The British Journalism Review is designed as a forum of analysis and debate, to monitor the media, submit the best as well as the worst to scrutiny, and to raise the level of the dialogue.

This website is designed to give you an idea of who we are and what we publish.

We hope it will appeal not only to journalists, whether in newspapers, radio and television, or online, but also to media academics and students, and to anyone who cares about communication.

Have a look round, and let us know what you think.

BJR 20th anniversary

British Journalism Review’s 20th anniversary celebrations began in May with a two-day conference on Journalism in Crisis that concluded with the inaugural Charles Wheeler lecture, delivered by BBC director-general Mark Thompson, and the launch of the Wheeler Award for outstanding contribution to broadcasting, presented this year to Jeremy Paxman.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson was among the packed audience to hear the director-general deliver a lecture in memory of the late Charles Wheeler – describing the veteran foreign correspondent as the “finest reporter the BBC ever had”. Charles Wheeler’s widow, Lady Dip Wheeler, had, earlier in the evening, presented the inaugural Charles Wheeler Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcast Journalism to BBC Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman.

Mark Thompson’s speech signalled the climax of a two-day conference at Westminster, organised jointly by the University and the British Journalism Review. As well as academic speakers, the event featured industry panellists including former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie and journalist and author of Flat Earth News Nick Davies.

In his speech, the director-general said he was delighted to be invited to deliver the first of what will be an annual lecture in memory of Charles Wheeler. He described the late correspondent’s work as being characterised “by an insatiable interest in people” and for seeking to tell the truth as he saw it. He said Charles Wheeler’s values remained relevant as a guide to the future development of BBC journalism and suggested that despite going through a period of change, the organisation retained the ability to put more resources into news gathering globally than any other news organisation.

Receiving his award, Jeremy Paxman said he had been lucky to count on Charles Wheeler as both friend and colleague, describing him as “probably the greatest reporter there has been on television”.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the following organisations:

BBC	News International
Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday	Pearson
The Daily Telegraph	Prudential
The Economist	Trinity Mirror
The Guardian	Unite (T&G)

The following are from the 2009 James Cameron Memorial Lecture, delivered by Dame Joan Bakewell at City University, London, on October 7.

“There had been a fine tradition of observational documentaries since the time of Man Alive, in the 1960s. Now the ideas were pushed further and further… reality television proliferated. The formula swamped the screens… Those who cherished public service broadcasting began to speak of dumbing down. This was when the major forces that ran television – BBC and ITV – began to lose the loyalty of their troops and… coherent moral leadership.”

“Today the BBC still employs some 21,000 people and there are currently around 600 to 700 independent companies employing 4,000 people… Many [of these] have never worked in any of the major broadcasting companies. Some may have done a media or journalism course, but many have no grasp of libel laws or the industry’s own constraints on what can be said and done. The ethic of public service broadcasting means little more than having an irritating quota of supposedly worthy programmes.”

“The people who manage television are clearly conscious of the collapse in confidence in their institutions… They know that, apart from being morally reprehensible, the recent lapses in judgment could have serious financial consequences. What are they doing about it? Quite a lot… the BBC Trust is to formulate further new guidelines, put them out for consultation, then make them public. One wonders how long it takes to understand: “Less swearing””

“Public service broadcasting… must be free to allow expression of a range of opinions, as diverse and as extreme as is legal in our society; to allow humour that mocks and lampoons, and dramas that stir up deep and often disturbing responses. That is in the public good. It must not bend to vocal vested interests, party political pressures or lobbies for religious or international interests. It must have the courage of its own judgments, and defend them against those who want to see broadcasting as a cowed and spineless enterprise best suited to easy entertainment… Public service broadcasting it is the lynchpin of our culture democracy.”

More quotes of the Quarter

“We interviewed over 170 journalists, news managers and people in control of new media… We expected to come across the broadening of diversity of voices in an online context, because they had access to more information… and more space… Actually what we found was pretty much the opposite… What you get is a vastly speeded up news environment, a huge expansion in space to fill, but actually with less [sic] journalists with less time to do proper investigative journalism… They either take PR copy or they take copy from other newsprint or other news broadcasts. It’s a sort of creative cannibalisation.”
— Dr Natalie Fenton, author of New Media, Old News, on a survey carried out for her book: The Media Show, BBC Radio 4, October 28

“As ever, the immediate coverage was excitable and dramatic and bad for Nick Griffin, because it emphasised several major slip-ups Griffin made… However, the mere fact that every newspaper for days on end had him on the front page and The Times ran a long interview with him… was dream publicity for Griffin and, after all, I think what’s less relevant… for Griffin is the medium- and long-term effect of coming in from the cold and entering the mainstream.”
— James Mcintyre, New Statesman political correspondent and former Question Time producer, commenting on newspaper coverage of BNP leader Griffin’s appearance on the programme: The Media Show, October 28

“Twitter... can go from apparently defending free speech one week to demanding... censorship of a newspaper columnist the next week. And I think that really shows that it is a fairly thoughtless arena and one that is given to a kind of herd mentality... I think it is perfectly acceptable for people to be offended, outraged, angered... but the problem is when people think their having been offended is a legitimate case for having something squished. And the irony of attacking Jan Moir in the name of tolerance – she wasn’t tolerant and therefore we cannot tolerate her – is such an extraordinary state of affairs and shows up the illiberal liberalism of something like the Twitter mob.”
— Brendan O’Neill, editor, Spiked Online, The Moral Maze, Radio 4, November 4, on the row following Moir’s Daily Mail comments on Stephen Gately’s death