Breaking News! Fixing the Problems of Instant Journalism Contents
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MAGAZINE OF THE NATIONAL UNION OF JOURNALISTS WWW.NUJ.ORG.UK | MARCH-APRIL 2019 Breaking News! Fixing the problems of instant journalism Contents Main feature 16 Slow news is good news In depth reporting online News ver feel like you’re in a whirlwind of 03 Newsquest national pay initiative news and opinion? With news now disseminated instantly in many ways Campaign across publisher’s titles and with journalists often having little 04 MPs berate BBC over equal pay chance to check the veracity of the Corporation fails to set targets Einformation storm it’s easy to feel bowled over and distrustful of instant news. 05 All party support for Cumbrian strike But more journalists are stopping this world and getting off Members take action over pay to opt for slow news – reporting which deliberately eschews 07 Dutch photographers strike speed to take a different and more insightful perspective. Freelances’ collective protest Rachel Broady looks at the growth of slow news. And for those journalists who want to slow down even more “and write at even greater length Lynne Wallis looks at how to Features move from journalist to author. 10 Springing into action In our campaigning work Jenny Sims looks at how a long Recognition victory at publisher battle at the publisher Springer Nature yielded results with the recognition of the NUJ. 12 Time to get packing? Our Viewpoint opinion column is a powerful account by The plight of travel journalism Turkish journalist Ayse Duzkan of how her campaigning led to a 16 From fact to fiction jail sentence which she is now serving. Do you have a novel in you? Both Springer and Ayse show how strong journalists can be in the face of adversity. And so does Eugene Costello who having suffered a heart attack decided to embark on a massive road Regulars trip with someone he hadn’t met to raise funds for charity. He 09 Viewpoint completed the journey with a great deal of humour. Something to inspire us all. 18 Media anniversary 26 And finally... Christine Buckley Editor @mschrisbuckley Arts with Attitude Pages 24-25 Editor NUJ [email protected] 72 Acton Street Design London WC1X 9NB Surgerycreations.com [email protected] [email protected] www.nuj.org.uk Advertising Tel: 020 7843 3700 Melanie Richards Manchester office Raymond Tel: 07494975239 [email protected] Snoddy [email protected] Glasgow office Print [email protected] Page 23 Warners Cover picture www.warners.co.uk Dublin office [email protected] Gary Neill Letters Distribution and Steve Bell GB Mail ISSN: 0022-5541 ” www.gb-mail.co.uk Page 20-22 02 | theJournalist news Newsquest journalists in inbrief... HUMPHREYS SAYS FAREWELL TO TODAY national pay campaign John Humphreys is to leave Radio 4’s Today programme by the end of NUJ members working for the year. Humphrys has been with Newsquest, Britain’s second-largest Today for more than 30 years. From regional and local newspaper company, have 1981 to 1987 he was the main launched a national pay campaign. presenter for BBC Television’s Nine Many journalists working for Newsquest, Thousands of O’Clock News which is owned by the US company Gannett, have only had two cost of living pay rises in the UK employees in last 11 years. Newsquest cannot BETH RIGBY IS SKY’S Trainee journalists can start on £16,500 and POLITICAL EDITOR some of the highest-paid reporters, with up to be ignored and Beth Rigby has been appointed Sky 30 years’ experience, earn £26,000. But the whichever is the greater. “ News political editor, replacing company has also started taking on editorial In the last 18 months Newsquest has spent condemned to exist on Faisal Islam who is becoming the apprentices who currently earn the minimum £13.5 million buying Isle of Wight County Press rubbish pay forever. BBC’s economics editor. She joined wage when starting. Group, NWN Media Ltd and CN Group in Sky News in 2016 as a senior Journalists are asking Newsquest for a Cumbria. political correspondent. Her decent pay rise this year that reflects big Chris Morley, Newsquest NUJ national Chris Morley previous roles include chief political productivity gains from cutting jobs and coordinator, said:“While Newsquest’s parent correspondent at the FT. loading new technological requirements on to Gannett is fending off the unwanted attentions the remaining journalists. They also point out of a $1.4 billion hostile takeover bid by vulture that the national living wage will be rising by capitalists, the thousands of UK employees in THIS WEEK TO END 4.8 per cent in April so their pay should not get Newsquest cannot be ignored and condemned WHEN NEIL QUITS left behind. to exist on rubbish pay forever. CHARLESWORTH ROBERT The BBC will end its late-night NUJ chapels are submitting local pay “That is why NUJ chapels are working politics show This Week when demands which reflect local conditions but collectively to give the biggest possible Andrew Neil leaves the programme most are asking that the unpaid 3 per cent reminder today to bosses that they deserve a after hosting it for 16 years. The cost of living rise last year should be added to little more love from the corporate hierarchy in programme will end after its a further 5 per cent rise in 2019, making a the form of cold hard cash for their amazing current run in July. The BBC said it total of 8 per cent or a minimum of £2,000, productivity, skill and invention.” couldn’t imagine the programme without Andrew Neil. Charitable status for papers? MANCHESTER GETS NEW SUNDAY EDITION Jeremy Wright, the Dame Frances Cairncross Mr Wright has asked the The Manchester Evening News has Secretary of State for Digital, had warned that the closure Competition and Markets launched its first Sunday edition. Culture, Media and Sport, has of local newspapers threatens Authority to conduct a study of The new edition is a digest of the asked the Charity Commission to democracy. the digital advertising market. week’s news and features but with determine if groups which But she noted that many local He has also written to former additional new content and a promote public interest and newspapers which are vital to Obama advisor Professor Jason lifestyle and leisure supplement. It investigative journalism could be ensuring local democracy have Furman who has been asked by also includes long reads which have given charitable status following cut investment and many the government to examine appeared online. a recommendation from the journalists’ jobs in an effort to digital competition in UK. Cairncross review into the future maintain profit margins because of the media. of high levels of corporate debt. Raymond Snoddy, page 23 WORLD MEDIA DEATH TOLL REACHES 84 The International Federation of Journalists’ annual list of media workers killed doing their job shows that 84 journalists, camera Digital media hit by cuts and closure operators, fixers and technicians died in targeted killings, bomb Digital media suffered big blows early leaving. Last year Buzzfeed UK laid off a third attacks and cross-fire incidents. this year with plans by Buzzfeed to cut 200 of its staff and in January Janine Gibson, the Afghanistan, Mexico, Yemen and jobs worldwide, 800 job losses at Verizon UK editor-in-chief, left the company. Syria topped the killing fields for Media Group, the owner of the HuffPost, The Pool went into administration owing media workers in 2018. The list Yahoo and AOL, and the closure of the UK money to staff and freelances. A crowdfunding includes Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi PICTOKRAFT / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO STOCK / ALAMY PICTOKRAFT website The Pool. Jonah Peretti, BuzzFeed’s initiative to help those affected was set up by journalist murdered in the Saudi founder, said 15 per cent of staff would be the literary agency boss Julia Kingsford. consulate in Istanbul. theJournalist | 03 news inbrief... MPs berate BBC over failure to FT APPOINTS GLOBAL DIVERSITY HEAD The Financial Times has appointed acknowledge pay discrimination Priscilla Baffour, ITN’s former head of diversity and inclusion, to a new The BBC has come under fresh fire PHOTO STOCK / ALAMY LONDON TOMMY role of global diversity chief. She from MPs on the digital, cultural, media and has also worked as a Channel 4 sport select committee over a lack of progress industry talent specialist and as a in establishing equal pay. youth outreach and projects Their investigation into pay at the manager for Media Trust. corporation was triggered last year when presenter Carrie Gracie (pictured right), backed by the NUJ, accused the BBC of pay SITWELL JOINS discrimination. The NUJ has made a large THE TELEGRAPH number of equal pay claims on behalf of William Sitwell has joined The women at the BBC. Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, Telegraph as a writer and Last October, the select committee said: “This hard-hitting report on the BBC’s commentator. This was shortly after published a highly critical report of pay response to the select committee must be the former Waitrose Food magazine inequality at the corporation. taken seriously by the corporation. editor stepped down over comments In January, the MPs published a fresh report “It has been told that it must comply with he made in an email to a freelance accusing the BBC of still failing to acknowledge the law on equal pay and the committee took Our evidence suggests in which he proposed a series on the ‘structural problem that exists regarding the BBC to task for failing to admit a pay ‘killing vegans’. equal pay’. They said it was “very disappointed discrimination problem, instead confining its that some women that the BBC has failed to acknowledge that a remarks to references to the ‘gender pay gap’ at the BBC who work pay discrimination problem exists”.