Ruth Addicott speaks to journalists about working and living in Sheffield
Sheffield I
t is testament to Sheffield that so many journalists who went there to train have ended up staying or moving back years later to settle permanently. The University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University
both offer journalism and media courses. Some journalists have taken up lecturing, inspiring a new generation of students.
Freelance journalist and author Michelle Rawlins writes
news and real-life features for nationals, women’s magazines and digital platforms and also teaches at the University of Sheffield. She has lived and worked in the city for 25 years and written five books based on women who live there. “It feels as though my career has come full circle,” she says.
“I’m now tutoring the journalists of tomorrow in the city I love and I class as my home. “There are always so many great news stories to follow up and, in the majority of cases, people want to talk to you.” One of the standout stories for ITV journalist Ben Bason
was the South Yorkshire floods, which made national news in November 2019. “It was devastating to wade through people’s homes in places like Fishlake, and speak to those who’d been hit 12 years earlier too in places like Bentley,” he says. Bason spent most of his career in Sheffield and says there are a lot of opportunities for broadcast journalists. “In terms of radio, there are two award-winning local
stations – BBC Radio Sheffield and Hallam FM. For TV, there is Sheffield Live, plus Look North and Calendar are both based in Leeds which is commutable. The journalism department at the University of Sheffield is also one of the best in the
country, with great links to the industry, so that’s a good route in for aspiring journalists.” The Star is the main daily newspaper and is published alongside the weekly Sheffield Telegraph (both are owned by JPI Media). Nearby towns Rotherham, Derby, Barnsley and Doncaster have their own newspapers, while the Yorkshire Post, which covers the whole of Yorkshire, is based in Leeds. Lucy Ashton was born and bred in Sheffield and joined her
first newspaper aged 19. She has worked on most of the papers in South Yorkshire and is now local democracy reporter at The Star, where she made headline news with a long-running freedom of information battle. In July 2021, The Star ran a front page featuring redacted
emails and the headline ‘What don’t they want you to know?’, following a year-long investigation by Ashton into Sheffield City Trust and its management arm Sheffield International Venues. The paper reported that the organisation was “haemorrhaging cash” and received a multi-million-pound bailout by the council. For Ashton, it illustrates why local democracy reporters are so important. “It’s hard to keep a professional distance with politics when
it involves your home city,” she says. Ashton has been covering Sheffield Council since 2001 and
says one of the biggest issues today is the sheer volume of meetings. “Last May, the council became a coalition following 10
years of Labour rule and, at the same time, switched to a committee system after years of having a cabinet system. There are two local democracy reporters in Sheffield covering not only the council but also organisations such as Ofsted, the Ombudsman, clinical commissioning groups, the Care Quality commission and other government departments.” According to Ashton, the number of meetings has virtually
doubled and in an average month there can be more than 30. “Each meeting lasts a minimum of two hours and some as long as four or five hours and then we have to write up all the stories and collate videos so it’s intense,” she says. “Some days
10 | theJournalist
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