The front pages of this morning’s Daily Mirror and Daily Record newspapers called for a freeze in energy bills. After a poll showing many households were on the brink of “financial despair”, the Mirror’s editorial warned: “Nearly half of families will not be able to afford the increase in gas and electricity bills due to come into force in October.”
Journalists often face accusations of being out of touch with ordinary people’s concerns – and instead focusing on the “bubbles” of politics, big business and celebrity intrigue. But when it comes to the cost of living crisis, Mirror journalists speak from experience. With inflation at 10.1% and a “final” pay offer from management of just 3%, staff at Reach – which owns the Mirror as well as the Record and Express and Star titles – voted to strike. Today is the first of four days of strike action organised by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), though more dates could be added if management fails to better its offer. As well as the paltry pay offer, Reach journalists faced the indignity of a 10% pay cut at the start of the pandemic (now restored) and the closure of many regional offices – forcing journalists in the east Midlands, for instance, to commute to Birmingham.
Much has been made of the spectacle of journalists at the anti-union Express downing tools. Earlier this month, the Express hailed new anti-union laws mooted by would-be prime minister Liz Truss as a “masterstroke”, and the paper regularly screeches about “militant union barons”. It’s tempting to ask if those who write anti-union copy deserve support and solidarity, but transforming our media landscape is a necessity – and it starts with supporting journalists struggling for better pay and conditions.
Trust in the media has declined from 50% in 2016 to just 36% last year. Only five European countries scored lower than Britain. While the decline has been linked to reporting on the Brexit referendum, many journalists will struggle to disentangle it from the spiralling pressure in newsrooms to do more with less. Though the number of journalists has reportedly increased, the nature of the work has changed beyond recognition. Reach is just one of many newspaper groups to champion a strategy that relegates original reporting to a shrinking band of veterans. New recruits are instead expected to rehash stories from rival papers alongside press releases and agency copy.
Such practices can breed resentment between print journalists – who feel their reputation is being degraded by clickbait – and their digital colleagues. But at today’s picket line outside Reach’s Glasgow offices, staff from the Daily Record and Scottish Daily Express stood alongside digital journalists from Glasgow Live and local democracy reporters whose jobs are funded by the BBC. Just as no one goes into journalism to earn big bucks, no one – at least no one I’ve ever encountered – goes into journalism to kick down at society’s most vulnerable. But once in post, career progression depends on impressing managers themselves employed by a decreasing number of billionaires and giant conglomerates.
Ever since Rupert Murdoch crushed the print unions in the 1986 Wapping lockout – laying the ground for NUJ derecognition at a number of newspapers – proprietor and management power in the media has largely been left unchallenged. Murdoch’s anti-union operation was justified on the basis that the power of the print unions was out of control. One example of this was the refusal of Sun printers to handle a front page comparing union leader Arthur Scargill to Adolf Hitler in 1984. The story involved misrepresenting a photograph of Scargill waving to a spectator at a rally as a Nazi salute – and the refusal to print was condemned as an attack on free expression. But in an age of increasing consciousness of fake news, it could instead be viewed as an imperfect check on the use of media for propaganda purposes – exercised by an institution far more democratic than private management structures.
In today’s media, worker power would be exercised in different places to the printing presses of the 1980s – but it could still play a role in reshaping news priorities and redressing political bias. As few as one in four British journalists are members of the NUJ, so a realistic challenge to management seems a distant prospect. But victory in the fight for better pay and conditions would make it less distant – through raising morale, making the case for better workers’ rights and turning the tide on editorial cuts that prevent journalists doing what they do best.
Conrad Landin is a writer and journalist based in Glasgow, and co-editor of New Internationalist
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