Journalism Education ISSN: 2050-3903 Journalism Education The Journal of the Association for Journalism Education Volume three, Number one April 2014 Page 2 Journalism Education Volume 3 number 1 Journalism Education Journalism Education is the journal of the Association for Journalism Education, a body representing educators in HE in the UK and Ireland. The aim of the journal is to promote and develop analysis and under- standing of journalism education and of journalism, particularly when that is related to journalism education. Editors Mick Temple, Staffordshire University Chris Frost, Liverpool John Moores University Jenny McKay Sunderland University Stuart Allan, Cardiff University Reviews editor: Tor Clark, de Montfort University You can contact the editors at [email protected] Editorial Board Chris Atton, Napier University Olga Guedes Bailey, Nottingham Trent University David Baines, Newcastle University Guy Berger, Rhodes University Jane Chapman, University of Lincoln Martin Conboy, Sheffield University Ros Coward, Roehampton University Stephen Cushion, Cardiff University Susie Eisenhuth, University of Technology, Sydney Ivor Gaber, Bedfordshire University Roy Greenslade, City University Mark Hanna, Sheffield University Michael Higgins, Strathclyde University John Horgan, Irish press ombudsman. Sammye Johnson, Trinity University, San Antonio, USA Richard Keeble, University of Lincoln Mohammed el-Nawawy, Queens University of Charlotte An Duc Nguyen, Bournemouth University Sarah Niblock, Brunel University Bill Reynolds, Ryerson University, Canada Ian Richards, University of South Australia Verica Rupar, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand Prasun Sonwalkar, Hindustan Times Linda Steiner, University of Maryland, USA Kate Wright, Roehampton University Sonja Merljak Zdovc, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia You can contact the editors at [email protected] Editorial Volume 3 number 1 Journalism Education page 3 Volume 3; number 1: Contents Contributors 4 Articles Female politicians in the British press: The exception to the ‘masculine’ norm? by Deirdre O’Neill, Leeds Trinity University and Heather Savigny, Bournemouth 6 University Workplace not workshop: student reflections on the introduction of a work- based approach to the final year by Kate Heathman and John Mathews, Liverpool John Moores University 28 Someone to look up to: lessons to be learned from the reflections of female journalists on the value of role models and mentors for career development by 46 Amanda Geary, University of the West of Scotland Can universities make good journalists? by Richard Evans, London Metropolitan 66 University Tracking Onslow - Taking journalism out of the classroom and the newsroom 88 by Kayt Davies, Edith Cowan University From traditional gatekeeper to professional verifier: How local newspaper 102 journalists are adapting to change by Lily Canter, Sheffield Hallam University Everybody or somebody: Assessing the impact of social media on newsroom 120 organisational structures by Clare Cook, University of Central Lancashire Reviews 138 Classic from the bookshelf: the Simple Subs Book by Leslie Sellers, reviewed by Kevin Duffy OnLine Journalism: The Essential Guide, by Steve Hill and Paul Lashmar reviewed by Glyn Môn Hughes When Reporters Cross the Line: The heroes, the villains, the hackers and the spies by Stewart Purvis and Jeff Hulbert reviewed by John Mair BBC in Crisis? edited by John Mair, Richard Tait and Richard Keeble reviewed by Gary Hudson Editorial Page 4 Journalism Education Volume 3 number 1 Contributors Lily Canter Dr Lily Canter is a lecturer in journalism and BA Journalism course leader at Sheffield Hallam University. She previously worked in regional newspapers for a decade and has worked as a freelance journalist for print and online publications. She is also an NCTJ examiner. Her research interests are regional newspapers, digital journalism, hyperlocal journalism and social media. Clare Cook Clare Cook is senior lecturer in print and online journalism at the University of Central Lancashire. She is a member of the Higher Education Academy. She is an award-winning journalist having worked with Newsquest and was a Press Gazette nominee on an exclu- sive French murder investigation. She has worked for ten years on various national and regional print newspapers and magazines. She worked as chief celebrity sub editor for new! magazine before moving into academia. Kayt Davis Dr Kayt Davies is a senior lecturer in journalism at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia. Trained in journalism via cadetship, she has an honours degree in psy- chology and her PhD was an ethnographic study of editors. She worked in general news, business and magazine journalism in Perth, and in London in the 1980s she worked for an international news agency. Her research interests include using journalism as a research methodology and International Humanitarian Law. Richard Evans Former BBC Radio Five Live, Newsbeat and Radio Four presenter Richard Evans teach- es journalism at London Metropolitan University and City University. He’s reported at home and abroad for BBC radio and TV programmes and has recently completed an MA Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. Amanda Geary Pate Amanda Geary Pate is lecturer in journalism at the University of the West of Scotland, where she is Programme Leader for the BA (Hons) in Journalism. She is currently Exter- nal Examiner for the MA Journalism programme at Kingston University, London. Prior to working in journalism education, Amanda worked in local, regional and national news- papers after graduating from the University of Central Lancashire with a Postgraduate Diploma in Newspaper Journalism in 1994. Kate Heathman Kate Heathman is a senior lecturer in the journalism department at Liverpool John Moores University. She began her career in newspapers in Manchester, later moving to Chester Tonight and then the Liverpool Daily Post, where she was a sub-editor and col- umnist. As a freelance she has worked for the Daily Mail and business publications and she is also a media consultant and media trainer. Contributors Volume 3 number 1 Journalism Education page 5 John Mathews John Mathews is a senior lecturer in journalism at Liverpool John Moores University. He began his journalism career in 1988, at the Windsor, Slough & Eton Express newspaper, before joining the BBC six years later. After starting as a broadcast journalist, he later became the Ceefax Sports Editor then moved into web publishing as one of the founding editors of the BBC Sport website. He left the BBC after 11 years and turned freelance, with football’s governing bodies - FIFA and UEFA - among his clients as he worked at tournaments around the world. John returned to his home city in 2006 when he began lecturing at Liverpool John Moores University and he was the founder of the JMU Jour- nalism website in 2009. Deirdre O’Neill Deirdre O’Neill is associate principal lecturer in journalism at Leeds Trinity University. Prior to working in higher education she was a magazine journalist and press officer. She has published in the area of news values, news sources and press coverage of trade unions. Heather Savigny Heather Savigny is senior lecturer in politics at the Media School, Bournemouth Univer- sity. She is co-editor of European Political Science; Associate editor of British Politics and publishes in the areas of media and politics. Contributors Page 6 Journalism Education Volume 3 number 1 Articles All papers in the Articles section are peer reviewed and discuss the latest research in journalism and journalism education. These are intended to inform, educate and spark debate and discussion. Please join in this debate by going to www.journalism-education.org to have your say and find out what others think. Female politicians in the British press: The exception to the ‘masculine’ norm? Deirdre O’Neill Leeds Trinity University and Heather Savigny, Bournemouth University 1 As educators of journalists we are concerned with some of the most fundamental questions about the relationship between the media and democracy, and this we argue, is gendered. Through content analysis and interviews we look at the ways in which women MPs are represented in the British Press. We show that the way in which they are reported (or ignored) positions them as different from the ‘male norm’ and this in turn has consequences for 1 We would like to thank the AJE for their generosity in funding this project and would like to thank Tori Cann for her work in data gathering. Thanks are also due to the anonymous referees for their helpful comments. Articles Volume 3 number 1 Journalism Education page 7 the ways in which democratic politics is written about by journalists and experienced by female MPs. A press rep- resentation of women that sometimes serves to suggest politics is a ‘man’s game’, where women are regarded as the aberrant, exception to the rule, can alienate women representatives and likely future candidates. This in turn may have negative consequences for the democratic process, whereby women voters feel unrepresented in Parliament and turn away from political engagement. Introduction Is ‘Blair’s Babes’ a good headline? That headline (coined by The Sun in 1997) has given us pause to reflect on the kind of media coverage we want our students to produce. This headline invokes and reinforces the standard tropes about the ways in which women are re-presented in the media: women are objectified and adjuncts of men, rather than independent autonomous entities in their own right. But then this headline was in 1997. Surely things have changed? The many newspaper references since then to ‘Cameron’s Cuties’ (for example, Daily Mail, 10 August 2012) suggests that maybe little has. For us, these and similar headlines prompted us to consider carrying out a systematic analysis of the way in which women politicians are represented in the press, the amount of coverage they receive, and the focus of this coverage. As we teach our students to chal- lenge and negotiate the structures of power that they find themselves operating in, we ar- gue that the way in which female politicians are represented helps us to understand some of the ways in which media and politics interact in a democratic society, and how this relationship is gendered We argue that the way in which women politicians are currently constructed within the press serves to discourage women from taking part in politics, where women are constructed as the ‘other’ to the masculine ‘norm’ of what it means to be a politician. This, we argue, can only serve to undermine democratic ideals, produc- ing a narrow construction of what politics is, and what it can be. Ultimately this type of gendered construction serves to reinforce hegemonic masculine discourses (which tend to characterise male dominated contexts). We believe it is important as educators, citizens and journalists to recognise that gender matters in the ways in which we talk about politics in the pages of our media. And if all citizens in a democracy are to be enfranchised, then all interests need representation in their own right (and while not the focus of this article, this argument can also be extended across other categories including race, class, sexuality) In the project that we undertook, supported by the Association for Journalism (AJE), we looked at the way in which female politicians were represented in the British press. In the first part of the project, we looked at the amount of coverage they received and whether Articles Page 8 Journalism Education Volume 3 number 1 the type of coverage was primarily related to political issues, or wider society and events, or personal issues (O’Neill et al, submitted for publication). The focus of this second stage of the study is how this plays out within coverage of the three main political par- ties. We know that the British press is partisan (Curran and Seaton, 2009, pp.69-73). But does this partisan bias have a gendered dimension? We explore the ways in which female politicians are represented in the British press, and how this relates to their proportional representation of women in Parliament. With knowledge of the partisan bias of the Brit- ish press, we therefore asked: is the descriptive representation of women in Parliament reflected or undermined in media coverage? Has this changed over time? Does the posi- tive or negative representation of women in the media have a partisan bias? Pedagogical rationale Research into the representation of women provides journalism educators with an arena where some key concepts about the role of journalism in society come together: it allows educators and students to interrogate the relationship between journalism and democracy, and to ask how well the news media is performing its role as the fourth estate, in being a central conduit, providing access to and information about politics, politicians – regard- less of their sex or party- and the parliamentary process. The fourth estate role of the news media underpins the claims made by the news media themselves to justify freedom of expression and to reject state interference. This is particularly relevant at a time when research by the Hansard Society (2012) has shown political engagement with parliamen- tary democracy to be at an all-time low. An Ipsos-MORI survey has shown that there is a gendered element to this lack of participation. In the 2010 election, where people did actually vote, in the 18-24 age group category, while 50% of the male population voted, only 39% of the female population cast their ballot (Ipsos-MORI, 2010). In addition, studies such as this can contribute to students’ understanding of how news is a manufactured and selective process, whereby journalists are at risk of adhering to a set of news values imbued with their own prejudices, ideologies and values, as well as the wider cultural values and dominant hegemony of the society in which they operate (O’Neill and Harcup, 2008). It can demonstrate how female politicians are constructed and re-presented to news consumers and citizens, in an arena which is densely gendered (Van Zoonen, 1994) and can encourage us to question whether the focus of any media at- tention is reductive and stereotyped and, if so, what damage might this do to the health of our democracy. Finally, this research can feed into debates about the use of sources and access to the news agenda. ‘Who the sources are bear a close relationship to who is news.’ (Sigal, 1986, p.25). It has been demonstrated that certain groups are very often denied a voice in the media, for instance, asylum seekers (Philo et al, 2013), Muslims (Petley and Richardson, 2011) and trade unionists (O’Neill, 2007). While women are not a minority in the popu- lation as a whole, a number of studies have found that they are not given a proportional voice (Ross and Carter, 2011; Women in Journalism, 2012). So when women are in a minority, as they are in Parliament, do they receive their fair share of coverage in relation to their numbers as our elected representatives? This was the first stage of our research (O’Neill et al, submitted for publication) and provides a useful context for what we go on to investigate in the second half of our research, presented here. Our initial findings showed that female politicians were covered broadly in proportion to their numbers in Parliament in 1992 (9% of coverage and 9.2% in Parliament) and 2002 (17% of coverage Articles Volume 3 number 1 Journalism Education page 9 and 17.9% in Parliament), but there was a trend towards under-representation in terms of press coverage by 2012 (16% of coverage while 22% in parliament). Investigating gendered representations in politics can contribute to wider discussions about how certain groups are depicted in the media, and help encourage best practice for widening source diversity. These concepts and debates are central to any critique of the press underpinning journalism degree programmes. It is also hoped that research into some of the ways that female politicians are depicted in the press can provide a model for some investigations by journalism students as part of their own independent studies. The broader research context As already mentioned, fewer women in the 18 to 24 age category voted in the 2010 Gen- eral Election than men (Ipsos-MORI, 2010), while research from the Economic and So- cial Research Council reveals that in so-called advanced democracies like the UK, women know less about politics than men (Newman, 2013). As Newman points out: ‘Assuming women are every bit as capable of grasping complicated political news as men […….] it all comes down to that old problem – the absence of women interviewed or quoted in the media, which in turn impacts on how political information is communicated and received. Professor Curran [one of the authors] suggests this is because across the 10 nations, women were only interviewed or cited in 30 per cent of TV news stories. “Politics is projected as a man’s world and that encourages a sense of disconnection,” he adds.’ In other words, the lack of females appearing in the media – particularly with regards to politics – is having a negative impact on the knowledge and engagement of the female electorate. Women in Parliament Currently, women make up 22% of Parliament. Advances were made under New La- bour: from 1992, under a Conservative government, to 1997 when New Labour came to power, female representation increased from 9.2% to 18.2%. Nevertheless, with women making up just over half of the population, progress remains painfully slow. As Table One below demonstrates, Labour has been consistently ahead in the numbers of women in Parliament. In 1992, of the 9.2% total number of women elected, 62% were Labour, 33% Conservative and 3% were Liberal. In 2001, of the 17.9% women elected, 81% were Labour, 12% Conservative and 4% Liberal Democrat and 3% other. In 2010, of the 22% of women elected to Parliament, 57% were Labour, 34% Conservative, 5% Liberal Democrat and 4% other. The numbers of Labour women decreased in 2010, although it would seem that women disproportionately lost their seats. The numbers of Conservative and Lib Democrat fe- male MPs have steadily increased, although they remain some considerable way behind Labour. Articles Page 10 Journalism Education Volume 3 number 1 Table 1: Women elected in general elections since 1992 Election year Female MPs % Con Lab Lib Others Candidates 1992 60 9.2 20 37 2 1 571 1997 120 18.2 13 101 3 3 672 2001 118 17.9 14 95 5 4 636 2005 128 20 17 98 10 3 720 2010 143 22 49 81 7 6 861 Source: House of Commons Research Papers 01/75, 05/33 & 10/36. A Hansard Society briefing paper to mark International Women’s Day, ‘Women at the Top 2011′ highlighted disappointing statistics about women’s representation in politics and public life (Hansard Society, 2011). It found that ‘there were no women on the new Coalition Committee or the Coalition Operation and Strategic Planning Group; of 184 Cabinet Committee and Sub-Committee seats, just 32 were occupied by women; there were no women at all on the Economic Affairs Committee, the Banking Reform Committee and the Public Expenditure Committee.’ Senior Women in Politics The numbers of women in senior political posts is particularly important, since senior figures are most likely to attract the most press attention. Figures from a report for the House of Commons on Women in Parliament and Government (Duckworth and Crack- nell, updated 2013) demonstrate that in terms of women in government (not necessarily in the Cabinet), we have actually gone backwards. Perhaps surprisingly, the highest per- centage of women MPs appointed as ministers came during the Labour Government of 1966-70 (38%), followed by the 2005-10 Labour Government (37%). There were seven women ministers (including three baronesses) in 1992 under the Conservative administra- tion. While this is not many, the 1992-97 Conservative Government had one of the highest percentages of their female MPs appointed as ministers (although out of a relatively small pool of Conservative female MPs to start with), equalled only by the 1966-70 Labour Government (53% of their female MPs under both administrations). So what is the current situation under the Coalition government? In fact ,women have gone backwards in terms of government. In the Cabinet, four out of 22 Cabinet posts (18%) are held by women. This compares to five Cabinet ministers immediately before the September 2012 reshuffle. (To put this in context, there were four women in Gordon Brown’s Cabinet after 2009 and eight in Tony Blair’s final Cabinet.) Of 119 Government Ministers, including the Cabinet, whips, Lords in waiting and unpaid positions, 23 (or 19%) are women. Prior to the 2010 election, 30% of Ministers were women. With regards to the 2010 General Election, the Hansard briefing paper noted that: ‘women were not involved in the TV leaders’ debates (although all the main party leaders were male, Caroline Lucas and other minority party leaders were also not represented); the interviewing journalists were all male and there were just a few women on the advi- sory panels drawing up the question plan for each debate. More damning, however, was the fact that although there were nine BBC Daily Politics show debates held during the course of the campaign, of the 29 participants just two were women – Harriet Harman Articles