Gender Equality Improves, Class Equality Gets Worse

Emma Tucker has just started as editor of the WSJ. Khala Froula is already editor of the FT.

And Zanny Minton Beddoes is editor of The Economist.

This looks suspiciously like progress. And a sign of common sense, since the best editors are nearly always women. (It’s just true, stop arguing.)

Those are all financial titles, which might mean something, except Victoria Newton is editor of The Sun.

There are senior women at The Daily Mail and The Times and The Telegraph, but they still look like places in need of a catch up here, with apologies to the senior women I have overlooked.

Could the flak trade claim similar progress on gender equality? I think not, but might be missing something.

If both trades are getting it right with women, one area where both the hack and flak trade is going backwards however, is social class.

As this writer notes: Journalism is the second most socially exclusive profession in the UK. Just 7% of Brits are privately educated yet 43% of the 100 most influential news editors & broadcasters and 44% of newspaper columnists went to private schools.

The figures come from an NCTJ report, Diversity In Journalism 2022.

I don’t think the flak trade compiles equivalent statistics, but doubt the results would be much different.

This is plainly a failing, since a class bias in the media seems likely to skew the sorts of stories hacks work on and the sorts of causes flaks think worthy of promotion.

It is hard to see at the moment how this changes.

WFH/hybrid working surely makes it harder for outsiders to scheme their way into offices that have fewer desks for full-time staff, never mind those on work experience.

Something should be done…