{"id":3036,"date":"2009-03-19T00:10:28","date_gmt":"2009-03-19T00:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=3036"},"modified":"2009-05-13T21:10:53","modified_gmt":"2009-05-13T20:10:53","slug":"journalism-education-unfinished-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2009\/03\/journalism-education-unfinished-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Journalism Education: My Unfinished Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RichardW<\/span>henever people ask me why I left television news<\/strong> (a world which – I have to say – I loved) to run a J-School<\/a>, I never give the real answer.<\/p>\n

Because the real answer is just the name of someone they (and you) probably won’t ever have heard of: Richard Wild<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Richard is gone now. He was shot dead in Baghdad<\/strong> in 2003. I wrote the letter that got him in to Iraq.<\/p>\n

You didn’t have to be a genius to see Richard’s potential. He had studied Medieval History at Cambridge<\/a><\/strong>, and gone on to do an M.Phil. He’d been a leading light in the student theatre. He was a keen sportsman, and he had a year’s commission as a Lieutenant in the British Army. He was bright, determined and talented.<\/p>\n

He was also thoughtful and curious. Most definitely not a self-obsessive looking for a heroic canvas on which to act out a literary psychodrama (yes, you know who you are…). <\/p>\n

Richard was going out with the sister of a foreign correspondent friend. He decided that he wanted to be a journalist and he came to see me. For my part, I opened the door to get him a job at ITN, and helped set him on a path that ended with his murder. <\/p>\n

(After his death, another foreign correspondent friend – for whom I have great respect – accused me quite plainly of killing him.) <\/p>\n

I neither suggested he go to Iraq, nor was I the cold-hearted bastard that shot him. I merely helped expedite his passage, and did some mentoring via email. Some mentor, you might say. And you would be right. <\/p>\n

I never had the opportunity to help Richard become the great reporter he undoubtedly would have been. Someone with a gun robbed him of those years, and much more besides. <\/p>\n

And so this – journalism education – is my unfinished business. <\/p>\n

So when I get angry with glib pundits (not that I’m ever glib or a pundit myself, you understand) talking about journalism and journalists and society and democracy, it’s because it’s not a game. And we need more Richards, and yes fewer – well, you know who I mean. <\/p>\n

And perhaps on a bad day, I’d include myself on that second list. <\/p>\n

And on a good day, maybe not. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

W<\/span>henever people ask me why I left television news<\/strong> (a world which – I have to say – I loved) to run a J-School<\/a>, I never give the real answer. Because the real answer is just the name of someone they (and you) probably won’t ever have heard of: Richard Wild<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1382,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fave-posts","category-journalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3036"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3122,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3036\/revisions\/3122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}