Join Lisa McKenzie (LSE), Danny Dorling (University of Oxford), Jeremy Gilbert (University of East London), Ruth Ibegbuna (CEO, RECLAIM Manchester) and Dawn Foster (The Guardian) to discuss how class is presented within the media.
It is well known that journalism is a profession dominated by the middle classes. 54% of leading print journalists hail from just two universities – Oxford and Cambridge. With the decline of local news, the rise of the unpaid internship and the ending of specialist reporting on labour and industrial politics, it is harder and harder for people from working class background to gain a career in the media. From the lack of working class voices in the media, to the negative sterotypes of people from working class backgrounds it is clear that class is an issue which urgently needs discussing in relation to the media.
How do the class backgrounds of journalists affect the agenda presented by the media? Is class an overlooked topic in discussions of problems with the mainstream media? What can alternative media platforms do to change the debate?