•   Departments
•   Courses
•   About Us
•   Gallery
•   Research
•   Students
•   CAMRI
•   About us
•   Research Programmes
•   Research Staff
•   Doctoral Programme
•   Africa Media Centre
•   Arab Media Centre
•   China Media Centre
•   Seminars
•   Events
•   Global Media and the War on Terror
•   RIPE@2010
•   Journalism's Next Top Model
•   Children’s TV in the Arab World
•   China’s Soft Power
•   EMMA Conference 2010
•   Media and Cultural Diversity
•   Public Interest under threat
•   Media Regulation in the era of convergence
•   Creativity and Innovation in Chinese Media
•   Journalism in Crisis
•   Crisis in Journalism
•   Jeanette Steemers Inaugural Lecture
•   David Gauntlett Inaugural Lecture
•   Making Television for Young Children
•   Transforming Audiences conference 2007
•   The Production Ecology of Pre-School TV
•   Modernisation, Modernity and the Media in China
•   Media and Society in China Today
•   East Enders 20th Anniversary Conference
•   Reality TV
•   Media in Post-War Britain
•   Chinese Media Today and Tomorrow
•   News
•   Publications
•   Funding
•   CREAM
•   Audiences and Identities Research Group

A conference organised by the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Westminster in association with the British Journalism Review

309 Regent Street, London, W1B 2UW

19-20 May 2009

Keynote Speakers

Professor James Curran, Goldsmiths College
Professor Todd Gitlin, Columbia University

Panelists included

Roger Alton, The Independent
Kelvin MacKenzie

Helen Boaden, BBC News
Simon Bucks, Sky News

Dorothy Byrne, Channel 4 News
Robin Elias, ITV News

Charles Wheeler Award and Memorial Lecture The conference closed with the inaugural Charles Wheeler Award for outstanding contribution to broadcast journalism, sponsored by the British Journalism Review. The prize for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcast Journalism was awarded to BBC Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman. This was be followed by the inaugural memorial lecture, given by: Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC > Click here to read more about Mark Thompson's Lecture

News journalism is in deep crisis. Newspaper readership is falling, the audience for television news shrinking, and young people in particular seem to be less interested in traditional forms of news consumption. 24-hour news channels on shoestring budgets fight over tiny audiences while even well established and committed news organisations like the BBC and New York Times are cutting budgets and laying off journalists.

Those that remain complain of increased workloads, lack of resources, insecurity of employment, greater dependence on news agencies and PR handouts, and lack of training opportunities. There are accusations that serious journalism, with in-depth coverage of important issues that can hold the powerful to account, has given way to a toxic mix of infotainment, sensationalism and trivia.

Some, particularly the young, see online as the way forward. Internet penetration is high in most developed countries and growing rapidly in the developing world. The web offers a multimedia environment for new developments like citizen journalism and blogging, different kinds of news reporting and new approaches to current affairs.

But it also threatens the business model of newspapers as classified advertising moves online, while television suffers from fragmented audiences and the growth of time-shifted viewing. Many question whether user-generated content can ever be a substitute for well-resourced newsgathering carried out within trusted institutions according to established professional values.

This conference reviewed the current threats to the practice of journalism and examined some of the developing alternatives.

Notes:

1. The Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Westminster is home to the UK’s oldest undergraduate degree involving journalism training, the BA in Media studies, which recruited its first students in 1975. Today, the Department has a wide range of courses in journalism and media production at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level.

2. The Department is also home to the Communication and Media Research Institute, rated by the 2008 national Research Assessment Exercise as the UK’s leading media research centre.

3. The British Journalism Review was established in 1989 by journalists and scholars concerned about issues of ethics, standards and quality within the journalism profession. Now published by Sage, it continues as a quarterly journal for serious reflection on the practice and theory of journalism, and the evening event and award is part of its 20th anniversary celebrations.