InPublishing: Present-day journalism refuses to die

For a 17-year-old Derbyshire lass with a handful of O-levels, a dream of working in Fleet Street was completely attainable in 1977. Indentured to the Derby Evening Telegraph, a course at an FE college in Sheffield led to the National Council for the Training of Journalists’ (NCTJ’s) professional qualification, which was the calling card to reporting for local and national radio, some of the best jobs in UK television and leadership roles at the world’s two leading news agencies.

Could this happen in 2024? NCTJ research (Spilsbury, 2024) suggests it’s increasingly unlikely and, in the 40+ years since I joined the industry, journalism has become an elite sport:

Over 80 per cent of journalists have some form of university qualification, compared to less than 40 per cent of the UK population overall
Just nine per cent of journalists come from lower socio-economic groups, compared to 19 per cent of the population
67 per cent come from higher-level socio-economic groups, compared to 45 per cent of the population as a whole

The barriers for those from working-class backgrounds are high, often due to unpaid internships and employer expectations of extensive work experience. Two thirds of new entrants (who have entered journalism in the last three years) did a period of work experience or an internship before gaining their first paid job. The vast majority of these (88 per cent) were unpaid. Graduates from working-class backgrounds are much less likely to undertake an internship than their middle-class peers, a gap which has widened over recent years (Sutton Trust, 2025).

Smash the glass floor

Progress has been made on smashing the glass ceiling: now we need to start focusing on breaking through the floor, with a radical overhaul of recruitment practices and culture into our profession — or trade.

Why does this matter? Because it’s never been more important to ensure journalists reflect the communities they serve. How can we expect our viewers, readers and listeners to trust us if they don’t recognise us? By limiting entry to those who can afford to house and feed themselves while they work for nothing to gain the experience they need for a compelling CV, we are creating invisible barriers for those without access to the bank of mum and dad.

Of course, the lack of working-class representation in the media has not been helped by the well documented macro-economic challenges, which rocked the industry this past decade. As the growing digital platforms sucked advertising dollars out of the media eco-system, local newspapers suffered and layoffs became the norm, with thousands of jobs lost as eyeballs moved online and circulations declined. Regional and local press were hit hardest. This matters because local media is still a pipeline for talent for national media.

The House of Lords report into the future of news (House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee, 2024), drew some stark conclusions:

“The decline in numbers of local journalists is associated with subsequent declines in reporting on local institutions, falling civic engagement and lower voter turnout... studies have found a causal relationship between the closure of a local newspaper and higher public sector borrowing costs, wage bills and contracting expenses.”

If we do not find ways to revive local journalism, staffed by local reporters uncovering the stories that matter to their communities and written in a way they’ll understand, using language and accents they identify with, who will blame those communities for turning to other sources for their news? Be that the post of a friend — or a president.

The term ‘mainstream media’ has already been used by right-wing populists to damn traditional journalism by association with the liberal political elites on whose remoteness from the ‘left behinds’ populism has thrived. The only way we can prevent accusations that we do not understand ordinary people’s concerns is by recruiting and promoting ‘ordinary people’ into our newsrooms and giving them a voice.

AI: Opportunity or threat?

Is it too late? Let’s hope not: AI is being heralded by some as one of the saviours of local journalism. As machines take over — or help with — mundane, routine tasks, they are freeing reporters from the tyranny of rewrites and search engine optimisation (SEO).

Newsquest, one of the UK’s biggest local newspaper groups, estimates up to 30 per cent of its content will be produced by what it describes as ‘AI reporters’ by the end of 2025. Its proprietary technology takes press releases from trusted sources and turns them into house-style copy accompanied by two headlines.

Like the many other news organisations doing similar, Newsquest say there’s always a human in the loop as the content is under the control of its editorial teams. The editor decides which stories should be overseen by the AI reporters who in turn decide what angle to take and how many words are needed. It takes seconds for the copy to be created from a press release and any subsequent changes made by the AI reporter are fed back so the algorithm learns to do better next time.

Doesn’t sound like a career in journalism to me, but here’s the rub: Newsquest say many Gen Z reporters prefer it.

There is less churn among its cohort of AI reporters because most of them work from home, the job is more predictable and better suits their work-life balance. It appeals to those who are not yet confident enough to work their patch and frees up those who do want to pound the streets looking for stories from the need to write endless news in briefs (Nibs) to keep pagination up.

The company sees two distinct roles emerging: those who find face-to-face communication challenging, but want to play a part of our industry, are working from home producing AI assisted rewrites, freeing up those we old hands would call traditional journalists, to create exclusive content. To find stories.

Learning by Nellie

It’s not clear whether the rise in the number of young journalists who find face-to-face communication difficult is an unanticipated consequence of the pandemic, generational norms, or the decline in newsroom staffing levels resulting in them not being able to observe the tricks of the trade.

It seems the adage ‘Learning by Nellie’ wasn’t all bad, because over the past several years, many local journalists lost — or never had chance to hone — the core skills they need to uncover and report news: making contacts, challenging power, door knocking, cold calling...

Newsquest is worried that these essential skills have been lost or never developed, and they are not alone. Employers and journalism trainers alike tell the NCTJ there are growing issues with student and trainee journalists being too daunted to communicate offline — in person or over the phone — due to lack of confidence and resilience.

As a result, the charity’s Journalism Skills Academy recently launched a new training course to tackle the escalating lack of confidence among journalists entering the industry. ‘Confidence in the field: A journalist’s guide to empowered reporting’ provides training in journalistic skills such as picking up the phone, face-to-face interaction and dealing with difficult situations.

Up-skilling

Whether journalists of the future are relearning how to build a contact book, or getting to grips with AI, there needs to be more investment in training, especially Continuing Professional Development (CPD).

For an industry which is changing so quickly, the lack of in-role development is remarkable. NCTJ data (Spilsbury, 2024) suggests journalists have fewer training and learning opportunities than is average for the all-UK workforce, with more than half saying they need new or additional skills to be more effective.

The reported skills gaps cover a wide range of topics, but many relate to the developing areas of analytics, data and video editing. As 40 per cent of UK journalists are aged over 50 (compared with 32 per cent of all workers) developing new ways to tell stories is critical if they’re to stay relevant — and keep their jobs. 60 per cent of journalists do not feel they have a sufficient understanding of AI (Spilsbury, 2024).

Those that do understand AI are seeing benefits beyond efficiency: they earn more.

Who will pay?

The AI bounce, if indeed there is one and associated savings are reinvested, will not address the core issue of who will pay for local journalism. Indeed, trade body the News Media Association (NMA) says if generative AI models are allowed to ignore copyright restrictions and scrape content from the internet, it poses an existential threat.

Owen Meredith, CEO of the NMA is generally optimistic about the next decade but says there’s no silver bullet: essentially consumers, advertisers and big tech need to understand the value of local news — and be prepared to pay for it. The government needs to divert some of its massive advertising budget away from the platforms, as currently only three per cent of its ad spend goes to local media — compared to 17 per cent to Google and Meta.

Toby Granville, editorial development director at Newsquest, is similarly up-beat: “I have never been more optimistic. We spent most of the decade pre-pandemic focused on cost savings... but in the last few years since, we’ve been talking about sustainability and now growth.”

Content is king, distribution is queen...

Back at the Derby Telegraph, Zena Hawley, who I trained alongside in the ‘70s, has just won a prestigious regional press award for spearheading a campaign to save the engineering company, Alstom. Up to 1500 jobs were at threat, along with an end to nearly two centuries of train manufacture in the city. Zena and her team galvanised and united local and national politicians, unions and the local football club, Derby County, behind the campaign. Keir Starmer, then leader of the opposition, praised the power of local media.

Other finalists included cavity wall insulation scandals, child poverty exposés and a successful campaign by the Belfast Telegraph against a Northern Ireland law granting anonymity to sex abuse suspects.

These impactful and important stories were published in newspapers and online, but if the audience has already moved to social, how will trusted local journalism — however relevant, campaigning and exclusive — cut through?

The way we distribute content, not only the stories we cover but also where and how we publish them, is undergoing wholesale change too. Local journalists are becoming brands in their own right, posting stories where their interests and followers are — be that TikTok, newsletters, Reddit, WhatsApp or Substack. They are forming direct relationships with their existing audiences and finding new ones through the creation of platform-specific content, because the days of publish once, distribute everywhere are long gone.

Social is already the prime source of information (or misinformation) for a generation. Channel 4 research (2025) showed more than half (58 per cent) of those aged 13 to 27 (defined as Gen Z, or Zoomers) place a higher trust in friends’ social media posts than other sources of information.

Gen Z wants to be committed within microseconds of watching a story, so edits need to be shorter and sharper. That’s not to say long form is dead — far from it, but social is the gateway to discovery and engagement starts there.

Media illiteracy

Having grown up with access to the internet in their pocket, we know Gen Z consumes news differently, but they do at least recognise what journalism is.

Gen Alpha — those who are born after 2010 and many of whom will be casting their first votes in the next UK general election — are not so savvy. They have grown up without routine access to ‘mainstream media’ in any form and struggle to differentiate fact from fiction or sponsored content from a BBC report.

Dedicated media literacy classes in schools will help: indeed, are critical if the government carries out its manifesto pledge to give 16 and 17-year-olds a vote in all elections. Many organisations — including the NCTJ — are lobbying for media literacy to be included in the Department of Education’s curriculum review currently underway.

Professor Julian McDougall, who’s an academic adviser to the UK Government All Party Parliamentary Group on Political and Media Literacy told OFCOM: “Media literacy education is inconsistent across the UK and policy is lacking. There is a clear and urgent need to support media literacy practices in schools.” (Ofcom, 2025).

Rather than waiting, industry organisations from the Guardian Foundation through The Economist to the NCTJ have created their own media literacy courses or school outreach programmes. Newsquest runs a Young Reporters scheme, which is proving to be a pipeline for talent and Global has taken things a step further by creating its own academy in West London for teenagers interested in a career in the media.

But there’s a way to go: explaining to a 14-year-old recently what a journalist is, she replied: “Oh, you mean an influencer...”

References

This article is a chapter from the new book, ‘Pandering to populism? Journalism and politics in a post-truth age’, edited by John Mair, Tor Clark, Neil Fowler, Raymond Snoddy and Richard Tait, published by Bite-Sized Books. Available on Amazon.