Saturday, November 30, 2013

The educational background of Guardian journalists

A useful item in the current Private Eye records the private schools attended by many of the Guardian's leading journalists:
There's editor Alan Rusbridger (Cranleigh); G2 editor Clare Margetson (Marlborough); political editor Patrick Wintour (Westminster); economics editor Larry Elliott (St Albans); environment editor John Vidal (St Bees); fashion editor Jess Cartner-Morley (City of London School for Girls); US editor Janine Gibson (Walthamstow Hall); literary editor Clare Armitstead (Bedales); film critic Peter Bradshaw (Haberdashers' Aske's); theatre critic Michael Billington (Warwick); associate editor Madeleine Bunting (Queen Mary's, Yorkshire); as well as columnists Jonathan Freedland (University College School); Seumas Milne (Winchester); Sinon Jenkins (Mill Hill); George Monbiot (Stowe); Tanya Gold (Kingston Grammar); Timothy Garton Ash (Sherborne); Chris Huhne (Westminster); Zoe Williams (Godolphin and Latymer) and of course Polly Toynbee (Badminton), who also sent tow of her own children to private school.
The Eye also tells us that "it is written into the paper's union-ratified rulebook that staff posted abroad are entitled to have their children educated at the paper's expense - a perk most hacks take up".

A disapproving reader asks: What point are you making here?

Liberal England replies: I am not making any point: it is just interesting to know these things.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Eye says that John Harris is almost the only state-educated pundit on the paper.

Leicester boy Simon Hoggart is another.

Anonymous said...

It would be helpful to know how many of the journalists went as Direct Grant pupils. At 11, kids in the 1960s could go to an independent school at public expense. But the point remains that the Guardian is less than effective at promoting state-educated writers. As biased as the professions