A former Reuters agency leader and ITN News at Ten editor has been appointed to chair UK journalism training body NCTJ.
Sue Brooks will succeed Kim Fletcher, who is stepping down after 20 years on the NCTJ board, in September.
Writing for Press Gazette, Brooks said her journey from being a “17-year-old Derbyshire lass with a handful of ‘O’ levels” to Fleet Street was “completely attainable in 1977” but that journalism has since “become an elite sport”.
She said: “The NCTJ’s efforts to address this are exciting and groundbreaking and the main reason I wanted to be chair of the charity, whose mission is to promote quality, trust and diversity in journalism.”
The NCTJ’s 2023 Diversity in Journalism report said 72% of UK journalists were from professional or upper class backgrounds compared to 44% of all UK workers – and that this trend is currently higher among more junior journalists.
Scroll down to see the exclusive comment piece from Brooks in full
Brooks said another of her priorities as chair would be to help ensure the Community News Project lives on after Meta pulled its funding for more than 100 reporters in under-served communities across the UK.
The NCTJ chair is responsible for overseeing the governance and strategic development of the charity, including the Journalism Skills Academy and the Journalism Diversity Fund.
Brooks joined Reuters in 2015 as global head of news agency products and in 2018 became managing director for Reuters products and news agency strategy. She then became general manager overseeing all commercial and business activities at the agency.
She previously spent 14 years at Associated Press in roles such as director of international products and platforms and director of video transformation.
Before that her jobs included editing ITN’s News at Ten on ITV, Westminster news editor at ITN, and home news editor for Channel 4.
She started her career as a trainee reporter at the age of 17 at the Derby Evening Telegraph, completing her NCTJ training at Richmond College in Sheffield.
NCTJ chief executive Joanne Forbes said Brooks’s “outstanding achievements as a journalist, editorial manager and business leader, and her experience across all media sectors and formats – and, of course, her NCTJ pedigree and passion for our values – make her the perfect choice to be our next chair”.
[Previously on Press Gazette: Reuters boss: ‘If we don’t disrupt ourselves, somebody else is going to do it for us’]
New NCTJ chair Sue Brooks warns journalism has become an ‘elite sport’
I have had a long, joyous and extraordinarily fulfilling career: I have travelled the globe, met some astonishing people and helped lead one of the world’s greatest news organisations. None of it would have been possible without the NCTJ.
For a 17-year-old Derbyshire lass with a handful of ‘O’ levels, a dream of working in Fleet Street was completely attainable in 1977. Indentured to the Derby Evening Telegraph, a course at Richmond College in Sheffield led to the NCTJ’s professional qualification which was the calling card to reporting for local and national radio, some of the best jobs in UK television and senior roles at the world’s two leading news agencies.
Could this happen in 2024? NCTJ research suggests not and, in the 40+ years since I joined the industry, journalism has become an elite sport. The NCTJ’s efforts to address this are exciting and groundbreaking and the main reason I wanted to be chair of the charity, whose mission is to promote quality, trust and diversity in journalism.
[Read more: Working class representation in UK journalism hits record low, report says]
It’s never been more important to ensure journalists better reflect the communities they serve because how can we expect our viewers and readers to trust us if they don’t recognise us? As Lisa Nandy in one of her first interviews as the new Culture Secretary said: “who tells the story, determines what the story is…”
I hope that as she gets to grips with her in-tray, she finds time to read last year’s report on the sustainability of local journalism, published by the Commons DCMS committee which highlighted the harmful impact on communities the decline in local news is having. It specifically called out decreasing participation in civic life and increasing levels of polarisation. The violence ravaging the country this past week bears witness to the impact misinformation and disinformation is having on our towns and cities.
This is why the Community News Project was so transformative, and why it was such a blow when Meta announced it could no longer fund the initiative. More than 280 journalists received NCTJ training over the past five years. Three quarters of them came from under-represented backgrounds. Some 23 publishers were involved in the programme, underpinned by a total $17m donation from Meta.
[Read more: NCTJ’s fight to save Community News Project after ‘heartbreaking’ Meta decision]
Top of my in-tray is to help the talented team at the NCTJ find ways to ensure the Community News Project lives on, because the need for journalism and journalistic skills to understand and explain the world has never been more important and will become even more so if the Labour government reduces the voting age to 16. Ensuring Gen Alpha is informed, sees both sides of the debate and knows how to spot misinformation and disinformation will be fundamental to our democratic processes.
In the four decades since I gained my NCTJ certification the organisation has changed beyond recognition and now sees the need for continuing professional development as important as entry-level qualifications. Its skills academy is committed to equipping mid-career journalists with the knowledge they need – from using AI through resilience training to audience development – to advance their careers and become the newsroom leaders of the future.
Will there be newsrooms to lead? They will look different, for sure, as generative AI is already making an impact on editorial teams. Much has been said and written about the threat it poses, but there are opportunities too. Opportunities which I believe mean the core skills of journalists – making connections, speaking truth to power, mining data to uncover hidden trends – will come to the fore again as the routine, mundane tasks are carried out by machines. Exclusive content is gold dust and the NCTJ’s integral role in ensuring content creators are equipped to harness the new tools at their disposal and use them ethically and effectively, more critical than ever.
Media companies old and new are finding ways to navigate an ever-evolving array of platforms to meet their audiences where they are, as the connection between their brands and their audiences – already weakened by the social media revolution a decade ago – is dissipating with every generation.
The barriers to entry are lowering all the time and generative AI will only make it easier for content creators to find an audience, however niche. Disintermediation is here to stay.
But there is good news too: new brands, some of which are being lauded as potential saviours of local journalism, are expanding – and hiring. There are scores of adverts from some of our biggest – and smallest – news providers on the NCTJ’s jobs board right now.
The 17-year-old me had newsprint in her veins: my dad was a compositor, who spent much of his working life hot metal typesetting. I remember him telling me that I had joined the business too late and had missed the best of it. Ironic given I often wonder if his job contributed to his early cancer-riddled death at 54, but it’s a sentiment that’s been echoed by the old hands at every job I have had since.
Now I’m an old hand who has witnessed and managed more transformation in the business than I ever dreamed possible and can say only one thing with certainty:
The best is still to come.
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