Who is a journalist, these days?

Chris Frost on Zoom

TO HELP LFB members untangle our fast-changing industry’s riddle - "when is a 'journalist' not a journalist but an influencer?" - the branch invited Chris Frost, chair of the NUJ’s Ethics Council, to its July meeting to discuss just who should be entitled to join the union. Perhaps provocatively, the Freelance focused on the question of the eligibility of so-called influencers and whether they are journalists or not.

Chris opened by noting that over the last 5 to 8 years membership of the NUJ has dropped. He remarked “That’s no real surprise when we look at the way that staff have been cut from traditional areas such as newspapers, and broadcasting.

One of the obvious things we need to do to continue as a union of journalists – and not to be forced into a merger with a larger union – is to increase NUJ membership.

Chris explained that 30 years ago when he first started training journalists, almost all his students went to work for a local newspaper, before moving on to other areas of journalism. When Chris retired, he observed that hardly any of his students’ destinations included cub-reporting stints at local newspapers. Instead, students went on to work for websites, and social media.

According to the Office of National Statistics, about 100,000 people in the UK describe themselves as “journalists”. Chris said: ‘We need to look at our membership and where it comes from, and how we can recruit more people and who we should be recruiting, and also be asking how we can recruit them. Gone are the days when we could go into a newspaper office and talk to two or 300 journalists and sign them up to membership of the NUJ.

The union’s rules say members should be journalists, which can include roles in magazines, books, broadcasting, public relations, communications, digital media, and creative artists working in editorial. We also recruit advertising and fashion photographers, copywriters, front-end developers and coders, and teachers of journalism. Let’s face it we recruit people similar to ‘influencers’ if they work for a newspaper.

Branch committee member Henry Broome suggested that “we need to distinguish between journalists using online platforms, and influencers who are selling things in a non-obvious way.” An example would be Owen Jones, who was primarily writing for the Guardian, but now does a lot of work on YouTube. “We need to distinguish between online content creators and influencers.”

Chris responded that anybody who joins the NUJ must sign up to its Code of Conduct. And we already have members who do public relations and communications. Sometimes it’s difficult to draw a line between PR, communications and journalism. But all are obliged to adhere to the Code.

Member Tessa Clarke said “I don’t think it’s really about technology. It’s more what you’re doing with it. There is a difference between processing content in a journalistic fashion, and just selling stuff. We must stand up for the freelance campaigning journalist.”

The branch also discussed the issue of the Press Card. Chris reminded us that the NUJ is “quite strict as one of the gatekeepers for the UK Press Card Authority... someone has to be primarily a newsgatherer.”

Committee member Mariam Elsayeh noted that those who self-publish online do not have an editor which makes it more important that there be effective processes within the NUJ for addressing breaches of the Code. She reminded us that the Branch had proposed changes in a motion passed at the last union Delegate Meeting: the Council “needs the power to investigate particular instances and areas of journalism outside the disciplinary context and produce reports that can be publicised in the interest of raising professional standards.”

Chris said that “We do get some complaints in from members of the public. If you’ve ever got an ethics question about a story, go to the ethics hotline: call: 0845 450 0864 or email: ethics@nuj.org.uk