Originally published by The TV Collective, 27th July 2011

In the arena of journalism, diversity can be considered of great importance as journalists act as narrators of our society. They create a space for individuals to seek information, which in turn plays a significant role in shaping attitudes and beliefs. For journalists to truly do their job, they must be able to represent the audience they cater to, so they not only provide a service according to need, but additionally ensure a platform that embraces the diverse range of voices that make up the UK. In terms of achieving a diverse workforce in the media, the class barrier is perhaps, too often overlooked and diversity instead is used to refer more specifically to ethnicity, gender and disability. But how much of the industry is shaped by socio-economic backgrounds of the individual?

Melissa Allison Forbes, who administers the Journalism Diversity Fund was on BBC Radio 5 last week talking about just this:

“The fund is important because it gives more people access to journalism training. Some people do not think of journalism as a career option because they see it as an elitist profession – only for people from white, middle and upper class backgrounds. We want to help change this view.”

There is a lot of truth in this. Growing up in a working class family, I ruled out journalism as a viable career, instead my need to pay rent, bills and generally support myself as a young person meant that I rejected any notions of becoming a journalist, instead choosing a more financially secure role. It wasn’t until I was 27, that I took the plunge and undertook an MA in Journalism at City University.

Getting a post graduate degree in journalism has almost become a pre-requisite to gaining work in the industry and the countless articles I had written for independent media outlets and NGO’s was just not bringing me any closer to a career in the media. I saved for over 18 months, and I took an additional career development loan, adding to my mountain of debt from my undergraduate degree. I’ll be paying off the career development loan for at least the next 5 years.

Although there are a wide array of post graduate courses in Journalism, some as little as £900, a level of snobbery regarding which journalism school you go to, does of course exist. There are two universities in the UK whose reputation surpasses that of other s, Cardiff and City University, considered the ‘Oxbridge of Journalism’. Courses can cost as much as £8700. Considering many students have already generated a significant amount of debt during their undergraduate degree, poorer students may shy away from taking a further loan, leaving classrooms to be filled for those whose privileged background can afford the luxury of a post graduate education. Now that undergraduate tuition fees have been raised to a staggering £9000 per year, the margin for those from lower socio-economic backgrounds to access postgraduate courses has severely narrowed.

Whilst at City University, my thoughts of Journalism as a career overwhelmingly reserved for the middle and upper classes were confirmed. Indeed there were some students from working class backgrounds, and comprehensive schools such as myself, but a large proportion of students were well off, privately educated and supported by their families.
Roy Greenslade who lectures in Journalism at City university blogged:

“It has been clear in my five years at City University that every cohort of post-grad journalism students has been overwhelmingly middle class”.

Furthermore, research conducted by the Sutton Trust found that 54% of leading national newspaper editors, columnists, broadcast editors and news presenters went to Public schools, 33% of the top 100 went to grammar schools and only 14 per cent attended comprehensive schools. It’s important to remember here that private school pupils only account for approximately 7% of the entire school population, whereas the vast majority of children – 90% attend comprehensive schools. The survey also revealed that out of 81% of journalists who had been to university, more than half were educated at Oxbridge, including a third who went to Oxford.
In addition to expensive post graduate courses, aspiring journalists are faced with the daunting idea of unpaid work placements. Although the rise of social media has given a platform for bloggers and independent film makers, this doesn’t necessarily equate to the same as ‘real’ industry experience, and is often only viewed as an addition to work experience in a major media outlet.

Measures have been put forth to make the industry fairer and there are a range bursaries on offer to support those from ‘diverse backgrounds’ including The Scott Trust Bursary, The George Viner scholarship and the Channel 4 diversity scheme. Although being a BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) is not the sole requisite of accessing a bursary, there is again a tendency to lend itself towards defining diversity as race and disability and not as class. Specific funding for BME communities is presented as a way of encouraging more diversity in the media but there is little or no means testing involved, allowing those from wealthy but BME backgrounds to access funding.

However, there is a need to encourage more BME’s to enter journalism based on the simple fact a larger proportion of people from minority ethnic groups are more likely to come from low income backgrounds.
The National Office for Statistics in 2000/1 found that almost 60% of Pakistani and Bangladeshis were living in low income households and in 2004 they found the highest rate of unemployment rates in Pakistani women (20%), Black African or Mixed ethnic women (each 12 per cent) and Black Caribbean, Black African, Bangladeshi and Mixed ethnic men (13-14%). The national average at the time, stood at 4%. It is for this reason race can be considered as a barrier in entering both the work force and more specifically the Media. But it is not race alone that acts as barrier, for white working class individuals face the same economic factors as their BME working class counterparts. But to consider race without a consideration of class, risks encouraging tokenism at the expense of diversity.

Journalists continue to be overwhelmingly upper and middle class, and despite the good intentions of diversity schemes, according to the Sutton Trust very little has changed in the past twenty odd years, indicating that these measures are not working. To overcome these barriers diversity schemes must give greater importance to the economic challenges faced by working class communities. This can be achieved by changing the way in which they engage with under-represented communities; considering independent work established via new media outlets, as well as opening up diversity schemes to include specialist support for those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

As a British Pakistani woman, I am not denying that race plays a serious role. On too many occasions I have been the only brown person in the office, or on a particular production and bore witness to racist banter and racial stereotypes. I have been asked ignorant questions about my ethnicity, my culture and my religion and it is all rather worrying. Indeed it has highlights that the industry has very far to go in terms achieving an acceptable level of cultural understanding of multi-cultural Britain, which of course will encourage a more representative and diverse media output. However, without considering class and economic challenges as a primary barrier for many communities, especially those from BME communities, we will not move closer to achieving real diversity in the industry, instead narratives will continue to be dominated by the most wealthy in society and we risk creating an elitist ownership of the media.

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