Comments from former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie dismissing journalism academia as “make-work projects for retired journalists” stirred up the world of hackademia nicely on Friday.
His words appeared as a picture bylined article in the Viewspaper section of The Independent – an unusual place to find a MacKenzie byline.
It now turns out that MacKenzie hasn’t been freelancing for the Indy, but that the piece was in fact adapted from an interview with the former Sun editor carried out by student journalist Harriet Thurley which first appeared in City’s alumni magazine XCity.
This attribution, missing from the print version of the piece, now appears online.
Nice exclusive for Harriet. Shame on the Indy for denying her a byline and rather misleading its readers.
Ironic that a piece deriding journalism education should provide ample evidence of the need for such training.
Harriet has blogged about her encounter with MacKenzie here.
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