UK Press: 21st Century Journalism hits an All Time Low

The quality of news stories in British newspapers has sunk to the lowest level I have ever seen.

We are churning out journalists who been trained for several years to write quality journalism but when they reach the 'dizzy heights' of our British newspapers, some are writing news stories fit for seven-year-olds.

 For example, there was one article in a major newspaper that had a massive headline 'Shark v Whale -who would win it in a fight'? The headline took most of the page and the rest of the page was mostly filled with a whale and shark.

Just why is it now necessary for many newspaper journalists  to even go to university?

Some editors seem to have a funny idea of what's newsworthy.    They also seem to have an odd idea of what people find interesting to read and are  bending over backwards to put press releases by celebrity agents instead as newsworthy stories, these are often recycled in other major newspapers.

Round me, people are losing their jobs left right and centre and only today, I have had yet another person speak to me about regular elder abuse in care homes. Front page stories about celebrities are an insult to the British public.

Recently, I have been reading vintage local newspapers on microfiche in the library and the quality of journalism in the 18th Century was far better,  much more detailed, a lot more interesting and they had hardly any photos. It was more 'real news'.

So when I looked at today's Sunday Paper, what an editor chose to put in the paper for us to read over our breakfast, was a massive photo of Cheryl Cole's coldsore.  Journalism cannot much worse.

Does a journalist want to write rubbish like that at the end of his or her working day? What will their ancesters say?

If you are a journalist, feel free to say what happened when you were asked to write a ridiculous news story?