More debate on the middle class journalist

There is plenty of comment about Alan Milburn's Unleashing Aspiration report which I commented on yesterday,especially the part about journalism being a middle class profession.

Roy Greenslade comments on it too this morning describing the time when he was training as when

The working class "masses" were on the move, leading eventually to the middle class becoming the nation's dominant social class.

So according to Roy

By the late 1980s, entrance to journalism was also increasingly dependent on academic qualifications that ensured that almost everyone needed a university degree.
This was not such a problem until, say, the middle 1990s, because working class entrance to tertiary education improved year by year.

Then higher education became expensive and became a barrier to those from lower class backgrounds.

Should it matter? Well journalism should be a representation from all walks of society so that society quite simply can be represented.

On the other hand journalists need to be educated.It is not just journalism courses that will be barred to those who cannot afford to pay.It will be higher education as a whole.

As Milburn's report states it isn't just journalism that is being demeritocrized,the problem is deep in society and the current recession will only enhance that problem.