I recently calculated (recently being just now, on the back of a cornflake box) that I spend roughly twenty percent of my waking hours reading, watching or listening to “journalism”. That amounts to well over thirty thousand hours over my lifetime. I’ve read somewhere that it takes ten thousand hours or so of practice to become an expert, therefore three times that figure must make me something of a grand master, guru, thought leader … or at least someone who may have a defensible reason to be interested in the future of journalism.
So I was a bit miffed when I saw a tweet yesterday – from a “trained journalist”, no mere blogger or social media monkey – suggesting that Journalism Week at Trinity University should have been strictly for professionals. The inference was that journalists have some special trade secrets that mustn’t be shared with those outside the fraternity, a bit like The Magic Circle; you don’t give the tricks away.
I have to reassure my Twitter friend that no secrets were divulged during the first day of Journalism Week. Journalism is safe. If anything I came away from the first day of the conference with an increased respect for the sheer hard work that journalists put into the job and the obvious enthusiasm even the old hacks (if they’ll pardon that expression) have for their profession. I know I couldn’t do it. Not even pretend.
I did come away with some questions though – which seems appropriate, as it’s the job of journalism to ask and enquire and probe.
What does journalist training actually teach you? One of the things that came over clearly from every one of the speakers yesterday was that most of the learning was done on the job. You might want to be a foreign correspondent but you start on a local paper, reporting petty misdemeanors and minor accidents; or you want to do serious journalism and end up covering the dafter side of sport. One of the speakers became political editor with apparently no understanding or training in politics … which probably helped a lot. And another speaker was an ex-academic with no training whatsoever but now was editing the work of trained journalists on a national newspaper. So, what is the training about and why is it necessary? If my Twitter friend is so convinced that it’s the training that makes all the difference, why does it seem so tangential to the actual outcome?
What is it that journalists are actually paid for? Some of the speakers emphasised the expressive side – making the story engaging and understandable even to your grandma – and others put more weight on the investigative side – asking the right questions, unearthing the hidden causes of events. Everyone talked about “the story”, but I was confused where “the story” came from.
There is also a question about a journalists allegiance. One speaker made it clear that journalism is a business – especially local newspapers and broadcasters who have close commercial links with the business community where they are based. Reporting business stories can become perilously close to PR for local companies. Another speaker was more concerned to claim that journalism had no allegiance to mundane matters, it was simply about the truth, at all costs. Is that reasonable? Does it even make sense?
Finally there’s a debate about the position of journalism in major events; is a journalist there simply as witness, or is there a role for a more involved stance? Is a journalist always outside, objective and impartial; or can journalism be more personal, partisan and political? There is a big difference reporting both sides of the Scottish devolution debate fairly and giving the same even-handedness to both sides of a bloodbath.
So, I’m going to Day Two of Journalism week expecting some answers …