Read this: The demographics of news

BBC sounds music Radio podcasts from BBC Radio 4 the news summer has been filled with report on the black lives matter movement.

I know some of you think the media has not been in partial on the issue that journey to become can pay this not simply reporters question we posed on this show but does the media practice what it preaches because today we've got some new research on how representative Jonas are of modern Britain are diverting in the news business actually is both in terms of race and gender Morton that in a minute at 10 years of the I newspaper 20p coloured price when it launched and to fill a gap in the market between three papers metro and then relatively expensive at broadsheets so we going to talk about the eye and business models for news that old chestnut.

Let me introduce you to my guest Holly Duff is the editor of The Eye and let me.

Spirit of transparency and frankly admit that I've known you for years and indeed.

We were appointed editors of the eye and the Independent is then sister paper on the same day at about 7/2 years ago.

It's been called the headline of The Last Wednesday's edition of the I had a fan page.

It says Britannia waives the rules, where did that come from most of our best headlines cover my deputy editor Andy Webster stop the internet not the internet on this occasion.

It was one of mine, but within I think about 5-minutes about 10 people on Twitter at cleaned it and Order Molly royalties.

Did you genuinely think of it before seeing it elsewhere gives a sense of how you come up with headlines in the time of remote working Trevor zoom in the evening to brainstorm.

He said that a real actual backbench Avenue yeah.

There's any given day there around the round the back bench in the office.

So you bouncing those things around socially distance distance you know shut down so real spending that time apart, but yeah ideas around.

Find I'm really stuck.

I just chuka chuka hospital pass to Andy and ask him to set it doesn't have very little live is the founder of gouda remove add-ons show not too long ago at live.

Tell us about your headlines strategy newspaper front page headlines need to grab attention on Crowder new stairs.

What's the aim of a headline on garden, so all of the headlines in editorial meetings and things happen and I lead by The Incredible Charlie brinkhurst-cuff editorial Focus more broadly on the overall kind of business side of things but I think you know one of the primary things that we try to do is is not to mislead and also to have a bit of a conversation sometimes the dialogue the races that we do work with as well because I think often what can be the case is that headlines go out which sometimes or often misrepresented piece that is it's really.

The way that we work with kind of new and emerging writers food particularly sort of collaborative you tell the story to tell the story in honest and the glory that you can change it if people to feel like it which he can't do it with a newspaper.

I lived with us more ever meet at the moment Eleanor Mills hear former editorial director of the Sunday Times and award-winning editor.

It's magazine.

What is chair of women in Chinese in writing a novel? What's your advice for years experience on crafting the perfect headline well, it's got a catch the imagination and it's got to make some wanna read it.

I was quite auntie dreary headlines and you reckon that you've got your in a race for people's attention and you want you want to make look at think I want to pick that up, so I was always slightly on the underside of the headlines and some my Samsung dex.

He's and things will go with a really to town that ok now as I often say this is a news program and we do try to be first.

Terrific news start with that research from Elena which I mentioned about how representative or not the news industry is of society is being done by Eleanor's organisation women in journalism getting the first.

Look you.

Call the report a week in British news in true academic fashion before we get to the finance.

Can you just explain a bit about your methodology? This is not a be like total look this is a snapshot.

It's not exhaustive, but what we wanted to do with there's been a lot of talk in their wake of black lives matter and death of George Floyd about how Media organiser needed to be more representative and it's known somebody call the BBC shockingly Whitefield years ago and it's known that the media is not wonderfully diverse but I really wanted to put some numbers on that because we hear that a lot and I wanted to see if things were really getting any better women and gender Somerset up 25 years ago.

We've been campaigning a lot around women and representations women and that has shifted about certain in the 20 years.

The industry, but he's not just women it's much broader than that he wanted to look at that just so what have you actually got about it says exhausted.

So what have you done looked at the prime Time news shows on TV and radio and the national newspaper front pages.

We looked at them for a week.

So we studied 800 hours of radio similar amount of TV and there's a list on that he lives of women and generous and website you can see the exact list of all the shows that we've looked at and who do the research what their credentials were about 12 of them.

They are all young city of Westminster journalism students who came out and we paid them earlier this summer to monitor various programs for a week and then we've really crunch that data on gone through that is funded by Tesco Tesco we really want to do this and Tesco very generously came up with the money.

Everyone thinks we have to go and get them from your holiday pay for research about diversity in the July and not a single black reporter was featured on the front page of any of the newspapers out of 174 front page by lines that we counted just one and four men to women and there was not a single black woman who had a a story on the front page and indeed we also look to the people who has been quoted and out of 111 people created on the front pages of the newspapers in that week.

Just one was a black woman and that was John Reid who is quoted in the Guardian after a statue of her Direct was erected in the place of that a slave trader, Edward Colston

So she had good reason to be quoted but that that is that comes across the place.

It's not just a black people who aren't quoted and Bane women only three Bean women front pages of the newspapers in that time and one of them is Priti Patel so it's a pretty shocking picture and TV and radio TV looks a bit better so primetime TV TV presenters tend to be relatively relatively diverse around 30% are from backgrounds, but when when you did a bit deeper when you look at the reporters only 12% of reporters from the background and when it comes to Black reporters.

There are there a very very few think they were for over the when we looked at the radio over the entire state of 723 primetime radio reporter Appearances that we monitored just Forward by Blackwell some shopping hours there and I should say that many of the publications.

Stop you put these numbers to them many the programme shows that you're talking about we've not approach about this.

I'm sure some of them would say that they're making progress on they tried to do XYZ to address it there's some striking his what do you infer from this current state of weather not Media in this country primetime and national papers are representative of the countries are not if you look at the hospital really not well.

If you look at the last census which was which 2011 it's about to be done again.

Put the black and white population at over 11% but if you look at the more recent more recent estimates from places like University of Manchester etc places in the UK where and Bane populations outnumber white ones and so in place about Luton 30, but there's a 30% and non-white population at least and and and the younger and younger audiences the demographic there.

Is is even more so

It's not perhaps particularly surprising that are main media Brands are using younger losing younger diverse listeners readers viewers when the people who are creating the news also representative.

I just before I bring leaving early in on it is the biggest problem that the makeup of the journalist is not representative or is it a bunch of cliches and Prejudice is about how people backgrounds are presented you mention Priti Patel be on the front page is the issue that we don't have the right people who is the journalist or the people who are the journey.

Just so basically coming to the wrong conclusion that there are enough people different kinds of backgrounds in the British Media across across the board and that's not just about ethnicity.

That's also about class.

Just go when you go down 5 years.

It was precisely because of this if she wasn't it? I mean it's painfully depressing to his number the numbers and things that we know because we experience it and we live these things every single day and then.

Shocking and sad and also frustrating and bitter sweet little cakes, what has been happening in the world in recent months to actually star on the conversations and research to happen to be honest, but yeah, I mean we know that that newsrooms and at the media at largest painfully under representative.

I've worked in television.

That's why I started my career and it was much the same there a lot of not a lot of opportunities opportunities to getting quite like an entry-level, but there is not a huge amount of progression.

We know the attention of people of colour that I would like camping freelance contract with that across the industry.

I mean this is exactly the purpose and the reason exists so that you know there is a range of perspectives within quite a while bracket of women and nobody people of colour who able to tell their stories across all of these different names of Allah tea class all of these different thing as so incredibly important and they just are not represented across across the media.

You know just one particular breakdown.

Is representative of a picture of a year but it won't particularly they looked at diversity of people quoted from the eye the share of the experts 79% of male the share that's why is 86% sure that's pame is 14% actually not too far from national average.

Di doesn't necessarily come out of this particular research very well.

What have you done to improve its ability to represent the country people who work in the industry if you look at you look at diversity our staff.

I suppose one example would be 4 years ago.

We banned all male shortlist for jobs.

You shouldn't even have to do that shouldn't exist we did it and now and majority of our editorial executive position to help by women you know 4 out of 7 people and I read exact team8 at 11 or department head female managing editor and then he has been.

Tell me the first woman to Calais to Ancona to the year at the moment, but there are striking more female editors of British newspapers at the sun the mirror the guardian Financial Times times at an evening Standard so is your sense of things are changing things rude, but it's not happening quick enough you know these are some serious Legacy issue.

Someone being perpetuated and tackle I mean you have to put your money where your mouth.

Is there anything else ends up being lips at that's ok.

Love you looking for cheap with garden and we'll talk more about this and second you create this very strong brand that appeals to black women and many other it seems to be the targeted outlets are successful.

So if you look at if you look at LBC it's part of global to have a suite of radio stations all appealing to different audiences and LBC is their brand that would have been particularly popular with middle-aged men hence.

That's what presenter's look like this kind of the specialism the future of journalism review found that if you want to appeal that if you think that basis national title.

Titles, how can I give an app on appealing to the whole country it's especially titles to do instead publications publications like daytime and Molly which speak to Muslim women and got which speaks to young young people in the city and I think I think it's definitely an issue with the lack of we did a huge kind of Take Over The Guardian a while back in 2018 which was the first time that they've ever had every kind of paid every make-up artist Andrew crossword setter being a person of colour and it was huge and I think that was a really great experience.

I think for them.

They really they were forced to think about representation in broader terms, so beyond who's on the cover or beyond use that one single element of of the production and so yes, I think often kind of you know that is why has been hugely popular because women.

Able to tell their stories on their own terms free from tokenism and which I think is incredibly important to follow the principles of being impartial reporter.

Why's it matter? What because I think the people live in the same way that if the newspapers entirely written by men you've been missing out 50% of the populations of you and what they call Janice and the first draught of history is his story not her story ever then.

That's a real problem and I think it really matters now.

I'll be having much more diverse country that none of the people running the coverage any experience often of the things that they're writing about and I've got increasingly frustrated by that as an executive and I did try and bring in different kinds of Voices I'll give you an example for Sunday Times magazine.

We did a story about grenfell Tower and I said the young Somali journalist called Ishmael and ashi to go and talk to the families.

We got a completely different.

What was going on cos he clearly grown up in a similar kind of block in Camden he knew about it.

He was the first person said to me that the reason why all the member at the bottom of the tower was that they'd all been at the mosque are all the families were inside a bit like say Christmas Eve for us and all the families in the children were inside and they were all these poor men father's uncle's down at the bottom knowing that their families are inside the Towering Inferno I hadn't understood that so the reason why you need somebody you understand the community to go and do it and to bring that perspective.

It's because you then understand the story of different kind of away and I think that really women jealous and we've been talking.

I been talking for a long time about the media the media Lens if the all stories that you read a refracted through the food of you.

Have a whole load of Wight posh blokes on the backbench, then you end up with a very weird view of the world so might absolute classic something on this when Theresa May Nicola Sturgeon front page of the Daily Mail forgetting.

Is all about legs it now that is all women it doesn't matter how powerful you are you can be the prime minister.

You can be the head of Scotland and actually all that matters is you talk to it? That's what's wrong.

It's almost like she's talking about seeing a white men on backbenchers, but I know for it Leighton Buzzard and we talking about back to 10-years the I paper I was on the back of the night the I was first to the Printers and remember it well.

I wasn't actually invited by just go around to suffer pages that would be interesting to see a paper get launched.

Just take it back to the bad just in the context of what we talking about trying to represent whole country just briefly, what was the idea behind that newspaper circulation of The Independent going south for a while and rmi managing director Andy Mullins when I came back and said I've got an idea tackle declining newspaper sales, let's launcher newspaper, so whichever one the sausage roll their eyes when you have a good very soon.

No, you credit to him Simon Cowell have the owner at the time having the courage and and and the foresight to do it, but the gist of it was to create a sort of essential daily briefing that was the original message.

You know we need to know exactly you know it's a smart read for busy people to condense the best bits of journalism.

It started out of production jobs and pretty immediately took on a life of its own and they're a lot of sceptics.

You terminally people worried.

Would it be in the airbnb interest should we just invest the money into digital loan? You know an externally we've got planned.

You know the lot of school wemborough companies that marketing Week Mark ritson.

Primark who said the eyes did irrelevant ill-conceived and ill-fated Richard Desmond told Richard told propriety of guinea in our chairman Justin byam.

Shaw you must be having joking.

What do you think you are doing and predicted that we'd say about 25000 copies and for a while.

67001 you just take it up to today where what circulation at today we fast forward so the audited number today is 8 points of print and Online daily basis.

That's that's 135000 split between print and online and the actual hairline circulation at the moment is 143000 weekdays and pushing 200 weekend.

Ok.

I know your partner PLC the Daily Mail groups.

You can't give a sense of numbers when I was sold by API Media to dmgt for 49.6 million the public figure for profitability was a remarkable 11 million pounds 4 million pounds a month that you can't give us numbers about today, but as I retain that degree of possibility.

We are now you know I mean they throughout the

The level of support previously impossible, there's not many papers and make him that is that is that very striking and the commercial model in the point is what we learn from this the commercial model depends doesn't on content you take a lot of content from the Independent website you do syndication girls who like to see Connor miss you get a little bit at the end of articles that helps keep the cost low but does it make you in the IMO of a curator of other people's journalism that photo commissions original jealous myself with become less and less that yeah, I think that was true.

Perhaps 3 or 4 years ago that there was a girl operation game as you say you know if teen independent economist and there's definitely value is placed on that you know we read everything else so that you don't have to but actually the trajectory the business over the last 3-years increasingly been in investing in original.

I journalism sales staff has grown from a dozen 4 years ago 288 about another hundred or so freelancers and we starting to you know what you want as a journalist is to be part of the National conversation isn't it to be helping to shape that?

You look at 4, just to choose when it's gone but this time of the A-level grades out the story broken by education correspondent will hate Sally was there two-and-a-half months ago it happening and afterwards we offer Gavin Williamson a subscription so we could have had it can't be organ uses get far too easy and how badly hit by covid-19 The Very sort of the lowest of the low point of lockdown.

Yeah, we took a hit on about 43 on weekdays a lot less at weekend devastating blow to the Bottom Line Is It 2000 copy that we could sit out and about that encouraging over the last 45 months has been week on week is going every single week without A Levels

That impact being being being just before I asked about the business model girl.

She's obviously very different to yours how long do you think it is before another paper go to the guys do only like a Alma Mater of the people speculated that the Guardian for years and then we've we overtook them imprint quite a long time ago.

I don't know and I suspect regarding a lot of revenue from their prejudicially I don't care just like too much.

I know the print will form a really keeper of the iPhone 4 u z i, just interviewed roula khalaf, who's the new female editor of the Financial Times and she said I was that she thought that weekend editions of newspapers would continue but then she could see even the ft.

Maybe going digital only during the week in the interview, but I mean but I think it may be quicker than that and I think that covered because it's so hit the print revenues are so many newspapers will absolutely speed up.

Digital revenue models for the membership Middlewich Guardian has the basic model how does Gouda make money today and how is that different to how we launched 5 years ago completely honest how much money do you have now strategy and we could have planned out all of the campaign and it was set to launch in March and of course coving up and we'll sort of thing is now time to launch that or not and it's done.

It's done incredibly well.

You know we are a match kind of smaller size of publication them then that I you know our first investment round that we've done will sort of food for much fewer than

So we haven't had like huge injections of capital but we have you know a team of 11 or 12 staff members at work too kind of to get them out, but in terms of the kind of key is absolutely in our partnerships in our commercial partnerships and now I'm membership model makes up about a third of our about our monthly revenue which is incredible considering.

It's just a profitable.

Yeah.

You are ok, and you make money through I mean you've got to print publication comes out ok, you got the sponsored content model and and then membership.

Do you make money to other platforms podcast event sponsored emails.

Television project last year with Channel 4 so that's another area that we're looking to expand into and then of course events in the future one.

I mean you know of course doing this time all events have been digital but people have still been incredibly engaged in terms of my membership model the kind of key things that people get is it's not that we don't have a paywall and we've been quite deliberate in that and don't think that's something that we will implement just yet you know at all, but yeah, we kind of thing for that are around events around a bit of merchandise and it's also around kind of additional newsletter based content so far so yeah, I know what you know now 5-years and what do you do different if you're launching a publication today or tomorrow in the very beginning but I think when you don't necessarily have the contact book.

It's hard.

I think I I got a grant of about £200 and that's what I had in the in the beginning of gold.

Think Bigger with O2 I think it with them to in Tesco be delighted to work now ok.

It's striking and impressive you got the other revenues coming a broader question about the news industry.

We talking about the news business and it is hard frankly not least on this show not to be very gloomy about the news business financial crisis, which we've been talking about there's a cultural crisis social media driving culture Wars outrage polarization spreading lies and there is an editorial process with big stories in scan has been missed this research shows the makeup of museums.

I actually slept in the country as you look ahead all three of you.

What grounds do you see for optimism that started you live so you're moving so I said to be a student be president.

Because of the next generation of journalist and makers and things that come in and Adam is all about kind of nurturing those voices and the voices that absolutely change across the industry.

They have all of the capability to beat they just require you know a bit of nurturing and that's what we're here to do and also what I hope that the kind of wider industry will be doing as well as senior positions.

I think it needs to be quite you know to fold a model after match redundancies across several titles of the parcel here out someone turned up for work yesterday and your employer is my wife did and finally she was one in the middle of a global pandemic.

You don't hear that so changing Innovations the default setting but it'd be hard work.

I've just going to be slightly to present.

I think one of the real problems hitting the news business at the moment is the the fact that facts and no longer King it usually when you found out of killer fact about the politician whatever they would have to resign you know you have the story that was it and I'm afraid post trump and maybe also post Dominic Cummings there isn't now I sense that you can have a killer fat that is the end people seem to not care about facts and I think that the post fat journalistic world is quite terrifying and I come from the Sunday Times tradition where we would put huge amount of money into investigations and that would really change things we think about FIFA World Cup being always concerned and I don't think that's the case out and I find that really worries.

I think you have to make the case to a younger audience for why facts and John which is a bit boring really really matter ok?

That is it for today.

Thank you.

All.

I guess Eleanor Mills chair of women in journalism.

I Need A fellow of the eye and little founder of golden same time next week.

Thanks for listening.