I thought I’d landed my dream job as a budding reporter when you invited me to join your team. But the highs of getting a scoop soon crashed when I realised who I was really working for. All the things my colleagues had told me about you – that I had naively brushed off – came true.
I studied hard to become a qualified reporter despite having no financial help; slogging it on a low wage because I saw it as a chance to one day make a positive change in society.
But, because of you and the way you put money before people and ethics, my burning passion for news petered out and working under you each day became a misery.
If it wasn’t hearing you scream abuse down the phone at hard-working colleagues, despite them clocking up days of unpaid overtime for you, it was your treatment – if not utter contempt – for our story sources.
I was ordered to hound ordinary people who had lost a family member or people who had a vague connection to a celebrity. Despite a bereaved person crying for reporters to leave them alone, you ordered me to carry on knocking at their neighbour’s doors for any information I could pluck until the police arrived.
Even if I mentioned that a source wasn’t happy with our methods, I’d be told in polite terms, to forget how they feel and milk them for all they’re worth. I followed these orders begrudgingly and saw the complaints roll in after the story had gone out, but by then it didn’t matter – you had already cashed in.
Another day, perhaps it was a quiet news day, you decided to jazz up a story that wouldn’t have made the cut had it not been for the sensationalised juicy hook giving it the edge – an edit which you simply plucked out of thin air.
I silently seethed as I watched you hit send on my story containing the made-up anonymous source quoting dramatic lies.
How could I disagree? I feared being screamed at and felt this was my only shot at a career. Maybe this was the norm and I’d lose my job if I’d spoken out?
I winced the following day as I opened the papers, only to see the lies splashed over a double-page spread. What an embarrassment knowing the general public would be reading a completely fabricated story. The rest of the week was spent flicking through follow-ups of the same story to retract everything that was originally written, but it didn’t matter – the scoop had got readers’ attention.
Despite the highs of getting my teeth into a good story, the desk had a toxic atmosphere that suffocated my spirit. No wonder staff came and went so frequently, but you never questioned why. Constant back-and-forth banter with sinister undertones made the stark lack of journalists from minority backgrounds abundantly apparent – the negative rhetoric seen in the press simmering away at the very source.
I was told that if someone dies, the papers will care more if they are white, and middle class. Better still if they are blonde and busty with selfies to splash on pages.
It’s no wonder the industry is still stuck in the stone age with people like you at the helm, relishing every chance to poke fun at a transgender person, mock a lesbian for being “butch”, or demonise the working class.
I distanced myself more and more with every derogatory comment. My work suffered as I began dreading going to work each morning. It got to the point where I felt sick to my stomach at the thought of what I might encounter next. I became a shell of my former self after having to sell out my principles for the sake of headlines and my friends and family watched as I burst into tears after working hours of overtime without so much as a thank you.
I haven’t regretted handing in my notice since leaving – it’s as though a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. The saying goes: “You don’t quit jobs, you quit bosses”, which is exactly what I did. I do have some words of thanks for you however – I’m glad you showed me the person I don’t want to become.
- Would you like to write an anonymous letter to your boss for this series? Get in touch by emailing careers.desk@theguardian.com
