January 15, 2006


Sylvia Pankhurst undermines seminars

DID YOU know that Suffragette leader Sylvia Pankhurst lived for many years in Ethopia and played a significant role in that African nation’s cultural development? No, neither did I.

However, that was one of the disappointingly irrelevant points raised during two seminars supposedly about the reporting of conflicts that was part of the Leeds Together for Peace festival.

At the first, an audience of about 50 heard branch chairman Pete Lazenby speak about the history of the far-right in Leeds, and his role in investigating and revealing the real agenda of the BNP in Yorkshire.

“Truth,” said Pete, “is the biggest weapon we’ve got against fascism and the BNP.”

From battles on Leeds’ doorsteps, YEP reporter Richard Edwards spoke passionately about his experiences on a Ministry of Defence trip to Iraq, and all the personal and professional dilemmas he faced getting there and being there.

Richard was with Malcolm Hoddy from the Keighley News and Sheffield freelance photographer Paul Drabble.

Yes, he admitted, I was scared at times, but I had to remind myself that “the Army wouldn’t risk the public relations disaster of a journalist being kidnapped or worse”.

Crucial role
The elder statesman of the three-strong panel, 80-year-old Peter Steffens, a veteran of Reuters in Vietnam and a journalist-turned-academic from the University of Washington in the USA, stressed that the role of the reporter is crucial.

“Journalists,” he said, “have to say what it’s really like to be somewhere. We have to add background for understanding, not just saying what is happening somewhere, but why.”

One surprising conclusion of the discussion was that Leeds was lucky to have the Yorkshire Evening Post and an editor in Neil Hodgkinson who was standing firm against the accelerating trend for regional newspapers to become no more than “profit centres for global media conglomerates”.

Despite the YEP’s position in the growing Johnston Press portfolio, journalists such as Pete Lazenby and Richard Edwards have the time and resources to cover stories which are important to the social and political health of the city – scope that is becoming all too rare in English-language media around the world.

“If owners want papers to be no more than money-making vehicles for entertainment,” said Peter Scheffer, “then we all have to educate editors about what is going on.

“They have to be persuaded by reporters and others that dropping ‘news’ will not be worth it for their businesses.”

Harder battles
But, with newspaper groups such as Northcliffe focusing no further ahead than the current trading year, trying to persuade senior executives – and their influential and demanding shareholders – that such longer-term perspectives are vital will be daunting. Fighting such a battle with journalist troops who are underpaid, demoralised and stressed beyond belief because they fear for their jobs will be even harder.

NUJ president Tim Lezard dominated the second event, a week later. Coverage of race in the nationals and the toothlessness of the Press Complaints Commission were his targets, especially over the reporting of refugees and race.

Of Express proprietor Richard Desmond, Tim said: “He can dish it out, but he can’t take it.”

Of the PCC, he said: “It has no teeth; papers know they can get away with it.”

And of the NUJ, “unlike the government, we’re not prepared to sit back and have blood on our hands,” said Tim.

But, such power and realism did not last. Unfortunately, political scientist and journalist Bereket Loul from Ethopia seemed enthralled by Sylvia Pankhurst’s contribution to his country’s 20th century history rather than say anything about the media there, leaving the audience no wiser about how the overthrow of a monarchy or decades of famine and poverty were seen “on the ground”.

Bereket seemed to be speaking more as a political scientist from the University of Addis Ababa and someone involved with the United Nations’ Development Programme than as a journalist – to the disappointment of many.

Similarly, Nahla Haydar, from the Yemen, spoke passionately about the country’s idiosyncratic political and economic structure, its late 20th century history, but hardly mentioned her three years working in television there.

No one left the first event before the end; the slightly smaller audience for the second had shrunk well before Nahla finished speaking.

Overall, the lasting impression was disappointingly “6/10; could have done better”.

Having a chair or moderator who could have kept the speakers “on topic” and – after shorter presentations – encouraged more lively debate between the journalists and audiences who were keen to learn could have been far more worthwhile.