Informed 03


This NEC was quite a different one for me, as I announced to colleagues that I had decided to step down as general secretary, a position that I was first elected to in 2011, after being deputy general secretary and coming to work for the NUJ in 2008. Sixteen years after making that move to step out of my life as a journalist, to work and lead a union that had become a significant part of my life through my activism as an MoC and elected NEC member for newspapers and agencies, then vice-president and president, it feels like the right time for a change of direction.


Since making that announcement,


first to the NEC and then in my email to all members that morning, I have been very moved and touched by the many messages I have received from NUJ members from around the union. Texts, calls, emails, letters, kind comments on social media – they have all been much appreciated. The external challenges we have faced over the time I’ve worked for the union have been difficult – our finances, the global credit crunch and swathes of cuts across the industry, the hollowing out of UK public services including the BBC under austerity, a global pandemic... My focus throughout has been in tackling our internal weaknesses and getting our finances on a sure footing, growing and organising where we can, stemming the losses in our weaker areas and ensuring our campaigns and legal interventions punch above our weight when it comes to the issues that matter to journalists and journalism. That’s been evident in our work on protection of sources, on equal pay, on journalists’ safety, on international solidarity, on freelance rights, on our calls for a recalibrated future for the news industry in our News Recovery Plan. It’s work that I am proud of and that so many members have got behind and supported in many different ways. I continue to firmly believe in the importance of ensuring the NUJ’s future is an independent one with a clear focus


Press Freedom


Te NUJ lobbies for journalists’ rights so you can protect your sources, have editorial independence and do your job safely and freely, without censorship from the state. As a member of the International Federation of Journalists we are part of a 600,000-strong community working to ensure the safety of media workers across the globe, fighting for freedom of information, open government and plurality of the media.


Are you keeping good company? Join the NUJ today at


nuj.org.uk/join www.nuj.org.uk


on journalists and media workers, and the professional values we embody. How that work is taken forward will be a matter for my successor and the wider membership. When I leave the NUJ – likely at the end of this year – it will be with great pride to have been able to play


a part in the continuance of an incredibly special union that will always have a big part in my heart. Until then, as you will see from the many industrial updates and work reflected in this edition of NUJ Informed, it is very much business as usual!


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REASONS TO JOIN


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