Journalists and the 'professional ideal' in Britain: The Institute of Journalists, 1884-1907

Historical Research

Volumn 72, Issue 178, 1999, Pages 183-201

  Hampton, Mark ^a  

^a LINCOLN MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33745005205     PISSN: 09503471     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1468-2281.00080     Document Type: Review

References (82)

1. A. J. Beresford Hope, 'Newspapers and their writers', in Cambridge Essays (1858), p. 2.
2. In the context of a speech before the house of commons in 1866, in which he argued that education was making the working classes 'fitter and fitter' for the franchise, Gladstone cited the role of the daily newspaper (W. E. Gladstone, 'The representation of the people', in Speeches on Great Questions of the Day (1870), pp. 1-44, specifically pp. 26-7).
3. For a discussion of this 'liberal' understanding of the press's function, see A. J. Lee, The Origins of the Popular Press, 1855-1914 (1976), pp. 15-41.
4. See also J. Curran, The press as an agency of social control: an historical perspective', in Newspaper History from the 17th Century to the Present Day, ed. G. Boyce, J. Curran and P. Wingate (1978), pp. 51-75.
5. W. T. Stead, 'Government by journalism', in Contemporary Rev., xlix (May 1885), 653-74.
6. On Stead, see J. R Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late Victorian London (1992), pp. 81-] 20;
7. R. L. Schultz, Crusader in Babylon: W. T. Stead and the Pall Mall Gazette (Lincoln, Nebr., 1972);
8. R. Boston, 'W. T. Stead and democracy by journalism' in Papers for the Millions: the New Journalism in Britain, 1850s to 1914, ed. J. H. Wiener (New York, 1988), pp. 91-105;
9. L. Andrews and H. A. Taylor, Lords and Laborers of the Press (Carbondale and Edwardsville, Ill, 1970), pp. 1-12.
10. (This theme is discussed more broadly in M. Hampton, 'The 4th estate: theories, images and ideals of the press in Britain, 1880-1914' (unpublished Vanderbilt University Ph.D. thesis, 1998).)
11. See A. Aspinall, 'The social status of journalists at the beginning of the 19th century', in Rev. English Studies, xxi (1945), 216-32;
12. N. Cross, The Common Writer: Life in 19th-Century Grub Street (Cambridge, 1985).
13. H. Perkin, The Rise of Professional Society: England since 1880 (1989), pp. 116-70. A group of service-providers that successfully implements such controls in effect creates an artificial scarcity, and therefore earns a 'rent' (in Ricardian terms).
14. For example, Anglo-American professions have tended to develop independently of the state, in contrast to those in France or Germany. See R Torstendahl, 'Introduction', in The Formation of Professions: Knowledge, State and Strategy, ed. R. Torstendahl and M. Burrage (1990), pp. 1-10;
15. The Sociology of the Professions: Lawyers, Doctors and Others, ed. R Dingwall and P. Lewis (1983);
16. E. Friedson, Professionalism Reborn: Theory, Prophecy, and Policy (Cambridge, 1994).
17. For a summary and critique of earlier sociological literature, which attempted to define professions either according to 'traits' or 'functions', see T. J. Johnson, Professions and Power (1972).
18. See also Professions in Theory and History: Rethinking the Study of the Professions, ed. M. Burrage and R. Torstendahl (1990);
19. The Authority of Experts: Studies in History and Theory, ed. T. L. Haskell (Bloomington, Ind., 1984);
20. W. J. Reader, Professional Men: the Rise of the Professional Classes in 19th-Century England (New York, 1966);
21. P. J. Corfield, Power and the Professions in Britain, 1700-1850 (1995).
22. Quoted in Aspinall, pp. 216-32.
23. Cross, pp. 90-125, specifically p. 93.
24. See also C. C. Leahy, The conditions of British journalism, 1800-70' (unpublished University of California Ph.D. thesis, 1977), pp. 236-76.
25. Journalism: Official Organ of the National Association of Journalists (Apr. 1888), pp. 25-6 (hereafter cited as Journalism).
26. For a laudatory yet judicious account of the Institute's creation, see C. Bainbridge, 'One hundred years of journalism', in One Hundred Years of Journalism: Social Aspects of the Press, ed. C. Bainbridge (1984), pp. 33-150.
27. See also A. Jones, Powers of the Press: Newspapers, Power and the Public in 19th-Century England (Brookfield, Vt., 1996), pp. 124-7;
28. Lee, pp. 104-17;
29. F. Hunter, 'Grub Street and academia: the relationship between journalism and education, 1880-1940, with special reference to the London University diploma for journalism, 1919-39' (unpublished City University Ph.D. thesis, 1982), pp. 102-6;
30. idem, The Institute of Journalists', in The 1890s: An Encyclopedia of British Literature, Art and Culture, ed. G. A. Cevasco (1992), pp. 306-7.
31. Lee, p. 114.
32. Compare this to under 800 members in Nov. 1887 (see Journalism (Nov. 1887), p. 1).
33. H. R. Fox Bourne, English Newspapers: Chapters in the History of Journalism (2 vols., 1887), ii. 369.
34. The Bohemian life appears time and again in the memoirs of mid to late Victorian journalists, both reporters and freelance authors of columns and fiction. For example, see G. R. Sims, My Life: Sixty Years' Recollections of Bohemian London (1917).
35. For an example of a rejection of bohemianism on 'professional' grounds, see The journalist and Newspaper Proprietor (29 Aug. 1896), p. 285 (hereafter cited as The Journalist).
36. See also H. Leach, Fleet Street from Within: the Romance and Mystery of the Daily Paper (Bristol, 1905), pp. 166-7 for an assertion that the bohemian lifestyle had been eliminated by the early 20th century.
37. The Journalist (2 Apr. 1892), p. 12.
38. Journalism (March 1888), pp. 18, 22.
39. On Borthwick, see R. J. Lucas, Lord Glenesk and the 'Morning Post' ( 1910).
40. On Gilzean-Reid, see Lee, pp. 168-9.
41. G. Crossick, 'The emergence of the lower middle class in Britain: a discussion', in The Lower Middle Class in Britain, 1870-1914, ed. G. Crossick (1977), p. 25.
42. H. A. Boswell, About Newspapers: Chiefly English and Scottish (Edinburgh, 1888), pp. 23-4.
43. T. Wemyss Reid, Memoirs of Sir Wetnyss Reid, 1842-85, ed. S. J. Reid (1905), pp. 32, 36.
44. Leach, p. 84;
45. see also J. Oldcastle, Journals and Journalism, With a Guide for Literary Beginners (1880), p. 10.
46. R. H. Dunbar, 'Introduction', in E. Phillips, How to Become a Journalist a Practical Guide to Newspaper Work (1895), pp. ix-x.
47. H. Murray, 'Genius and journalism', in The Journalist (22 Oct. 1886), pp. 26-7;
48. see also Oldcastle, pp. 61-4. Writing in 1880, Oldcastle cited Borthwick's knighthood as an example of journalism leading to rewards outside the profession.
49. T. H. S. Escott, Platform, Press, Politics & Play: Being Pen and Ink Sketches of Contemporary Celebrities from the Tone to the Thames via Avon and Isis (Bristol, 1895), pp. 109-10.
50. J. B. Mackie, Modern Journalism: a Handbook of Instruction and Counsel for the Young Journalist (1894), pp. 17-18.
51. See also Boswell, p. 105. 'F.J.I.' indicated a Fellow of the Institute of Journalists.
52. The only major difference concerned the question of whether the examination should be mandatory; this is, however, a question separate from that of what sorts of questions the examination should ask.
53. The sociologist Professor Randall Collins has argued that expert knowledge itself does not constitute the basis of professional status. Rather, status depends upon how such knowledge is 'socially organized' - in other words, whether the expert practitioners can render their occupational knowledge 'mysterious and impressive' in order to limit the supply of their service. This helps to explain why engineers, on whom in practice our society depends as much as it does on any other professionals, have not attained the same high status as lawyers, whose expertise consists in the mastery of a body of knowledge created by other lawyers (R. Collins, 'Changing conceptions in the sociology of the professions', in Formation of Professions, pp. 11-23). By contrast, the Institute's examination scheme proposal did not even purport to test knowledge that made journalism 'mysterious and impressive' but instead emphasized the common possession of the knowledge that the examination would test.
54. This quotation refers to the proposed scheme for the 'Pupil- associateship'. For the 1889 examination scheme, as a point of comparison, see Journalism (24 May 1889), p. 4.
55. The one technical requirement mentioned in the examination scheme was shorthand; this, however, would prove to be the most controversial of all the proposed elements of the examination. And for good reason; it was a skill appropriate to reporters, but not to the more 'literary' journalists, such as critics and leader-writers. Moreover, many proprietors and editors would not have possessed shorthand skills.
56. See J. Gross, The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters: Aspects of English Literary Life since 1800 (1969).
57. Gross does not provide a definition of 'man of letters', but in reading his elegant book one picks up some of their characteristics. Early 19th-century reviewers, for example, 'were expected to know everything about everything' (p. 2).
58. Moreover, because of the 'amateur spirit in England', technical issues and debates that the French would have confined to academic publications remained in English newspapers and reviews aimed at the 'educated general public' (p. 66).
59. For this reason, it is not surprising that a 'man of letters' often wrote about widely diverse topics. George Henry Lewes (1817-78) is just one example of such a writer; he was alternately a biologist and a theatre and literary critic (pp. 68-75).
60. The Globe quoted in The Journalist (1 Oct, 1892), p. 5;
61. Reader, p. 18.
62. A similar emphasis on erudite learning rather than mere technical knowledge prevailed in the German and French medical professions in the 18th century (T. Broman, 'Rethinking professionalization: theory, practice, and professional ideology in 18th-century German medicine', in Jour. Modern Hist., lxvii (1995), 835-72;
63. M. Ramsey, Professional and Popular Medicine in France, 1770-1830 (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 71-125).
64. See, for example, the Clarion, 26 Sept. 1906, p. 9, correspondence on 'Blackleg journalism';
65. F. H. Rose, 'Am I a Blackleg?', ibid., 5 Oct. 1906, p. 9.
66. See, for example, J. Pendleton, How to Succeed as a Journalist (1902), p. 39;
67. Bainbridge, pp. 58-61.
68. H. Christian, 'Journalists' occupational ideologies and press commercialisation', in The Sociology of Journalism and the Press, ed. H. Christian
69. ('Sociological Review' Monograph, No. 29, Keele, 1980), pp. 260-9.
70. For example, Herbert Wright, chairman of the Special Commission on Examinations, argued in 1895 that the implementation of an examination scheme would help stop the 'stream of cheap labour of schoolboys and young men' (The Journalist (14 Sept. 1895), p. 293).
71. The Press (14 Apr. 1900), p. 30;
72. The Journalist (March 1904), P. 8.
73. See, for example, ibid. (13 Jan, 1900), p. 13, correspondence from Thomas Reed.
74. For a discussion of the ideology of proprietorial 'paternalism' in the late 19th century, as well as proprietors' frequent failure to live up to this ideal, see P. Joyce, Work, Society and Politics: The Culture of the Factory in Later Victorian England (New Brunswick, N.J.), pp. 134-57.
75. The Journalist (9 Apr. 1898), p. 124;
76. See, for example, ibid. (13 Feb. 1897), p. 62.
77. Some, however, argued that such enterprises distracted the Institute from its proper purposes.
78. On the 'new unionism', see H. Felling, A History of British Trade Unionism (5th edn., 1992), pp. 89-120.
79. Harry Christian identifies 4 distinct occupational ideologies: 'professional status seeking; a commitment to achieving professional self-control and autonomy; a narrowly-focused occupational trade unionism; and wider class awareness and action tending towards full (worker) class consciousness' (Christian, p. 270). During the period on which this article focuses, however, most journalists did not make these fine distinctions; rather, they became convinced that the choice was between the 'professions' model, which emphasized the common identity between journalistic employers and employees, and the 'trades union' model, which emphasized the opposing interest of proprietors and workers.
80. The use of the word 'professional' even when justifying a trade union approach may lend support to Harry Christian's point that 'professional' and 'trade union' ideals overlapped in practice within the National Union of Journalists (Christian, pp. 289-91). An equally compelling inference, however, is that the N.U.J., in trying to attract journalists who belonged to the Institute, rhetorically stole the Institute's favourite buzzword, attempting to assign to it a different meaning.
81. The Newspaper Owner (19 Jan. 1907), p. 3;
82. According to Alan Lee, major improvements in journalists' working conditions, such as security of tenure, pensions and improved salaries, occurred only after the creation of the National Union of Journalists (Lee, pp. 104-17).