Building care, representation and resilience into journalism practice and training: Session 6 #AJE25

The penultimate session in the AJEUK’s summer conference centred on one of the major challenges of journalism education and training – what impact does journalism have to both the subjects of reporting and the reporters themselves?

Tomas McCooey, above, from Liverpool John Moore’s looked at Collateral Damage – preparing trainee journalists for the impact on children on children of defendants in court reporting. He asked the question, do we need to state the parental status of defendants for the wider argument of justice being seen to be done, and basic human interest? He shared findings of research and content analysis of court reporting .

Dr Johanna Payton, below, from City St George’s, London introduced most of the room to the word Eudaimonia, which means a feeling of happiness and contentment – Aristotle said is meant ‘living and doing well’.

Her research, Eudaimonia, Employing a novel, creative pedagogy in a fashion and lifestyle journalism module looks at teaching towards making students feel a sense of belonging and collaboration. This sees more than just a superficial desire for happiness, but putting foundations into building trust though bonding (especially in big classes) and allowing students to speak out and use more interaction.

Lada Trifonova Price, above, from University of Sheffield (co-authored with Ola Ogunyemi from University of Lincoln), presented on the long-term effect of reporting difficult stories on journalists. Who of us doesn’t still remember that traumatic court case, crime or inquest we covered many years ago that sticks in our brain?

The research, on practicing a duty of care in journalism education and training, spoke about the unique position many journalism educators are in, by being an early mentor in a young journalist’s life and progress. Lada discussed how it’s important today not to just shrug off uncomfortable or upset feelings about our reporting, as we may have been told to in the past.

The last presentation in this penultimate session from Juliet Nottingham from Goldsmiths and Peter Lansley of Derby looked at the underrepresentation of women in sports journalism. Derby’s football journalism course visited tournaments and weekly reporting of regional reporting of women’s teams. However, after running an online survey on female sports journalists after graduation found it difficult to get jobs in the industry that wasn’t unpaid, and had few women line managers or mentors in sports journalism. The majority said they felt extra pressure and judged due to their gender as women in sports. The research calls for more collaboration between journalism courses teaching sports.