Interesting little intro from a Martin Kettle piece here.
Hugo Young was my journalistic paragon, mentor, friend and also, I have
to confess, patron. He was instrumental in getting me a job on the
Sunday Times and, a few years later, one on the Guardian too.
It’s not what you know, how good you are that counts, but who you suck up to that gets you a job on the nationals. Interesting admission from a liberal don’t you think?
In
Yes, an interesting admission – though patronage is what makes the upper reaches of UK print journalism tick. I see people hitching their wagon to some rising star or big name every day and can no longer bother to be even cynical or resentful. They rise, they fall, they collect the pay-offs. It is just the way things are done.
Why is it an interesting admission from a liberal? Liberals are hardly scornful of the idea that it’s not what you know but who you know that gets you ahead in our society.
Journalists as lemons
Tim laments nepotism in the dead trees:It’s not what you know, how good you are that counts, but who you suck up to that gets you a job on the nationals.He’s right. But there are good reasons for this. When
RINGS WITHIN RINGS
Tim Worstall and Chris Dillow ponder nepotism in the media. After all these years, I’m still bemused by just how cosy our world can be. Back in the Eighties, when I freelanced for the Guardian and the Statesman, I went
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