Increased journalistic professionalism in the sense of formal qualifications and training is covered in Section C8 below. Ethics training in UK journalism is relatively widespread and, as demonstrated in recent surveys of working journalists, broadly viewed as satisfactory. It is also directly supported by the National Union of Journalists, which operates an ethics council, an ethical code of conduct and advice for journalists. However, the workload intensity of UK journalists and the need for an evolving skillset to cope with industry changes is seen as inhibiting the ability of editorial staff to maintain their desired quality of work, particularly among newspaper journalists. Several studies of UK journalism in recent years have highlighted the effect of economic pressures on the quality of journalistic output.
The National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ), from which 65 per cent of UK journalists hold a qualification (Spilsbury, 2018, p.18) lists “Essential journalism ethics and regulation” as one fo the core skills of its Diploma in Journalism qualification. The BBC, which operates an extensive training programme for its journalists via the BBC Academy, is obliged to do so by constitutional documents, the Royal Charter (Clause 35) and Agreement (Clause 13) in ensuring that the Corporation delivers its Public Purposes (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, 2016a & 2016b).
The 2018 Journalists at Work survey found that 74 per cent of UK journalists across all sectors felt that they had received sufficient training in ethics, a substantial increase from 52 per cent from the previous survey in 2012. 85 per cent felt that their personal work in the workplace “reflects and respects” ethical boundaries, although 31 per cent claim that “business pressures in my workplace mean that ethical boundaries are sometimes not respected” (Spilsbury, 2018, pp.82-83). The National Union of Journalists – of which 35 per cent of journalists are members according to the Journalism at Work survey (p.81) – operates an additional level of ethical training for member journalists. The Union operates an Ethic Council which provides advice and information on journalistic ethics and produces the NUJ’s code of conduct, which sets out 12 professional principles that NUJ members are expected to observe (National Union of Journalists, n.d.). Members also have access to the NUJ ethics hotline.
Increasing newsroom pressures on the working practices of UK journalists are having a significant depressing effect on the delivery of original journalism, particularly resource-intensive but socially important public-interest and investigative journalism. Table 7 shows the concerns of UK journalists regarding the negative effects that industry changes are exerting on their ability to perform their jobs. Some concerns relate to the need for new skills and greater flexibility in producing journalism: 85 per cent of respondents to the 2018 Journalists at Work survey stated that they faced an increased need to widen the range of tasks they are obliged to perform as part of their day-to-day work, and 67 per cent had to produce content across multiple platforms. Alongside this, journalists raise concerns about their capacity to produce high-quality journalism: 70 per cent cite ‘increased work intensity’ – the need to develop more stories (indirectly confirming that less time is available to develop each story); 35 per cent report a lower job satisfaction as a result of industry changes; while – of significant concern given the democratic and social function of journalism – 34 per cent felt that they were forced to engaged in “de-skilled” research activities, necessitating a reliance on external copy, including from PR companies, while 34 per cent claimed that industry changes mean that they produce a lower quality of work.
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These impacts were found to be worse for journalists working in the newspaper sector. 77 per cent of newspaper journalists reported increased work intensity, 41 per cent felt they produced a lower quality of work, and 42 per cent reported a lower job satisfaction.
Research on the effects of newsroom cuts on the delivery of local news in the UK has found evidence of the reduced ability of journalists to cover local issues in depth (Franklin, 2011; Wahl-Jorgensen, 2018), the displacement of locally-relevant journalism with non-local stories to build online audiences and the coming-together of editorial and advertising departments to monetize digital content (Jenkins & Nielsen, 2020). The problem of “churnalism” (the replacement of original journalism with PR copy has been observed for a long time in UK media research and continues to be a problem (Jackson & Moloney, 2016).
