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H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H


Do we need to change reporters’ names?


In January, The Times carried a story headlined: ‘Brutality of Mugabe era returns to Zimbabwe after fuel protests.’ It said “the crackdown has echoes of the darkest days of


Robert Mugabe” and that President Mnangagwa was “forced to abandon an appearance at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland”. It told a story about people being beaten with sjamboks. At the end of the story was a note: “The correspondent’s


name has been changed to ensure his safety.” I bow to the opinion of journalists better qualified in law


and the way of the African world in 2019 than myself but I wonder if this isn’t a sad and worrying development. If correspondents for The Times do not use their correct


names because of concern about what might happen to them, how on earth are we to expect ordinary men and women or political leaders or NGO heads in Zimbabwe to speak out using their names? And, if real names are not used, the Zimbabwean


government has every right to question the validity of what is said and claimed. They can and will say: “Made-up names for made-up stories.” Almost all correspondents for British newspapers have


some form of protection because they have close ties with the British embassy or high commission in the countries where they operate. Local reporters have no such protection. Name changing might be common


practice (is it?) but it is the first time I have seen a newspaper with the prestige of The Times do this. Trevor Grundy Whitstable


NUJ should check the statistics on closures Raymond Snoddy repeats the claim that 300 local papers have closed in the past decade (Only tough action will keep local press afloat, December/January). This stat has being doing the rounds


since the BBC started reporting the issue a few years back on one of its excursions into the real world. But is it accurate? How many paid-for weekly or daily papers have closed? The only one that


20 | theJournalist


£30 prize


letter H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H


springs to mind was the independently owned Oldham Chronicle in 2017. I assume the 300 figure includes


frees. Most frees lost their editorial staff 10-20 years ago and have since been filled mainly with editorial from the paid-fors. I know this because for 30 years I have been a reporter for the Southern Daily Echo and Hampshire Chronicle and the company’s frees. The repeating of 300 closures distorts the true picture of the still largely


profitable local press. The end is approaching but the pace of change is slower than most people would realise. Perhaps the NUJ could do some analysis. My guess is that at most only five per cent of the closures have been paid-fors. Andrew Napier Southampton


Ray Snoddy says the total came from the Cairncross inquiry. It includes frees.


Email to: journalist@nuj.org.uk Post to: The Journalist 72 Acton Street, London WC1X 9NB Tweet to: @mschrisbuckley


Singing for your supper in the modern music press I read the Dave Simpson feature about the music press that Dr Stephen Dorril recommended on last issue’s letters’ pages, and very entertaining it was. But – and this is a giant but – how many of the publications actually pay contributors, pay them fairly, on time, and without a worldwide rights grab as part of the deal? Not many, I’ll wager. I paid my way through university in the late 1970s/early 1980s by reviewing gigs and albums for NME, with the odd interview in between, for which I’m still hugely grateful to editor Neil Spencer and commissioning editor Graham Lock. By the time NME closed, I believe its rates were about the same as I was earning in 1981, when £50 for a review plus two free tickets to a gig or a free album seemed like a small fortune. Rates at many of the titles Simpson lauds are pretty much the same now, while others do not pay at all. I love the rise in independent, niche magazines, and applaud the steps many of them are taking to be more inclusive. But let’s not celebrate too hard. Many journalists of my generation learned their craft in the music press. It enabled me to stay in London after university, pay my rent and move into the nationals. I very much doubt that would be true now. Sheryl Garratt London Freelance branch


The TUC helped to shape the German trade unions Denis McShane in his letter ‘German model would have been better for our unions’ links Paul Routledge to ”a self-serving myth that Britain and the TUC somehow shaped the postwar German trade unions” (December/ January). No he didn’t because there is no myth.


The British TUC not only helped to shape the German trade union movement after the war but did so through recognising the problems with its own structure and the circumstances. In ‘The history of the TUC. 1868 to


TIM ELLIS


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