Church in a spin

Journalism in decline?

The decline of journalism is the theme in two very different articles this week in the church press. The Church of England Newspaper carries a piece by Andrew Carey on the discovery that there are more people working in PR than there are journalists. The other, by Andrew Brown in the Church Times, highlights one specific and highly lamentable example of this – the sacking of Jonathan Petre as religious affairs correspondent on the Daily Telegraph.

Andrew Brown, speaks passionately about the main reason for the sacking - the Telegraphs moves to a more ‘tabloid’ approach to newsgathering. The editors will decide on what the stories are and the journalists will provide the words to go with them. It saves money but the casualty – apart from gainful employment for some very good journalists – is truth. It’s sadly ironic that we were given an insight into this change in approach when diocesan communicators visited the swanky new Telegraph offices at Victoria last November. Jonathan was there, giving up his time to get to know us and to explain about his work, little knowing what was to befall him.

In his Church Times article, Andrew speaks about the hole it leaves in religious reporting on national newspapers. In his view Jonathan was the best informed specialist working on the dailies, he was trustworthy, authoritative and respected as an honest broker.

I've known Jonathan for several years and had a good professional relationship, having an odd drink together after a hectic day at General Synod. (See picture with JP just beyond Ruth Gledhill (on the left side of pic about half way up ) at work during a debate). My own experience of Jonathan was certainly that he was indeed “one of the good ones, the unsung professionals like ship’s engineers, who make all the pomp and ceremony possible in the first-class lounge.” After the 7/7 bombers were identified as coming from up here, he was the only religious correspondent to take the train to Leeds and find out what was really going on. During our difficulties at the Cathedral he would regularly call me for long chats to try and get the low-down.

That’s not to say that Jonathan didn’t have his own ‘Daily Telegraph shaped’ agenda. Clearly he wasn’t always interested in the good news stories we churn out – but then what national newspaper is? If he did follow up a press release it was usually to pose a sharp question I’d hoped might be overlooked (eg if the Bishop is moving house from Ripon to Leeds won’t that put the noses of those in the north of the diocese out of joint?) While up in Beeston he seemed keen to focus on whether the local mosques were hotbeds of radicalism, not only a rather dangerous question to be asking anywhere in earshot of LS11 at the time, but at odds with the emphasis we wanted to put on moderate Christians and Muslims working together.

But I am very sad too at the news, and I wish Jonathan and his wife well, hoping he very quickly gets snapped up by a more discerning ‘information centre’ as newspaper offices will soon be called.

There are now 47,800 people employed in public relations - verses 45,000 journalists, according to Andrew Carey (though thanks to the Daily Telegraph, the figure is now presumably 44,998). Andrew is astounded, and laments the effect this will have on the independence of the press and the “blurring of the impartiality of the media”. Do my eyes deceive me!? The words ‘impartiality’ and ‘media’ have never sat well together, and an ‘impartial newspaper’ is an oxymoron. Newspapers were never interested in reporting our good news or our press releases, unless we are talking about the local rag with one cub reporter on a job creation scheme. I can personally count on the fingers of one hand the number of times a TV crew from regional news has turned up at an event I’ve been involved in publicising in the last two years. That’s why organisations have always had to employ PR officers to play the media game, creating statistics, carrying out surveys, paying celebrities, engineering controversy, all to catch the eye of the editor.

Part of the reason for fewer journalists and more PR professionals is the decline of newspapers and the growth in new media. Newspapers themselves tacitly acknowledge this as they downsize their traditional journalism staff while employing more video and web specialists for newly created video departments, websites and ‘information hubs’. The spin off is that well meaning organisations and charities can begin to rely less on the vagaries and mood swings of journalists, newspaper editors and media bosses to transmit their news. After all, why does the audience need to go to a newspaper’s brand new all-singing all-dancing website when they can Google the topic and go direct to horses mouth on an equally well produced web page. The playing field is levelling out. Will there be any place for professional journalists at all in a future of citizen journalism and home grown internet tv?. Perhaps, in the not too distant future, we will laugh at the way we had to rely on BBC Look North to turn up before anyone heard about the new Bishop, chuckle ruefully at the way we had to try and catch the eye of a reporter to get a new campaign into the public eye. In the words of Bob Dylan, The Times (and the Telegraph) they are a changing.

Labels: Church of England Newspaper, Church Times, Citizen journalism, Daily Telegraph, Jonathan Petre, Journalists, PR

posted by John Carter @ 5:42 pm