Hi Graham,
Apologies for the recent bombardment of emails. We understand you are extremely busy. Hopefully it is a sign that we are working hard on your behalf and that things are moving in a positive direction.
Following Emma’s email last week (see below), we went back to the NUJ with some questions ICNN members raised. As a member of the Advisory Board we really want to get your feedback on whether we should progress with this proposal and agree to have it presented at the NUJ’s National Executive Meeting in November.
Our concerns with the immediate proposal were as follows:
While many of our members were delighted with the potential of this proposal, one of the sticking points was that a card that looks and is called something different from the current NUJ press card will have the effect of relegating our members to 2nd class journalists. This is clearly the opposite of what C4CJ/ICNN is trying to achieve – parity for high-quality newsgatherers regardless for income.
Other questions raised were how would this membership differentiate from the current crop of associate members? Whether all members of the Associate category would be entitled to a press card, including those who are not journalists with a capital J, but have done journalism in the past and want to be associated with the Union.
The NUJ came back with the following clarifications:
By implication, those who are not engaged in news gathering would not be entitled to this card. This is a similar test to the one that is currently applied to the UKPCA press card. Our membership department require applicants for the card to demonstrate their recent news gathering activities – generally by production of recently published material. I would envisage the Community Press Card working in a very similar manner.
The NUJ’s attitude is not that community journalists are in any way ‘second class’.
The NUJ, and indeed, all of the UKPCA gatekeepers, are primarily engaged with people who undertake journalism for a living and, as a consequence, a large part of the way that we are constituted is organised to reflect this.
The emergence of Community Journalists on today’s scale is a new thing. The NUJ is keen to engage with its practitioners. The proposed different wording on press cards is partially a fix to fit a new type of working within an existing system. Entirely reforming our system is not something that is likely to happen in the near future,
There will be instances where those carrying Community Press cards would enjoy easier access than those carrying UKPCA cards.
The NUJ would work with ICNN to promote this card as the accreditation of a bona fide news gatherer and campaign to ensure that all journalists, whatever their membership status, had appropriate access to public events.
This would ensure that the broadest possible range of public officials and others are aware that it is necessary to grant access to community journalists. I sense that there might also be value in providing training for community journalists in how to assert and exercise their lawful rights to attend and observe events.
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There is no opportunity to negotiate further with the NUJ at this stage. We need to decide whether to move forward with the proposal as it stands. There may be room to negotiate on the look and description of the card once and if it passes the National Executive.
Therefore, please consider this proposal carefully and let me know by the EOB today whether you would like us to proceed.
Thank you.
Matt
