Training in journalism before the 1950s was based mainly on luck.
Getting a job at a newspaper, for instance, could be pure chance. After all publishers did not have a permanent post available for any or every bright young spark who popped into the editor’s office.
You had a better chance if you lived in or near London because a hopeful young journalist could get a job as a copy boy at a major publishing group and work their way up.
In the regions a job on a daily or evening paper might turn up occasionally if a senior reporter moved on to Fleet Street.
Similarly a weekly newspaper reporter might get a job on a regional daily leaving an opening as everyone on the weekly moves up one.
Quite often staff on weekly newspapers might be there for their whole lives. Going from junior to senior reporter; becoming chief reporter or specialising as a sports reporter could be the next step; then deputy editor and the peak of achievement — editor.
Training was often based on observation by a junior (in those days generally male) who might actually be allowed to type up an occasional report from submitted information (much as happened in my first job at Holywell).
The lucky junior might be taken under the wing of a very experienced senior reporter. One who had put in the years but was also happy staying in a seaside town or a pronvincial city.
To make it all the way to Fleet Street a “copy boy” (or girl) would need to be very good or very lucky.
The system of training took a turn (possibly for the better) in the late 40s, following a call from the National Union of Journalists and members of the Labour Party, a Royal Commission was set up to investigate the ownership, control and financing of the UK press.
It was published in 1949, after two years of investigation, and had many far-reaching consequences including the formation of the Press Council.
One of the lesser-known results was the setting up of an official system of training journalists under the authority of the National Council for the Training of Journalists, which was formed in 1951.
The NCTJ was not a headliner in the report but it proved invaluable to generations of cub reporters.
Regarding training the report said: “The problem of recruiting the right people into journalism, whether from school or from university, and ensuring that they achieve and maintain the necessary level of education and technical efficiency, is one of the most important facing the Press, because the quality of the individual journalist depends not only on the status of the whole profession of journalism but the possibility of bridging the gap between what society needs from the Press and what the Press is at present giving it. The problem is the common interest and the common responsibility of proprietors, editors and other journalists.”
In the main those entering the profession at the bottom of the ladder were still arriving in their mid-teens straight from school.
Under the new system they would be indentured for a three-year apprenticeship with the company being responsible for their proper training.
In the early years they studied one day a week at colleges of further education and were examined, after their three-year apprenticeship, in the General Proficiency Test.
By the 1960s the level of training became more intense and by 1965 block release courses were introduced.
This involved initial working “on the job” for six months to a year and then spending an eight-week period of study at an accredited college, followed by another period working “on the job” and then a final block release course before taking a proficiency exam before the end of indentures.
As it happened my real entry into journalism began in 1967 and I did six months on my “probation” before switching to a new employer and spending almost two years working full-time before going on my first block release course.
By this time experimental pre-entry training courses were held and then 18 to 20 week fast-track postgraduate courses for those who went to university.
The next step was for accredited postgraduate degree courses.
The old Proficiency Test was scrapped and a National Certificate Examination was introduced.
By the end of the 70s most new entrants to journalism would have had some pre-entry training and there were very few raw recruits in their mid-teens entering journalism.
Since then the NCTJ has accredited undergraduate degree courses with a vocational aspect; some larger companies introduced their own training programmes; and there are even private groups running journalism courses.
A cub reporter is no longer an endangered species – it has become extinct.
You are unlikely to find some bright-faced teenager in a newspaper office fetching tea and coffee for the hacks whilst trying to find out how to become one of the elite.
There are many of my old colleagues who still believe you cannot teach someone to be a journalist. They have to have something there to begin with.
Nowadays journalists seem to arrive in the office fully-fledged and with their eye already on the editor’s chair.
The problem nowadays is that there are not many chairs left for those wannabe editors
Q. What links Friday; a war over eggs; and coffee?
A. The (ig)noble art of journalism.
Daniel Defoe, who gave us the tale of Robinson Crusoe, the sailor marooned on a deserted island with only a single companion – Man Friday, was the first well-known journalist.
He was also a spy, a pamphleteer, a trader and a writer – none of which put him above the way we view many journalists these days.
He is regarded as the pioneer of modern journalism because of his publication of The Storm which was the account of a severe storm which hit London in November 1703 and lasted seven days.
In providing the first ever report of a hurricane in England he used eye-witness reports. He didn’t actually work to a deadline for his report as it wasn’t printed until early 1704.
Jonathan Swift, who wrote Gulliver’s Travels, a tale which recorded details of the war between Lilliput and Blefuscu over which end of a boiled egg should be opened, edited The Examiner, a political periodical, from 1710 to 1714.
We talk today of media bias to one or other of the political parties. This was as nothing compared to this period in English history.
The Examiner promoted a Tory perspective of British politics at a time when the new monarch, Queen Anne, had replaced the Whig ministers of her predecessors (her sister Mary and Mary’s husband King William III) with Tories.
Although the Tories were in power the majority of the print media at the time favoured the Whigs which is why John Morphew launched The Examiner – to counter the Whig press.
Swift was also a man of many parts as a priest, a poet and a political pamphleteer.
Finally we come to the coffee, often the best way to round off a delightful repast.
Edward Lloyd ran a coffee shop in London where merchants, brokers and shipping agents used to meet and discuss business.
To make life easier for his customers Edward produced a weekly summary of shipping movements which became known as Lloyd’s List and continued in print form from 1734 until 2013 when it became an online publication.
Lloyd was a coffee shop proprietor, who also became an auctioneer, and the publication that bears his name is probably better known to the public than he is.
These were not, of course, the first newspapers in Britain.
In the 16th century the main centre for newsletters was in Antwerp where the printers and publishers could send copies to France, Britain, Germany and the Netherlands, in one direction, and to Spain, Portugal and Italy in the other.
The main news at the time centred on wars, other military actions, what was happening in the major royal courts, and, the staple diet of many newspapers to this day – gossip.
By the 17th century news pamphlets were still controlled by the state and became more popular because they provided fairly reliable sources of news especially by the middle of the century with the Civil War.
Copyright laws had been dropped by the 1640s and 1650s and there were at least 300 news pamphlets being issued.
The Royalist ones that did not fall by the wayside included Mercurius Aulicus, Mercurius Melancholicus, and Mercurius Electicus.
Certainly not the sort of titles you would ask for in your local newsagent. It doez give you an idea where the modern newspaper title Mercury originated.
The London-based news sheets nailed their colours to the Parliamentary mast with such delights as the Parliament Scout, Spie, and The Kingdome’s Weekly Scout.
Despite all we hear about the draconian rule by Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan followers the press was reasonably free during the time of the Commonwealth.
This came to an end with the Restoration when Charles II brought in the Printing Act 1662 which restricted printing to: the University of Oxford; Trinity College, Cambridge: and to the master printers of the Stationer’s Company in London.
This reinstated the regulations and restrictions previously lifted by the Puritans.
It took another major upheaval to gradually loosen the chains around the press and it was the Protestant King William III who eased the shackles once more and this was mainly because he didn’t want to upset the burgeoning press in light of the growing politicisation of Parliament.
Over the centuries newspapers have come and gone but also many have stayed. Whether the level of journalism remains constant is another matter.
In the early days you only needed a publisher for you to become a journalist, quite often an editor.
Nowadays you only need access to the web to call yourself a journalist.
No real change there then.
In between there have been examples of real journalists. Some in the latter years of Victoria. Definitely some during both world wars but real journalists were still going strong through the 1950s, 60s, 70s and into the 80s.
As the old hands died off or retired there remained very few true journalists by 2000 and 20 years later the real journalists are an endangered species hovering on the brink of extinction.
We are not dinosaurs – we are principled professionals.
Robin's Nest 