Advice and consent

RONAN QUINLAN is chair of the Journalist Editorial Advisory Board, which oversees the publication. He explains the set-up that guarantees the Journalist’s independence

ALTHOUGH the Journalist has been around for 100 years, the Journalist Editorial Advisory Board (JEAB) only came into existence in 1989 after an ADM decision. The board has seven members who are elected by the delegates at ADM.

The NUJ is unique in that its inhouse publication has editorial independence from the union’s leadership. ADM has always upheld this policy. As a union for professional journalists, we demand this editorial independence in publications where our members work and we practise what we preach with our own publication.

The board has four key and overlapping roles:

  1. It acts as a sounding board and point of reference for the editor. It is a group of individual members who are willing and able to give opinions on editorial matters. This is a particularly important function for a publication that has just one lone journalist.
  2. It deals with complaints from members about the Journalist, giving them the opportunity to be heard and cementing the trust between the magazine and its readers.
  3. It helps defend and assert, when necessary, the independence of the editor.
  4. It reports back to ADM on these and other issues. The board is answerable to ADM because delegates elect its members.

The board may also advise the editor on budget submissions for the Journalist and on issues relating to design, distribution and other relevant matters.

The Journalist is currently going through major changes. Having gradually increased frequency over the years, the advent of the online Journalist means that we are now reducing the printed publication to six issues a year.

The magazine has been radically redesigned to reflect the increasingly feature-led content. The online Journalist will carry the newsy side of things and the discussion of issues raised by stories. The editor will be responsible for online content under the Journalist banner.

Ronan Quinlan is a freelance photojournalist based in Dublin. He was Father of the NUJ Chapel at the Irish Press before its closure in 1995.