The Newspaper Licensing Association has made a £100,000 donation to the Journalism Diversity Fund to help the budding reporters of the future.
David Pugh, managing director of the NLA, presented a cheque on behalf of national newspaper publishers at an event to celebrate the success of the fund, which has helped 130 students into journalism.
More than 60 guests attended the annual lunch which was hosted this year by the Daily Mail at Associated Newspapers’ offices in London.
David said he was delighted to make the donation, which would “help train young journalists and support diversity in newsrooms”.
As one of the original sponsors, the NLA has donated £800,000 since the fund was set up in 2005 to help people from socially and ethnically diverse backgrounds attend journalism courses accredited by the National Council for the Training of Journalists.
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Any organisation promoting diversity in journalism should be applauded.
National journalism has become a rich kids’ playground. The qualification – be it NCTJ or degree – is supposed to be the equaller, but the reliance of nationals on ‘internships’ strips trainees of that equaller and puts them immediately back into a position whereby those from well-to-do backgrounds have the upper hand again.
Working class wannabe journalists who cannot afford to spend months working for free, often paying their own travel in and out of London for the duration, are immediately left by the wayside as hobby journalists from rich families work for free as they live off the parents’ chequebooks.
The only way into the industry, generally speaking, for working class trainees is via local papers – and the local press is dying. Papers are shutting every week. Publishers are firing journalists instead of hiring. So these kids from less well-off backgrounds have no way into the industry. So this organisation is incredibly valuable.
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