Equality, diversity and inclusion in journalism teaching conference

9.30am: Registration and coffee

10am: Welcome

10.15am: Gurvinder Aujla-Sidhu, Associate Professor at the University of Derby: Workshop on actionable, practical steps lecturers can take when planning, delivering and assessment design to be inclusive and reflective of the students in the classroom

11.00am: Break

11.15am: Journalism Educators panel: Equipping our students; working towards embedding EDI in the journalism curriculum

Chaired by:

• Nikki Akinola, senior diversity and inclusion co-ordinator for the NCTJ
• Dr Rachel Broady, lecturer in media, culture and communication at LJMU
• Dr François Nel, reader in media innovation and entrepreneurship at the University of Central Lancashire
• Dr Kamila Rymajdo, journalist and academic at UCLan
• Milica Pesic, executive director of the Media Diversity Institute
• Fran Yeoman, Head of Journalism, LJMU
• Polly Sharpe, MA Journalism programme leader, LJMU

12.15pm: Lunch

1.00pm: Jody Doherty-Cove, Head of Editorial AI at Newsquest: Representation and bias in AI - just how intelligent is it?

2pm: Sports Journalism Educators panel: Levelling the playing field; seeking ways to make the sports journalism classroom truly inclusive

Chaired by:

• Gerrie Byrne, senior lecturer in broadcast journalism at UCLan
• Dr John Price, research fellow and senior lecturer in journalism at the University of Sunderland
• Dr Roger Domeneghetti, assistant professor and programme leader in journalism at Northumbria University.
• Angela Powers, lecturer in news and sports journalism at UCLan
• David Randles, BA Sport Journalism programme leader at LJMU

2.45pm: Coffee

3.15pm: Bridging the Gap: helping students from education to industry

Chaired by:

• Jem Collins, founder of Journo Resources
• Sunita Bhatti, head of regions at Channel 4 news
• Andy Thompson, senior editor at Sky Sports
• Giulia Bould, a mentee and BBC Radio Merseyside sports reporter
• Final year LJMU students who are being mentored by the John Schofield Trust

4pm: Breaking barriers: An interactive session led by Lee Hall, head of school of media and communications at the University of Sunderland and chair of the NCTJ’s Social Mobility Taskforce

5 to 7pm: Close and drinks reception at nearby Pen Factory for all delegates and contributors

Speakers

Dr Gurvinder Aujla-Sidhu is an Associate Professor in Journalism. Her research focuses upon diversity, equality and inclusion within Journalism and media. Her work examines normative journalism practice and studies how and why some voices and stories are marginalised. She has led on a strategic institution-wide project to reduce and address the attainment gap in HE by mentoring programme leaders to embed EDI into their curriculum. Gurvinder has published research on how decolonising the journalism curricula can lead to nuanced journalists who are more confident in their abilities to tell stories from a range of communities. Prior to working in higher education Gurvinder spent 10 years working as a radio Journalist in the BBC. 

Working towards inclusive curricula - Gurvinder will deliver a workshop on actionable, practical steps lecturers can take when planning, delivering and assessment design to be inclusive and reflective of the students in the classroom, drawing on her work on decolonising journalism education.

Jody Doherty-Cove leads a team of AI-assisted journalists and helps to oversee the safe integration of AI technologies into Newsquest's 150+ titles across the UK. 
Representation and bias in AI - just how intelligent is it? - The workshop will examine the critical issues of representation and bias in artificial intelligence systems. We will explore how AI can inadvertently perpetuate and amplify existing societal biases, affecting fairness and equality. We will look at AI’s ability to make unbiased decisions and the implications if the technology is not implemented safely.

Lee Hall is a journalist and educator and is currently Head of School of Media and Communications at the University of Sunderland. He was a national newsstand magazine editor at Future PLC and worked in regional media before moving into higher education where he continued to freelance for titles such as the Professional Footballers' Association magazine. He has published research on social media journalism and discrimination and is chair of the newly formed National Council for the Training of Journalist's HE Social Mobility Taskforce.Breaking barriers: Social mobility action plan - Join journalism educators and industry professionals for an action-oriented workshop on social mobility in the media. Participants will share insights into the challenges for aspiring journalists from diverse socio-economic backgrounds and brainstorm potential actions to foster inclusivity, diversity and more effective routes into newsrooms. This collaborative session will inform the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) Social Mobility Taskforce and is a call to action for educators interested in joining that group.

Journalism Educators panel: Equipping our students; working towards embedding EDI in the journalism curriculum

Nikki Akinola, chair, is the senior diversity and inclusion coordinator at the NCTJ. She is responsible for managing the day-to-day operation of the Journalism Diversity Fund (JDF), a scheme supported by industry, which awards bursaries to help with the costs of NCTJ course fees and/or living expenses while studying. Nikki also supports the NCTJ’s wider work in equality, diversity and inclusion.

Dr Rachel Broady has both experienced poverty and worked as a journalist, so her research offers unique insights into how poverty is represented. She argues that the journalism industry can create new forms of representation by repositioning people in poverty as among the expert voices on the topic. She will talk about how this can be done by seeing people in poverty as sources, alongside others in journalists’ contact books, rather than case studies. She’ll provide and discuss examples of the journalistic habit of observation, description, or imitation when reporting poverty to talk about how this can limit the understanding of the subject, inside and outside the industry. 

Rachel will also talk about the NUJ Reporting Poverty Campaign, which she leads, and outline the resources, which are now available to help media professionals when reporting the topic. Ultimately, Rachel is interested in challenging epistemic injustice which is often displayed in journalism about poverty. She hopes she can do this through conversations with media workers and encouraging different ways to approach the reporting of poverty.

Dr François Nel is an associate professor in media innovation and entrepreneurship at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. He leads the postgraduate Journalism Innovation and Leadership Programme and contributes to the Media Innovation Studio research group. Currently, he heads the multi‐stakeholder News Futures 2035 foresight study on UK public‐interest news supply. As the first academic executive member of the World Editors Forum of WAN‐IFRA, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, he founded the World News Publishers Outlook study and edits World Press Trends. 

Dr Kamila Rymajdo is a journalist and academic. Her research interests include journalism, music, and migration. She has been published in journals such as Popular Music, Journal of World Popular Music, Popular Music History, and edited collections including Heading North (Palgrave Macmillan), The Evolution of Electronic Dance Music (Bloomsbury), and Made in Poland (Routledge). In 2021, she co‐founded SEEN, a Manchester‐based music magazine and platform to represent global majority and marginal communities, funded by Arts Council England and Manchester City Council.

Envisioning Inclusive News: Insights from the News Futures 2035 Project for Journalism Education

The News Futures 2035 foresight project initiated in Oct 2022 aims to shape a more equitable future for public-interest news in the UK. Over 18 months, more than 300 experts from diverse sectors collaborated through interviews, surveys, and workshops to envision a better future for journalism. This participatory action-research project aimed to counteract dystopian visions of news, fostering trusted information and public engagement. This presentation highlights key findings, emphasising their implications for equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in journalism education, and aims to inspire educators to foster an inclusive and equitable learning environment for future journalists.

Milica Pesic is a journalist by profession she has been working in the Diversity and the Media field for 25 years designing and supervising multi-national programs in Europe, NIS, MENA, South Asia, the Sahel, Sub-Sahara, West Africa, China, and Cuba. She has co-designed an MA Course in Diversity and the Media, jointly run by the MDI and the University of Westminster.

We Need Each Other - EDI and Media: Academics and practitioners working together. Lessons learned. MDI Experience.

MDI’s work with media outlets has shown that journalists intentionally or unintentionally spread prejudice and intolerance which can lead to social tensions, disputes, and violent conflicts. The MDI media monitoring shows the surge of anti-religious hate speech following the Israel-Palestinian conflict. There are no studies yet examining the links between the surge of anti-Muslim and antisemitic attacks in the UK since October 7 and the way this conflict is covered by the media. But there a plenty of examples from earlier conflicts, be it the Balkans or Rwanda which prove that good, responsible, inclusive journalism can significantly contribute to better understanding between different groups and cultures in society. The MDI concept of Inclusive Journalism was shared with academics through MEDIADELCOM, a 3-year project that came with recommendations for the media to contribute to social cohesion in Europe.

The presentation will focus on a practitioner's perspective, MDI Stakeholders, MDI Work with journalism academics, why a Diversity and the Media MA Course in the UK? And why diversity and inclusion matters.

Fran Yeoman runs the journalism department at LJMU. She has received grants and funding from both the British Academy and Ofcom for her research into news and media literacy and is on the board of the Media and Information Literacy Alliance; the DSIT Media Literacy Taskforce Steering Board and Ofcom's Evaluation Working Group. She also has a research interest in court reporting and its impact on prisoners' families, funded by the Merseyside Violence Reduction Partnership. Before joining LJMU, Fran worked for national newspapers including The Times and the Independent.

Polly Sharpe is the programme leader for our NCTJ-accredited MA in Journalism. Her specialism is broadcast after starting her career on commercial radio 25 years ago. Since then, she has worked across several BBC radio stations and TV programmes as a producer, news editor, reporter and output editor; most recently as Assistant Editor at BBC Breakfast, based at media city in Salford. Polly is passionate about improving access to the industry for people from all backgrounds. She combines her lecturing with freelance work. 

EDI at LJMU

The work being done by the Journalism department at LJMU in the field of Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity has recently been recognised by the industry at a national level. The whole team received the top prize in the Equality and Diversity category in the NCTJ (National Council for the Training of Journalists) Awards for Excellence. It followed a university-wide award for Teaching and Learning Excellence in the field of Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity. Among the initiatives recognised is a partnership with the John Schofield Trust, which sees ten final year students from backgrounds often under-represented in the industry mentored by a professional journalist. Elsewhere, and LJMU was one of the first Universities in the country to partner with the BBC on its 50:50 project, aimed at gender equality. The department also has a long-standing relationship with Index on Censorship, a leading human rights and free speech website and magazine that aims to give a platform to voices that are otherwise silenced around the world.

Sports Journalism Educators panel: Levelling the playing field; seeking ways to make the sports journalism classroom truly inclusive

Gerrie Byrne, chair, started as a print journalist with the Lancashire Evening Post before joining Granada where she started as a bulletin journalist and producer. She also researched and produced a variety of regional, national and international documentaries covering current affairs, sport and religion for ITV, Channel 4, Discovery and PSB in the United States. She started her BBC career as current affairs planning producer with The One Show and with the opening of Media City, went on to work for Newsround, Breakfast and North West Tonight. She’s now joint course leader for Sports Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire and continues to work as a BBC freelancer.

Dr John Price is a Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Journalism at the University of Sunderland where he runs the MA Sports Journalism course. He is co-founder and organiser of the annual Sport and Discrimination Conference and on the Advisory Board of the International Sport and Society Research Network. Widely published on issues of EDI in relation to the sports media, his books include Race, Racism and Sports Journalism and Sport, Media and Discrimination.

EDI and the sports media: the critical role of sports journalism education.

The world of sports journalism has seen some recent improvements in terms of the diversity of its workforce. However, this shift in numbers, and a preoccupation with the numbers themselves, should not distract us from other important issues relating to EDI.  These include a lack of inclusivity in workplace cultures, a lack of critical reflection among some practitioners, and the fact that problems such as online abuse fall unequally on certain groups of sports journalists. This short presentation argues that sports journalism education could, and should, play a crucial role in understanding and tackling these issues and outlines some ways in which this might be done.

Dr Roger Domeneghetti is an assistant professor and programme leader in Journalism at Northumbria University. Following a 20-year career as a journalist, his research focuses on the societal history of sports media and the (re)presentation and negotiation of individual and collective identities therein. In 2022, he co-founded the Sport Media Identity Network. A revised and updated tenth anniversary edition of his first monograph From the Back Page to the Front Room: Football’s Journey Through the English Media is due for publication this year. His second monograph Everybody Wants to Rule the World: Britain, Sport and the 1980s was published 2023.

Sports Media Identity Network (SMIN)

Dr Roger Domeneghetti will talk about the work of the Sports Media Identity Network (SMIN), a two-year AHRC-funded project, which draws together researchers and practitioners already connected to existing complementary networks, including the Black Collective of Media Sport (BCOMS), Sports Media LGBT+, the Ability Group in Sport, the Sports Journalists Association, and the National Council for the Training of Journalists.

Angela Powers is a news and sport journalism lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire. She spent two decades with Sky Sports as their rugby league reporter, and won the Mind Media award for her reporting on the mental health of rugby players. She founded Her Rugby League Association, to support the women in all areas of the sport, including female fans on the terraces, support staff behind the scenes, reporters and players. She started her career at the Warrington Guardian and spent eight years with the BBC in Manchester as a producer and reporter.

David Randles is a senior lecturer and BA Sport Journalism programme leader at Liverpool John Moores University. Prior to joining LJMU in 2019, David has held similar positions at the University of Chester and University of Salford. Before moving into higher education, David was a sports reporter working across a range of print titles and online platforms including for the Liverpool Echo and Liverpool Football Club. David is undertaking PhD research dealing with the digital transformation of storytelling in professional football.

EDI at LJMU: Sports Journalism

The level 5 Sports Journalism module Sports Media Communication was introduced in the 2023/24 academic year to include a specific focus on equality, diversity and inclusion in its assessed outcome.

By studying areas including corporate social responsibility, devising PR strategy and digital content creation, learners are required to locate and work with a real-world client to produce a sports focused PR campaign to promote EDI.  

Bridging the Gap: helping students from education to industry

Jem Collins is the director and founder of Journo Resources, a social enterprise that helps make the media more representative by providing people free tools, resources, and support at all points of their journalism careers. The website remains the only journalism jobs board to refuse to list jobs without salaries and also runs initiatives such as a salary and freelance rates database, pitch and CV libraries, and an annual fellowship. For her work, Jem has won an NCTJ Award for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion, the Deutsche Bank Award for Creative Entrepreneurs, the Newsletter Awards, the IPSE Freelancer of the Year, and The Sutton Trust Alumni Awards, amongst others.

Andy Thompson is a Senior News Editor at Sky Sports News where he has worked for the last 20 years. He started his career with Time Out in Amsterdam, becoming their Sports Editor before relocating to London in the late 1990s to work for a variety of titles including Time Out London, The Guardian and dance music monthly Mixmag. Andy has also written books on Liverpool FC, Sir Jackie Stewart and The Beatles. Since 2021, Andy has headed up Sky Sports' journalism training and is also an NCTJ Industry Advisor to several universities. 

Giulia Bould is a BBC Sport reporter and is often heard across 5 Live Sport and presenting the sport show on BBC Radio Merseyside. Giulia also was the reporter inside Everton to make the exclusive & award-winning BBC Sounds podcast series "Everton: Nothing Will Be The Same" covering the 2022/23 season. Giulia also hosts the FanZone on matchdays at Goodison Park & is the stadium announcer for Everton Women. In her spare time, Giulia is an advocate for the charity the "Addison’s Disease Self Help Group" having being diagnosed with the rare condition herself in 2016.

Sunita Bhatti is the Head of Regions for Channel 4 News leading the newsroom in Leeds which features a mix of television, data and digital production.  C4 News is the first primetime national news programme to be dual presented from two locations. Sunita also leads the teams working outside of London in Greater Manchester, the Midlands, Scotland and Wales. She previously worked at BBC News leading the Learning and Identity story team in Leeds and the Northern Bureau news operation which covered all the main national news in the North of England. She has worked on stories ranging from the Manchester Arena Bombing to the Hillsborough fight for justice. She started her BBC career at BBC Radio Lincolnshire in 2007, and has worked across regional TV and Online, as well as Newsround. Sunita started her journalism career working at the weekly newspaper The Craven Herald in Skipton before moving to the Telegraph & Argus in Bradford. Sunita is also trustee for the John Schofield Trust, which provides mentoring and training to young journalists. Sunita is passionate about promoting opportunities for journalists outside of London through her work.

Final year LJMU journalism students

Liv Heslington and James Cranford have just completed their final year at LJMU and have been mentored throughout the year by working journalists through the John Schofield Trust.

Olivia Heslington - Although to others the course doesn't seem a challenge - getting the work after the course definitely is.
I currently work for BBC Radio Merseyside, if I hadn't of met Giulia through the scheme, the bosses wouldn't have known who I was so the likelihood of an interview was slim. This scheme has not only gained me experience, but it's made me find my niche within journalism and break into the career which is so difficult to do. 

James Cranford - I am a 34-year-old mature student originally from Huyton in Knowsley. I started the BA Sports Journalism course at LJMU in September 2021 and I am graduating this July. My passions in life are sport and music - I spent my twenties struggling to make music my career and had a variety of jobs trying to support that goal. Until I started the course, I had never considered a career in sports media a viable option - I had no ties to the media through friends or family, but people close to me convinced me it might be something I would be good at. I haven't looked back since starting the course and my only regret is not having started sooner. I have found my mentorship through the John Schofield Trust useful - my mentor has helped shape some of my university assessments and has given me opportunities to try new things, such as covering LFC Women and interviewing the manager.

For more information about Liverpool, please visit the Visit Liverpool website.

Travel

By train - Liverpool is easily accessible by train from all major cities in the UK, the journey from London will take just over two hours. There are connections from both Manchester Airport and Liverpool John Lennon Airport. Once in Liverpool, the Merseyrail train network has good links to other parts of the city region.

By plane - Liverpool John Lennon Airport is only seven miles from the city centre and Manchester Airport is just a 45 minute drive.

By car - Liverpool city region is well connected to the UK motorway network. From the M6 take the M62, M58 or M56 to reach the city centre.

Useful travel websites

• Traveline Journey Planner
• National Express
• National Rail Enquiries
• Liverpool John Lennon Airport
• Merseytravel
• Merseyrail

Accommodation

Hotels for both conferences are available to book online.

Wendy Sloane Associate Professor of Journalism, London Metropolitan University

Wendy Sloane is an Associate Professor of Journalism at London Metropolitan University and is the Course Leader for the Journalism courses and a Principal Lecturer. She worked for Time Magazine in New York and then as a journalist in Moscow from 1989 to 1995 and has been a magazine editor in the UK for Eva, Marie Claire and Woman’s Own. She now freelances regularly the British Journalism Review, among others. She is working on a PhD about the lack of press freedoms and censorship in Russia. Her edited volume of papers, Kremlin Media Wars: Censorship and Control since the invasion of Ukraine is due for publication in early 2025.

In 2018, Wendy founded the London Met Journalism Diversity Network to give her diverse students a foot through the door in the highly competitive world of journalism work placements.

They have 143 distinct nationalities represented at London Metropolitan University, with 55% from a minoritised background (2020-2021, London Met). This is in stark contrast to journalism in the UK, where only 13 percent of UK journalists are from non-white ethnic groups (NCTJ Diversity in Journalism report, 2022). Similarly, 43 % of Britain’s top 100 journalists are privately educated, as opposed to just 7% of the general population (Sutton Trust Elitist Britain report, 2019).

Second-year work placements lasting two to three weeks are integral – and mandatory – to their Journalism courses.

The Network has been successful also not only in providing practical, work-related learning but in transforming the way students perceive their own capabilities.  Second-year Beauty Marketing and French-Senegalese Journalism student Mame Sarr said she’d never get her dream job – representing a major beauty brand – in her hometown of Paris because she’s Black. A placement at Marie Claire magazine has helped her realise her own potential; she now works for Chanel. Mature student Chanette Carleo applied for a BBC work placement five times. After getting one through us, she had her chance to shine – and now has a staff job at Kiss FM.

The network has now been expanded to encompass a three-pronged approach: competitive work placements, diverse guest speakers and varied student site visits. In addition, the university’s decolonisation of curriculum programme has helped challenge and transform the journalism education, as part of the "see me, be me" campaign.

Watch the video here