatising Channel 4. At the Royal Television Society’s Cambridge convention in the summer Whittingdale, using the most weasel of words, claimed privatisation was not even under debate. A few days later one of his careless civil servants was photographed going into Downing Street with the privatisation option “to extract greater public value” sticking out of his brief case. It is difficult to think of anything more likely to damage “public value” than a smash and grab raid which raises no more than a one-off £1 billion but which would inevitably turn a unique channel into just another commercial broadcaster. There is the public value of Channel 4 News, Despatches and Unreported World, not to mention the public value created by a vibrant independent production
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His most dangerous incursion into media politics so far is his apparent enthusiasm for privatising Channel 4
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sector spearheaded by Channel 4. You could write protective remits until the cows come home and fail to prevent the channel changing its character, story-by-story, programmeby-programme over the years in the hands of a for-profit broadcaster. It is the only public service broadcaster in the world funded wholly by advertising and was created by the Conservatives and could now be destroyed by the Conservatives. The current Channel 4 chairman Lord Burns is particularly worth listening to on the subject as he is a former permanent secretary at the Treasury. “I don’t believe the Treasury are terribly interested in privatising Channel 4 because they want the money, when they have got an enormous number of assets which are available to be sold,” he noted in an interview. So it’s being driven by Whittingdale’s free-market instincts then. Some in government, the former mandarin suggested, seemed to believe you could privatise and keep the remit. Who could he mean? Privatise and the likelihood is that the new owners would be American – hardly the end of the world but not exactly in the best traditions of British public service broadcasting. With Channel 5 already in US ownership and Liberty Global holding a possibly predatory stake in ITV, it is far from fanciful to see the main broadcast channels, with the exception of the BBC, in American ownership. And you can
forget reciprocity – UK companies are forbidden from owning US networks. The slightly better news on the BBC include hints that an informal deal has been done between BBC directorgeneral Lord Tony Hall and Chancellor George Osborne that the BBC will not face any further cuts. At the same time the World Service is to receive nearly £200 million in additional funds for expansion. So maybe – just maybe – John Whittingdale will not be able to follow his natural instincts and create mayhem in the UK broadcasting industry after all.
For the latest updates from Raymond Snoddy on Twitter go to @raymondsnoddy theJournalist | 21
arts by Amy Powell Yeates A range of Christmas gift ideas for political friends in this month’s books and DVD listings, with theatre, comedy and campaigns to take you into 2016 Theatre Pink Mist The Bush Theatre, London/Bristol Old Vic From 21 January Welsh poet and playwright Owen Sheers’s work has often explored the effects of the wars of the 20th and 21st centuries. Pink Mist, inspired by 30 interviews with returned servicemen, was originally performed at Bristol Old Vic in 2015 and is revisited in 2016 for a run at London’s Bush Theatre, before returning to Bristol. John Retallack, the theatre’s artistic associate, directs, with movement by George Mann of Theatre Ad Infinitum. www.bushtheatre.co.uk www.bristololdvic.org.uk
Comedy Andy Parsons: Slacktivist Action Group Soho Theatre 25 January, 29 February, 28 March ‘Live at the Apollo’ and ‘Mock the Week’ regular Andy Parsons chairs a monthly discussion about a current topic with changing guests 22 | theJournalist
with attitude
including MPs, journalists, experts and comedians. The end result is an agreed piece of direct action to achieve before the next meeting – the unwritten understanding being that the agreed action is unlikely to happen down to it being highly impractical or poorly attended. www.sohotheatre.com Campaigns What Next? What Next? is a movement bringing together arts and cultural organisations from across the UK, to articulate and strengthen the role of culture in our society. It endeavours to gather advice from a range of perspectives and has thus far engaged with community leaders, politicians, businesspeople, funders and academics, as well as artists and audiences, with meetings taking place
he Some of t s to best thing h a o wit see and d al bite ic it l o p f o bit
in Manchester, Liverpool, Coventry, Sheffield, Cambridge and Cardiff. As part of the movement, the Arts For Britain campaign has been set up with the aim of making the best possible case for arts and culture to the government and is encouraging constituents to communicate with their MPs. www.whatnextculture.co.uk Books On Freedom Various, curated by Belarus Free Theatre Oberon Books, £10 (hb) In the year of its 10th Anniversary, Belarus Free Theatre (BFT) has published an anthology of short essays on the concept of freedom. The 34 contributors range from artists to activists and directors to politicians, including actor Michael Sheen,
email: For listings NUJ.org.uk journalist@
Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti, fashion icon and activist Vivienne Westwood and director of English PEN Jo Glanville. With cover work by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei and a foreword by playwright and BFT patron Tom Stoppard, the manifesto explores the changing definition of what freedom looks like today, from the UK to Belarus. www.oberonbooks.com The Lightless Sky Gulwali Passarlay with Nadene Ghouri Atlantic Books, £18.99 (hb), £8.99 (pb) At the age of 12, Gulwali Passarlay was sent away from Afghanistan,
indepth
Amy, Amy, Amy
‘Amy’ – the documentary about six-time Grammy award-winner Amy Winehouse – won acclaim on its release in cinemas this year. Award-winning director Asif Kapadia has predominantly used archive footage, much of
it previously unseen, to weave together the story of the troubled but immensely talented teen who was propelled into the limelight when her first album Frank won huge international success. It also boldly holds to account the behaviour of a host of scrambling media who provoked and exposed her until no part of her private life was left unjudged or uncommented upon. Winehouse knows from the beginning that a life in the spotlight is not one that she is cut out for. When asked by one interviewer whether she thinks she’ll be famous, she first reflects that her music, presumably hinting at the pure jazz sound, isn’t a popular genre for her generation, before prophetically acknowledging that
even if it were, she couldn’t cope with the kind of attention that comes with fame. ‘I’d go mad,’ she openly expresses. Although she was, of course, correct in her second prediction, she ensured that jazz reached a new audience for the duration of her writing career. The documentary provides gentle insights into her relationship with friends, family and colleagues, many of them very fond and happy; some, as in the notorious case of her husband Blake Fielder, immensely damaging. What is left is a tragic account of the downfall of a vulnerable woman – a reminder of the deeply destructive abilities of unethical media behaviour but also a celebration of one of the great jazz talents of a generation.
www.amyfilm.co.uk
arts after his father was killed in gun a battle with the US army for hiding Taliban fighters. He began a year-long journey to Europe which saw him suffering extreme hunger, cruelty in prisons, and a neardeath experience as he crossed the Mediterranean. Still aged 12, Gulwali arrived in Britain. In 2012, after being fostered and going on to study at a top university, he would be chosen to carry the Olympic torch. His timely account of his story also reflects on the many men and women around the world who risk their lives to leave their homeland in search of a life of freedom and opportunity. www.atlantic-books.co.uk A Brief History of Seven Killings Marlon James Oneworld Publications, £8.99 (pb) In 2015 Marlon James became the first Jamaican to win the Man Booker
Prize. His novel is set in Jamaica in 1976. Seven gunmen storm Bob Marley’s house, machine guns blazing. The reggae superstar survives but the gunmen are never caught. James, who won acclaim for his dissection of slavery in the novel The Book of Night Women, now focuses in on a whole host of characters – slum kids, drug lords, girlfriends, gunmen, journalists and even the CIA – weaving in the language of streetwise New York and Jamaican patois, in a vivid and vast portrait of violence in the Caribbean. www.oneworld-publications.com Visual Impact: Creative Dissent in the 21st Century Liz McQuiston, £24.95 (pb) Phaidon This richly illustrated book explores how art and design have driven major political and social change in the 21st century. From popular uprisings (the Arab Spring and London riots), social activism
(marriage equality), environmental crises (Hurricane Katrina) and protest events (Je Suis Charlie), the book features work spanning continents and the digital world and includes work by established artists such as Ai Weiwei and Shepard Fairey, as well as anonymous influencers working through social media. www.phaidon.com How to Write about Theatre Mark Fisher Bloomsbury, £17.99 (pb) With more than 25 years’ experience, NUJ member and journalist Mark Fisher is one of Scotland’s foremost commentators on the arts. He is the Scottish theatre critic for the Guardian, former editor of the List and a freelance contributor to Variety, the Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday. His book, The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide, was described by theatre critic Lyn Gardner as ‘a wonderfully practical but also inspirational book full of good advice’.
In his new book he gives advice on how to analyse and capture the most transient of art forms, drawing on his own experience and learning lessons from history’s leading critics. www.howtowriteabouttheatre.com DVDs This is England ’86, ’89, ’90 Warp Films Shane Meadows’ 2006 film about a group of disenfranchised young nationalists in the unstable social climate of the 1980s won a BAFTA for best film and encouraged a great deal of debate about life in Thatcher’s Britain. Since then, Meadows has directed three spin-off series: This is England ’86, ’88 and, most recently this year, ’90. Across the three series, the characters continue to try and find their way as they come of age amid high rates of unemployment, race riots and anti-nuclear protests. Now all three series are available as one box set. www.warpfilms.com
Can you trust your sources? Think tanks can be valuable sources of analysis and research. But some are more open about who funds them than others. We shine a light on the most and the least transparent. Who Funds You? promotes funding transparency among UK think tanks and political campaigns. We ask organisations to publish their annual income and declare their major funders.
WhoFundsYou.org wfy-nuj-ad-half_horiz.indd 1
12/02/2015 14:00
theJournalist | 23
YourSay... inviting letters, comments, tweets
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Please keep comments to 200 words maximum
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★ TIM ELLIS
Magazine is a vital link with members It’s a real pity that the NUJ has now decided to restrict new members by default to receiving The Journalist online only. Surely new members to the union, who have made a positive choice to join a union in an environment that has seldom, if ever, been more hostile to such a choice, deserve the strongest links that the union can build with them. These links definitely include receiving The Journalist in their homes rather than via another email in a packed inbox. We’re all familiar with companies that employ journalists making petty economies amid despairing noises about financial calamity. But the NUJ can afford to spend a lot of money on refurbishing our London head office (a sensible decision and probably one which is overdue) but meantime it is creating a so-called “media hub” in the building which will only ever be accessed by a minority of our current and future members. I would much prefer to nourish the contact with our new members, wherever in these islands they live and work. Let them have a hard copy of their union’s magazine. Tom Lynch Edinburgh Freelance branch
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★ Wrong move to reduce Journalist print copies I was somewhat disappointed to learn that a printed version of the Journalist might no longer be sent out to some members, instead new members will receive an electronic version. I have been a member of the NUJ since 1970 and my copy of The Journalist has been a very important asset in helping to keep me fully informed about what is going on, and in making me feel part of an organisation. We used to have large active branches and chapels. Sadly these have been gradually eroded over the years making the NUJ seem less like one coherent body of which we 24 | theJournalist
are members. The Journalist has been one way of welding us together, and I am concerned that some of the older members will not have the means of receiving the paper in its new format. As a union we fight to keep written papers, not all of us want to read things online. There is a difference in having something in your hand to mull over which is somehow lost electronically. The Journalist with its stories about what is going on in the union and amongst its members plays a very important informative role, it’s one that I have over the years been happy to pay for as being part of my subscription. I would hope that the union thinks again and keeps this
important democratic arm of the union in paper form. Peta Van den Bergh Steel Press and PR branch
The NUJ should be championing print I’m dismayed that the NUJ is looking to move from sending all members a print version of the Journalist magazine. I read that, because it’s there in front of me. The online link will just get forgotten, or pile up with all the other things I haven’t got time to keep up with on the internet.But, what I find really dispiriting is that a union that is supposed to represent my interests
Email to: journalist@nuj.org.uk Post to: The Journalist 308-312 Gray’s Inn Road London WC1X 8DP Tweet to: @mschrisbuckley
seems to be turning its back on them Those of us working in print would like to see the NUJ championing it as a medium that still has a future. Making the magazine something that people must actively request, rather than the default, sends out a very poor message Amanda Langley Gwent
A printed magazine is an advertisement for the NUJ I read in the latest issue that you are switching to online issues. This is to confirm that I wish to continue with my print copy which is easier to read and much more convenient. If it were online I would never remember to open it, let alone read it! I am semi retired now and have been an NUJ member for several decades. It is also worth pointing out that a physical printed magazine is in itself an advertisement for the NUJ in a way that online never can be. Not a good move in my opinion! Jean Seager Orpington
With the best will, online newsletters don’t get read As per the message on page 3 of the October/November issue of The Journalist, I wish to continue to receive a printed copy of the magazine. With the best will in the world, onlineonly newsletters (not just The Journalist but newsletters from charities, local groups etc) just don’t get read. Printed copies get read whenever there’s a spare minute, be it on the bus or tube during a commute, or at home in the evening (possibly with a refreshment). I recognise the costs involved in printing and sending out physical copies, and I would be happy to make a donation towards this. Perhaps the NUJ might consider charging members for receiving printed copies of The Journalist? Failing this, give us the opportunity to make a donation when we renew our subscriptions? Ian Cranna London
inbox A cancer that can be beaten if caught early
Let’s get out there and make our presence felt
I won’t be sad to see the back of 2015, as it has been a year battling to beat bowel cancer. Still, it ended on a high, wining the CIPR Outstanding Higher Education Journalism Award for a BBC online news feature on European migration trends from the viewpoint of Lithuania, which is losing so many of its brightest. It certainly helped keep my spirits up being able to work from home when I was able, despite the radiotherapy & chemotherapy and two operations. Now, the end of the tunnel is in sight, with a second dose of chemo due to end before Christmas. Throughout my cancer battle – hopefully now won – I’ve been encouraged by support and messages from comrades and colleagues, including NUJ PR & Communication Council members. Bowel cancer is the UK’s second biggest cancer killer, but if detected in time, has a 90 per cent chance of being treated successfully. So I’d urge readers to look out for the warning signs, see my ‘Cancer-talk’ blog for http://delacourcommunications. com/category/cancer/ Now, I’m looking forward to returning to active NUJ service in 2016. Nic Mitchell Joint-Chair, PR and Communication Council
Sylvia Courtnage from Book Branch is absolutely right to point to the union’s terrible lack of any real presence on last June’s End Austerity Now demonstration in London, although the London Magazine Branch did join the march. Sadly the same can be said about the 100,000-strong, 4 October march in Manchester against austerity and the Tory Party conference. Anyone looking for the NUJ’s presence would have been hardpressed to see it. The one banner (perhaps there were more, but I didn’t see them) that made it onto the media section of the march – again, the magnificent London Magazine Branch banner – was surrounded by at least eight BECTU banners, six or more Equity ones, a host of Musicians Union banners and umpteen CWU ones. There was also a fantastic array of flags carried by members from all the latter unions. As it was, the march was fantastic – by far the strongest display of trade union organisation and strength in this country for several years, and one that chimed absolutely with the new mood triggered by Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership victory. Anyone who marched on it would have been boosted by the anger and militancy of the protest, and inspired to help
STEVE BELL
organise for a fightback against the Conservatives. So, unlike our associate unions in the Federation of Entertainment Unions, the NUJ missed out big time in terms of attracting new – and hold your breath – perhaps young recruits. Come on colleagues, there’s a massive fight confronting us, and particularly that facing our colleagues in the BBC. Brush off the cobwebs and get ready for the protests ahead. Alan Gibson London Magazine Branch
A great illustration for the demise of photography
A bygone picture of the gentlemen of the press
I’m grateful to NUJ Training for enrolling me on an e-Publishing course in Glasgow, even at the age of 76 – putting ‘lifelong learning’ into context! The course provided know-how on dozens of the online services, including the household name social media outlets. For me, a special bonus was sitting with nine others below the portrait of the Scots actor Alex McCrindle, whom I used to report when he was Organiser of Equity, the actors’ union. He always provided a good story for those of us who were covering the monthly meetings of Edinburgh District Trades Council and he was perhaps best known as the voice of “Jock” in the early “Dick Barton, Special Agent” radio thrillers. Brian McGuire Edinburgh
How smart the Gentlemen of the Press used to look (Bringing the Shutters Down, October/November). Hats, ties, suits with creases and polished shoes. They all appear to be using the trusted Palmas plate camera which had a string blind to adjust the speed, a fixed lens with a aperture of f4.5 We would go out on an assignment with about 10/12 slides, be it a Royal visit, court case or a football match. No range finders, automatic exposures or motor drives. Do I dare mention the word “Photoshop”? Now I am told a photographer may take a few hundred pictures at a football match. I must admit I envy the quality of today’s images. Gerry Crowther Bolton
What a great photograph to illustrate the article, ‘Bringing Down the Shutters’, (October/November) and the sad, very sad demise of staff photographers across the newspaper industry. The newspaper managements should all hang their heads in shame. Ray Bradbury Life member
My lifelong learning experience was great
THE OWNERS
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and finally
s Click for feedback to lift the spirit Chris Proctor suggests that positive reactions need a helping hand
a lonely world. Polar Lander. Communication is to youdonegood, nks Tha e! Or it was! Not any mor Christmas re -fi sure (a app my latest patented find their working soon will sts nali jour stocking filler) erience. Let me hours a joyous and rewarding exp explain how it works. response. The basic service is an automated ast week I was pleased to receive app to the on tap ply sim y, After writing a stor seven emails congratulating me on nk you for a ‘Tha ing, read sage mes a ive instantly rece pieces I had penned for Tribune ten item. writ ely clos particularly well-researched and magazine; two remarking on the ion are, ress exp of Your clarity of mind and precision measured prose of an article I’d !’ as ever, exemplary. Brilliant menting this low-end composed for Aslef, and four com Many scribes will be satisfied with st. nali for The Jour titious nature repe favourably on my previous column its nd fi will rs service, while othe I’d sent them gh thou even d, ghte deli was I not upgrade to Naturally eventually grates. In this case, why this product, elf. to mys the next – personalised – level? With as frequent as a and the n As a rule, contact with readers is tatio salu your name will appear as a ys a bad thing k has wor r bus in a rain shower. This is not alwa you that n be give h, readers can prove impression will most ll thri to because when they do get in touc ugh eno is e been read. This alon to air some petty less than laudatory, often wishing paid writers. a misspelled name in niggle, like a glaring factual error, The app will search for key words ed mov only rally gene or a downright lie. Readers are your copy and respond states of outrage. to composition when in advanced appropriately. Thus if the their training Editors are of the same ilk. Part of word ‘aviary’ is contained or ten piece’ is to have phrases like ‘nicely writ within the text, the their lexicon. ‘interesting angle’ removed from app will congratulate ratulation is so The only exception is when a cong e on birds. Should your es the floor creak. you on your piec your court heavily laden with irony that it mak copy contain the word ‘sentenced’, words ‘well done’ ous class‘vici If . I recall one publisher uttering the ded men be com ed a libel writ which reporting will cted, the dete is ’ to me in this style as he brandish trap clap e snid ridden bullying I urged him ne. byli my ting spor y stor a to your remarks referred app will comment favourably on pointed out, that I , sign sure a was it : tive posi be to concerning the Trade Union Bill. and that careful its, the magazine was read diligently If this is not enough to raise the spir our reporting. ure, feat attention was paid to the detail of this With l. consider the gold leve my abode being being will Later, on gardening leave despite the app guarantees that a human of re natu is the sent an be a third floor flat, I reflected that this will you And k! wor r you examine to label them all ng wro be ld wou It ent. r [YOUR agem man email along the following lines: “Dea marginally. your read to finicky fractious nit pickers. But only NAME]. What a pleasure it was behave at home. ]. This JECT [SUB I have often wondered how they on le artic [NUMBER OF WORDS] r feet and shouting high own r you by I have seen editors stamping thei even ble arka latest piece is rem . Somehow this ission perm r you because something has gone awry seek to ing writ am I standards. newsroom. I don’t ion for this is acceptable, even expected, in a to forward it as a selected nominat the e hom at t stun this doubt will little know about you, but if I tried year’s Pulitzer Prize which I have ld be a snigger. .’ iece best reaction I could hope for wou tlep man shortly be gracing your circle that I was column, do If I tried to tell my own domestic With favourable comments on this a on elf find mys below. In il ema in charge and had to be obeyed, I’d the to them send to not hesitate yfloss. cand gum blebub than ier stick arks are also wicket the interest of balance, critical rem oards all the ress of your Most of us slave away at hot keyb add welcomed and should go to the the ether and gmail.com 50@ livelong day dispatching prose into ctor to chris.pro does from the Mars choice. But not receiving less reaction than NASA
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26 | theJournalist
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DON’T LET THEM DESTROY THE BBC Join the Love it or Lose Campaign. You can: • Find out more on the NUJ website https://www.nuj.org.uk/campaigns/love-it-or-lose-it/ • Sign the petition https://campaign.goingtowork.org.uk/petitions/loveit-or-lose-it-save-the-bbc • Visit the campaign Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/bbcloveitorloseit • Organise a branch or public meeting to get support for the BBC • Write to your MP
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