- Adrian Van-Klaveren
- 19 Jun 06, 12:25 PM
The educational background of journalists has been much discussed over the last few days - with the survey (read it ) of top journalists suggesting a significant bias in their education towards private schools and certain universities, above all Cambridge and Oxford (including me).
Others have tried to follow this up and today's Media Guardian reflects disappointment that we have been unable to provide figures about the educational background of all our journalists. It carries of the Times Education Supplement which claims that "while the recruitment process remains so informal, untransparent and unmonitored, it will be open to abuse".
I think this criticism is taking things too far. There is always a decision about how much monitoring to do. Our recruitment process is actually pretty closely monitored - for example we look carefully at issues of gender, disability and the progress of ethnic minority candidates. We have never felt it appropriate to monitor specifically for educational background and, given we recruit several hundred people a year, it would be a significant undertaking.
But what we try to do in our recruitment is to attract a diverse range of candidates and to build teams with a broad range of knowledge, experience and skills. Educational background is part of this diversity but so are many other factors - age, class, where people come from, and their passions and interests to name just a few. Ultimately it's about achieving the best mix of people to be able to make the best output - that does mean understanding our audiences and challenging stereotypes and preconceptions.
There are things we have done such as removing the informality from our work experience system and making much more information about audiences available to everyone. There is much more that we can and should do. But I'm not convinced that simply adding up whether people went to university and, if so, which one is going to take us a great deal further towards serving our audiences better.
Adrian Van-Klaveren is deputy director, 成人论坛 News
Among the calls to the 成人论坛 in the past 24 hours were a complaint claiming incorrect usage of the word "schizophrenic" on Panorama, and a claim that unemployed people are not represented on the news. These are two of the e-mails received:
Something I have noticed about 成人论坛 News, which I previously thought only happened on the other channels is the clear misuse of the word "paedophile", to describe any convicted child molester - even the term 'convicted paedophile' - which is obviously ignorant of legal definitions. The term simply means 'one who shows sexual *desire* - directed towards children' (Oxford, 1991), and is therefore simply a description of sexual orientation, alongside, say zoophilia or heterosexuality...The objective word for someone who practices sex with prepubescent children is "pederast", and in most countries, the legal definition is "child molestor".
Why do news readers talk to their correspondents as if they themselves are having a conversation instead of talking to us, the viewers? It irritates me beyond belief! I love the 成人论坛 news, but these two way conversations exclude the viewer; no-one seems to talk to us except when welcoming us to the programme, then these two way conversations occur, obliterating the welcome to the programme.
- Hayley Valentine
- 19 Jun 06, 11:20 AM
England fans make me laugh. Midnight, the night before , and they are in full voice outside my Nuremberg hotel window. Every time a German fan walks past they sing "". It's an old line, but they haven't thought of a better one yet.
The next day we discuss if it's the right time to set up a debate on whether England fans have successfully shaken off their hooligan image for the Victoria Derbyshire programme. The production team is split.
Some think we should wait until after the Sweden game. They've had no-one to fight with yet, they argue. But if the fans behave tonight then its worth talking about. It'll be three major tournaments and no violence to speak of. And they could have picked fights with the German fans or police at any time. After the there were fewer arrests than on an average Saturday night in most English towns.
We decide to go with it.
Sir Peter Torry (British ambassador to Germany) a minority of England fans as great fat uncouth bad-mannered people. He won't repeat his words on air, but says he's delighted with the way the vast majority are behaving.
Is it enough that the fans aren't throwing chairs and rioting, Victoria asks? The image of the England fan abroad, both to the average German and to those watching the TV coverage at home, is that of beer-swilling masses singing Ten German Bombers (the Germans, oddly, don't seem to take offence, unlike my mum who was utterly appalled when I told her) and taking their shirts off at the slightest hint of sunshine.
But it鈥檚 a world away from , and one long-time travelling fan predicts that the end of violence will lead to an evolving away support where people travel happily with their families and no longer fear any trouble.
After the programme I walk back through the Nuremberg square. The remaining England fans have a new song. "We're s**t, and we won two nil", they sing. Admit it, it's funny. They say that football fans only sing when they're winning. Do England fans only fight when they're losing? Maybe Beckham and co will stop being quite so s**t and, this summer, we won鈥檛 get the chance to find out. Come on England.
Hayley Valentine is an editor of news programmes, Radio Five Live
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