The Class Ceiling: Journalism’s blindbiggest spot

Maira Butt and Poppy Burton explore the culture of exclusivity that conspires against working-class journalists

By nature, journalists are tired. While burning the midnight oil might be part and parcel of the job, there’s a set of journalists who were tired long before the oil was burning. For them, getting the job in the frst place proved the most tiring work. And recent fgures indicate the problem is getting worse. Last year, the NCTJ revealed over 80 per cent of journalists come from professional or upper-class backgrounds, compared to 42 per cent of the population, meaning working-class representation is at an all-time low. The report also found that social class was the only factor with increasing inequality over time. Not only has the amount of working-class journalists declined, but the numbers from higher socioeconomic backgrounds have actively risen by eight percentage points since 2016.

The sheer level of exclusivity is hard to imagine for well-intentioned journalists increasingly covering issues of equity and diversity, yet the bottlenecks of wealth and class privilege in the media may explain why journalism is such a daunting profession to enter. For Jamie Fahey, production editor and writer at The Guardian, it’s a profession that seems increasingly hard to reach for workingclass people. Raised in Liverpool during the Thatcher years, Fahey grew up in a jobless household, in a postcode the government deemed the most deprived 0.1 per cent of England. “There was no real sense that you could get a job that was permanent and secure, let alone a desk job in something as rare and distant as journalism,” he says. “You just didn’t know anyone like that.”

Fahey is convinced the exclusivity is intentional, pointing to a pervasive private school culture in newsrooms as part of the problem. “This is why people go, for the networks and the knowledge. You wouldn’t pay all that money if you weren’t getting some sort of exclusivity out of it,” he says. “But it is hideous in terms of social mobility, a hideous barrier.” The cultural and social capital garnered at the Oxbridges of the world have an unspoken importance in journalism, because we look to the tastemakers who are best informed to inform us. But Fahey says there’s a distinct lack of guidance when it comes to navigating them, particularly at entry level. “The power of having someone there to walk you through these unwritten codes is huge, and there isn’t enough of that, and never has been at any news organisation. Whether that’s based on race, gender, or class, there isn’t enough appreciation of how things can be exclusive,” he explains. “The Guardian are very aware of race and gender, because they’re protected characteristics under the Equality Act. Class is not, but in my opinion, it should be. I think there’s a growing clamour for it to be included, or at least treated on the same level. And we’re defnitely aware of that. But actions speak louder than awareness.”

It’s a point that Ali El-Enazi, Trainee Reporter at the Financial Times agrees with. “Race gets a lot of coverage but I can tell straight away when a person of colour (POC) isn’t from the same class as me. I have a friend whose dad set up a foundation for him to raise money for charity. Whereas my dad’s a delivery driver and I support my family fnancially. They’re handed internships and contacts. They have it much easier.” The confating of race and class in diversity schemes was on dramatic display last year when billionaire’s daughter Azadeh Moshiri got her job at the BBC with the help of social mobility charity, The John Schofeld Trust, sparking a much-needed conversation on socioeconomic diversity. Even individuals from marginalised groups such as POC and LGBTQ+ operate within an intersectional paradigm, one in which class is becoming increasingly invisible. This is partly due to the middle-class urge to craft a narrative of struggle underpinned by the almost religious belief in meritocracy which blurs the lines between social classes.

The latest research by the London School of Economics (LSE) incorporates economic, social, and cultural elements in defnitions of social class. Economic indicators include home ownership, savings, income, and inheritance. Poverty and low income are experiences Rhys Thomas, Senior Staff Writer at Woo, knows too well. His family grew up in his uncle’s council house and he worked multiple jobs throughout his undergraduate degree to save money for his MA Magazine Journalism at City. “I knew journalism was affuent, but when I got there I realised some people hadn’t taken out a loan for tuition fees and others had been on holiday for two years, that’s why they were older.” By his fnal term, he was broke. “I was living off frozen peas and rice and jumping over the barriers on the tube.” Six months after graduating, he was on Universal Credit, trying to freelance during the pandemic.

Other indicators of class include social and cultural capital. These can range from having access to networks of professionals that share knowledge, skills and insights to having the cultural interests and relatability to those who currently make up the industry. These more subtle forms of difference can be the most diffcult to detect.

“I’ve had it where I’ve been reporting at the picket line and journalists have come up to me and asked me for an interview, thinking I was a factory worker,” says Taj Ali, Industrial correspondent at Tribune Magazine Although he did work in a factory before pursuing journalism, these perceptions demonstrate the subtle ways working-class people can be excluded; through looking, acting and speaking differently. “They assume that because I’m there and I’ve got my parka on.” When he’s been interviewed on BBC News, he’s often been asked to position himself in front of a bookcase. “I don’t have space for a bookcase! I’ve got a tiny room and there’s no way. But it shows the kind of perceptions they have of what people who do these things are like.”

It’s one reason why Thomas feels he has unconsciously hidden where he comes from, starting with his Welsh accent. “I don’t know how conscious it was, but I defnitely did it. I think that was me trying to ft in. I felt like these are the people who make up this world, and I need to make sure I at least come across as one of them.” At other times, the mask slipped, like when he turned up to an internship at a music magazine in a business suit, and stayed that way for two weeks. “I didn’t realise I wasn’t supposed to! They were all in jeans and t-shirts.”

The few that can take these limitations in stride are not lauded for their efforts, but mythologised as examples of good oldfashioned hard work. It’s a line of thinking that Fahey says has been crudely distorted to blame the individual, in spite of the complex social barriers at play. “This sense of ‘pull up your bootstraps, you just need to work harder, you just need to try’ is absolute nonsense,” he says. “There are huge barriers that prevent millions of people in this country from getting where they possibly could be, because these jobs are generally all taken by people who have grown up with much more advantage.”

But privilege itself is a handicap to thorough journalism. When it comes to covering stories that affect working-class communities, those who aren’t aware of them can’t cover them with insight. If the scales were to tip to allow for a larger diversity of voices, the understanding of these stories would greatly beneft. For Fahey, this would also change the content he edits. Currently, has to walk a very subjective line between overexplaining and offence. When editing a piece on prepayment meters recently, he noticed that a few people in the room didn’t know what they were – whereas the mad dash to the local garage to top up the emergency meter was familiar territory to him. Thomas seconds this: “A lot of journalists love to write about how they’ve been to therapy. But it’s like, who the f*** can afford therapy? It’s crazy.

Unless it’s on the NHS, which it usually isn’t.” Fahey says that getting the facts right without making it insulting to readers who actually knew what prepayment meters were, was a diffcult balancing act. “When you look at tragedies like Grenfell, which was rampant capitalism, profteering, and neglect of social housing; you also see a defcit of accountability and local journalism.” After spending years reporting on the health and safety risks of council houses as a local reporter, Fahey feels that if more workingclass journalists were given opportunities to report on their communities, situations like Grenfell would have been fagged far earlier.

But this won’t be possible without serious structural upheaval, because securing positions even at local news level has become increasingly competitive. “The regional papers are getting cut to ribbons,” says Fahey. “When I was a kid, that was the stepping stone, but that ecosystem of gaining experience at local newspapers has been ravaged away.” Now, journalism is a graduate job, and a competitive one at that.

“If I could, I’d try to end the scourge of journalism becoming a graduate job,” says an emphatic Fahey. “There’s a race to the bottom in terms of investing in journalists, which is a huge problem for working-class kids. The organisations that are thriving need to fnd these kids and give them a chance.”

Thomas says that the expectation to have a degree immediately shuts out a lot of people who haven’t attended university. Although he doesn’t believe working-class people should be forced to report on local issues: “You shouldn’t have to. Your dreams shouldn’t be stifed by the fact that you’re from those places.”

But overall, the lack of funding for local news is negative for working-class communities, he says: “[Regional news] could have helped but creates a massive gulf where working-class people, especially outside of London, but including London, don’t have a chance to see the media really represent them. A f***ing article in Dazed is not going to be what they’re reading. You can quote me on that.” The death of regional papers is compounded by the fact that London is the media hub of the country. Ali says that he is often called into London at a moment’s notice, the assumption being that all the journalists live there, and can afford to do so. Thomas agrees, “The other thing you see is people who are working-class, but they’re from London. It’s still an advantage compared to the rest of the UK.”

In such a socially exclusive industry as journalism, entry can be impenetrable. Yet, once working-class journalists are ‘in’, the precarity of the job can affect the direction of their stories. Thomas doesn’t have the luxury to work on a piece for three months, although he would love to. “A big thing that is overlooked is that people do jobs because they need them.” He says he has often worked multiple jobs to strike the right balance of work he loves to do, as well as work that pays the bills. Fahey says: “Getting into journalism is one thing, and there are lots of structural barriers there. But once you’re in, there’s still plenty more. There’s a hierarchy in terms of jobs that you’re suited to. In national news, my experience is that you tend to get people from lower socioeconomic groups in sub-editing, rather than reporting. And certainly with columnists, we all know that the opinion formers at serious newspapers are the highest proportion of privately educated people who’ve gone through Oxbridge.”

With the class lines so stark and entrenched, journalists from working-class backgrounds often feel guilt and confusion around their positioning within society once they’ve escaped the precarious conditions of working-class life. “Community is something that is really important where I come from. I have friends from back home who are bricklayers and nurses. When we see each other in the pub, it’s like we’re brothers, like we’re family. But a lot of them are struggling to survive,” says Thomas. “Meanwhile, I’m living in London on a great salary, doing work I love. I wouldn’t call myself working class right now, although I defnitely have that background.”

Fahey agrees: “Journalism is by nature, a middle class profession. I’ve spoken to a lot of people that feel, not that they’re betraying their background, but certainly that journalism is an odd thing to go for as a working class person. The way I characterise a lot of the people I’ve come across in journalism over the years is that they’ve drifted into it. Without much thought too, I would imagine. You couldn’t possibly drift the way that I came.”