An Uncomfortable Truth: Journalists Need to Get Their Heads Out of the Newsroom and into Theory More.

Emily Maitlis presenting to the Edinburgh TV Festival on Populism, Journalism, & Power is a favourite of mine to students and professionals for reasons it might be of use to you.

Maitlis is a former presenter and correspondent of the BBC’s flagship news analysis programme “Newsnight.” It’s where I cut me teeth as a journalist in the early 1990s.

In this segment of her presentation she’s unveiling the practices and strategies of populism and its impact on journalists becoming self censoring. and some.

So what makes this delivery one of my favourites? Yes Maitlis covers huge ground, articulated in ways we can all understand, and she puts herself in the story admitting her own faults.

No! it’s the little acknowledged admission of updated theoretical knowledge required of journalists that’s an underlying message.

In her book “News”, author Jackie Harrison points to the schism that often exists between academics, journalists and audiences. Journalists, for instance, can be highly critical of academics who posit theories and have never worked in an actual news environment. Then there’s the audience’s perspective and how they read news that may lead experts to suggest information needs to be easily understood, even dumbed down.

Somewhere in this overlap of these communities is the sweet spot, the journalist who’s on top of the latest political and media theories, or knows how to acquire them. I was told when I joined Cardiff University back in 2019 that the program I run was primarily designed for that. I could see its value and it still attracts mid level journalists looking to up skill.

As a working journalist though that can be nigh impossible. I remember once when I was working as a videojournalist in my early career for Channel One and studying postgraduate modules at the LSE in global finance. Damn near sucked the life out of me.

Having since left Newsnight Maitlis reflects on her work and interviews to Edinburgh’s audience and how they were the very model that underline the findings on Dr Ayala Pniewsky.

Pniewsky’s research “Breaking the News: When Populists Turn Against the Media,” points to the “unique challenges which journalists — and particularly women, people of colour, and religious/ethnic minorities — are now facing in various countries.”

Principally, strategies and tactics adopted by populists media bashing which frames doxing, dog whistling for trolls, and whataboutism, to name a few. When it comes to dead cats, the media just this last two weeks has demonstrated it’s still found wanting.

The point perhaps is that while journalists and academics do engage, as does the public through surveys vox pops etc, there is still room for closer alignment.

Journalists seeking more academic knowledge, and academics finding out more how journalism practices are changing on the ground — all with the view of benefiting consumers.

Something tells me Gen AI may accelerate this now.