Sir, – Conor Brady suggests that funding should be provided for ongoing training and development of journalists ("Mechanism needed that enables funding of media", Opinion & Analysis, January 7th).
Journalism is under threat from two directions. The unchecked growth of Facebook, Google, etc, has enabled a small group of single-minded obsessives to gain control of what whole swathes of the world’s population sees and reads.
The other threat to journalism comes from within its own ranks. Groupthink flourishes because recruitment to the profession increasingly lacks social, intellectual and ideological diversity.
University journalism courses add to the problem by churning out graduates invariably imbued with the trendy prejudices of progressives and leftists. Thus journalists are often engaged in advocacy but cannot see it because it doesn’t occur to them that there is another point of view.
It’s hard to see how even more “training” will solve that problem. – Yours, etc,
KARL MARTIN,
Bayside,
Dublin 13.