Fenland Woman: Why Journalism?
...I wanted to write history for a general audience. I think like an antiquarian and prefer narrative history to analytical academic history. I clearly couldn’t go any further up the academic career ladder...
Claire George explains her interest in journalism.
A few years ago I wrote a PhD thesis up at Durham University. It was called “Topical Portrait Print Advertising in London Newspapers and The Term Catalogues: 1660-1714.” It sounds like an obscure subject but it wasn’t that far off the mainstream.
I traced the placement of advertisements for portrait prints over several decades, and then looked to see whether the people depicted in the portraits were “in the news” at the time of advert placement. I had an old-fashioned antiquarian kind of approach, so I didn’t go into the Marxist-Feminist-Habermasian-etc implications of it all. Here’s an example of an advert:
The London Gazette, July 30-August 3, 1702
The Queen’s most Gracious Speech to both Houses of Parliament, on the 25th day of May, 1702 upon Her Majesty’s happy Accession to the crown: Written in a Round-text Character; adorned with the coronation Medal illustrated with the royal arms, in an Oval; and embellished with loose Knots, and other curious Flourishes of the Pen; all done by command of hand; is now printed from a Copper plate upon a sheet of the largest Imperial Paper. Sold for 2s 6d. apiece by Tho.Atkins, Engraver, in Charles street Covent-Garden, and most Booksellers about Town.
I concluded that the majority of advertisements were placed at times when the sitters were topical. I also noted that maps and other kinds of prints were sometimes advertised at times when the subjects they depicted were topical.
I thought about the thesis today because I was telling some of my coursemates about the reason for my interest in journalism.
The majority of people who take humanities PhDs don’t go on to become academics. Some choose not to continue because it is an unstable career path. Others want to become lecturers but don’t survive the competition. And others discover that they are not suited for academic research or academic writing.
In my case I wanted to write history for a general audience. I think like an antiquarian and prefer narrative history to analytical academic history. I clearly couldn’t go any further up the academic career ladder.
When I left Durham I felt awful because I didn’t know how I could continue to work with history. I finally put all thoughts of it to one side and concentrated on learning new things, like citizen journalism editing.
It took me some time to realise that the media is the perfect place for a narrative historian with an interest in writing for a general readership. I applied for this MA course because I recognised that I needed to learn to write in a more professional manner. Journalists are trained communicators. Their articles have a kind of crystal clarity about them, whereas my PhD was not well written at all.
I also like journalism because today’s news is tomorrow’s history (I know that’s a cliche). Everything that happens now has a strong link to the past or carries echoes of the past. Narrative history is really very like narrative news.
