NUJ Reporting Poverty campaign: Introducing a trade union challenge to journalistic representations of the unemployed and the working poor

Abstract

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has reporting poverty guidelines for its 25k+ members to use alongside its code of conduct. These were introduced following a campaign from trade union activists and are now available to media workers in the industry including, among others, staff at the BBC, the tabloid and broadsheet press. These guidelines were created to challenge the demonizing and stereotyping of the working poor and people in receipt of benefits found in British journalism. In this article these guidelines are contextualized, within the ideology of austerity, a British media dominated by the middle and upper class and the resulting demonizing of the poor during economic crises. This article posits that the campaigning work can provide a theoretical and practical challenge to encourage and enable workers to join forces in rejecting the scapegoating of low-paid, unemployed and under-employed workers as seen in the media. In so doing, it considers that, while the guidelines may have limited influence in some sections of the media, they are nonetheless a significant tool, and position of solidarity, in challenging the depoliticizing individualizing apparent in reporting poverty, the ‘skivers versus strivers’ discourse, and in providing a critique of the journalistic use of sources. This article, written by a contributor to those guidelines and leader of the NUJ campaign, serves as an introduction to this unique British trade union approach informed and led by collaboration with people who have experienced of poverty.