We know, from the Milburn report, The Panel on Fair Access to the Professions, that journalism is one of the professions which has experienced the biggest decline in social mobility, but what is perhaps less commented upon is the way in which it seems to be very much a family business these days.
We have the Dimbleby brothers in charge of the BBC tv & radio versions of Any Questions.
News International is still pretty much a family business. And there are several husband/wife teams whose work regularly appears in The Times – Muir/Macintyre, Purves/Heiney, Wagner/Gilbert, Vine/Grove, Moran/Paphides to name a few.
I was prompted into thinking about this again by a very timely article yesterday – a much needed corrective to the majority coverage of Haiti which is full of angst & portrays Haitians as helpless, defeated people unable to do anything to help themselves, totally dependent on outside aid. It was written by Isabelle de Caires who is described as ‘from Guyana and worked for the Stabroek News.’
Yes, & just happens to be married to Chief Cricket Correspondent of The Times, & daughter of the greatly missed founding editor of Stabroek News .
Now of course it is natural for people to marry people they have met – often, these days, most likely to be through work - & to marry people with whom they share a passion for the written word. These are all good journalists/ writers whose work helps keep me buying The Times every day.
But I just wish they had mounted a stronger defence of the idea that sometimes the partner of an MP is the best person to work in their support, the only criterion that they actually do the job, & that MPs should not, uniquely, be barred from working together.
