‘It was never like that in my day’ crow the Fleet Street bigwigs of bygone years as they survey the journalistic carnage of contemporary reportage. ‘Standards are slipping’ they grumble, ‘where have all the “proper” journalists gone?’. And over a nice brandy they tut and shake their grey heads (the ones which contain the huge brains that produced the golden articles of the past. Brains that just aren’t made like that anymore.)
And the problem is, it’s easy to fan the flames of this moaning and groaning: allegations of laziness, evidenced by journalists’ increasing recourse to ‘churnalism’ techniques (the practice of simply cutting and pasting often-substantial sections of press releases into an article, with minimal fact-checking or analysis to boot), and accusations of playing dirty and undermining the profession’s credibility, as seen by the News of the World phone-hacking debacle, easily give us enough ammunition to be going on with. The pressure to tweet constantly, some argue, in order to compete for attention in a hugely saturated media circus, has forced some journalists to cut corners, but a quick input of the article in question into the Media Standards Trust-run www.churnalism.com reveals the extent of the damage.
Perhaps the upcoming generation of journalists need a stern talking to or, even better, a kinder helping hand to guide them in the right direction and equip them with the skills necessary to operate successfully in the current journalistic climate.
So You Want to Be a Political Journalist?, edited by Sheila Gunn, political reporter on The Times and spin doctor to John Major, is just such a helping hand. Covering everything from how to start out in the trade, where to find the story and how to report it, and advice on how to deal with the political classes, this volume contains words of wisdom from those who have been through the political journalism mill and come out on top. And if you want to avoid the churnalism pitfalls and successfully resist the temptation of a spoon-fed, but highly-spun, ready-made story from those wiley PR monkeys, this book will show you the way.
So You Want to Be a Political Journalist? Is available here, priced £14.99