The Hard Grind At The Top Of Journalism

Last week, the founder of the first major Black children’s magazine in the UK said she was now going to open a school for journalism to combat “representation problems” in the creative industries.

Serlina Boyd’s Cocoa School of Journalism and the Creative Arts in Beckenham, south London, will teach news reporting, video editing and illustration.

That newsrooms are overwhelmingly white has been an embarrassment to the trade for decades.

Even more than race, class still seems to be the most obviously defining factor as to who gets in and who does not and I think that applies to the PR trade too.

Today, almost as if it were making fun of Serlina Boyd, or perhaps making her point for her, Sophia Money-Coutts launched an attack in The Telegraph on colleagues in their 20s who just don’t want to work hard enough to make it.

“Like most of my peers, I hustled at all hours for my career,” she notes.

Peers may not be the best word to have used. And her background may have helped.

Sam Freedman tweeted. “We all need a bit of luck to get on. Her bit of luck just happened to be being the daughter of the 9th Baron Latymer and member of the Coutts banking dynasty, and granddaughter of former Telegraph editor Bill Deedes.”

Other reactions, were similarly pointed.

One suggested that Money-Coutts is an awkward name to use in an attack on other people being lazy.

“Born nine-nil up and reckons she scored three hat tricks,” said one.

There is a possibility that Ms Money-Coutts entirely understands her role here. Which is to get clicks from winding the rest of us up.

Or maybe Money-Coutts is a delightful person who can see why what she writes is ridiculous and hopes it serves to change things.

Which is why a previous column is headed: “I need to dial down the poshness, but the paintings of ancestors in my flat are a problem.”

I know just what she means.