diversity f class
the local newsagent’s shop if I needed to make or receive calls about interviews,” she recalls. Freelancing was more convenient after she had her children.
However, computer technology was revolutionising the industry during the 1980s so she returned to a staff job on a regional evening newspaper to avoid missing out on training. For a while, she worked on an industry-wide scheme that partnered newspapers with primary schools in their areas. “Children from all kinds of backgrounds learned about newspapers. It was a great way for them to get involved in their local newspaper and consider journalism as a career.” Julian Brown started working as a press photographer in the early 1980s after completing a photography course at Wigan college. He rang dozens of newspapers, eventually speaking to someone on the desk at the Lancashire Evening Telegraph in Blackburn. “First of all, he rebuked me for phoning on deadline day, then put me through to personnel because they had a vacancy for a trainee photographer.” Later, he worked as a staff photographer on The
Burnley Express and as a freelance photographer in newspapers and PR. He has seen opportunities for photographers disappear over the years and doubts if journalism would have been an option for him if he were starting out today. “The Burnley Express paid for me to do the
NCTJ photography course in Sheffield. That gave me an enormous amount of confidence,” he says.
He found his strong regional
accent was an advantage in journalism, with people only speaking to news reporters he was working with because they trusted him. “Journalists with a posh accent were not taken seriously – people wanted to know ‘Who is he and what’s he doing here?’ ” This was also Rachel
Broady’s experience. “I was comfortable speaking to anyone but I have worked with some journalists who feared going onto council estates and into what they thought were rough pubs. Some wouldn’t even get out of the car,” she says. “Assumptions were made about working class
people - such as that only people on the dole lived on council estates. Being working class made me a better journalist.”
ANTONIO SORTINO theJournalist | 15
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