Writing Journalism’s Epitaph

A year or so ago, ITN News stalwart Mark Austin got rather irate whilst being interviewed on a prime time chat show. But what was it that ruffled the feathers of this respected newsreader/reporter who is usually calmness personified? Nothing to do with the host, his series of searching questions, the audience or fellow guests. No, what reallly got to him was the subject of celebrity journalists and what he saw as them devaluing his beloved profession.

This is something I also feel strongly about myself: let me explain. Take Mr Austin as an example if you will.
He is one of the most revered professionals that the journalism industry in this country can call upon, but how did he get there? Like many in the trade he started the traditional way at a local newspaper, later working his way through the ranks of the BBC before switching to ITV. During that time he has covered Olympic Games, World Cups, been posted to the Gulf and reported on the death of apartheid, winning many prestigious awards along the way. However, this was all earned with a lot of hard work and sacrifice.

How galling it must be then, to see some airhead WAG getting a regular column just because they go on regular shopping sprees, to fill their already over-crowded wardrobe, funded by their Premiership-playing spouse. Is that all it takes to make the breakthrough nowadays? Take Colleen Rooney for example. The qualifications she left school with (this could be a barrage of GCSE’s, but that is beside the point) and her marriage to a footballer, albeit one of our better ones, is all that her CV has to offer, yet she has listed her occupation as ‘journalist’ on many occasions. Whatever happened to earning your stripes?

Sport is the worst offender. How many times have we sat down to watch a broadcast, only to have to listen to some ex-pro droning on about ‘the end of the day’, etc? Their amateurishness shines through and yet still the various broadcasting heavyweights continue with their jobs-for-the-boys policy. It does not stop with TV and radio either, newspapers are just as bad. When top sports reporters have had to start from the bottom on extremely poor salaries and work their way up to get where they are, how is it fair that a retired footballer with four brain cells can command a whole page of their own purely through having played the game? A player’s perspective is all well and good, but useless if it can’t be conveyed properly. Granted, there are some who have made the transition very smoothly, but for every Andy Townsend there is a Paul Merson (in fact make that ten Paul Mersons).

That dreaded old adage of ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you know’ seems to apply more and more with every high-profile media role that is handed out on a plate. That is what drives Mark Austin, along with many others who have earned the right to call themselves a journalist, to despair.