Life with a Latte

 Life on the Streets, BBC4, Monday

The very first day I started my postgrad journalism course I realised just how huge a gulf there was between the average journalist and the world at large.

I do not represent normal, by any means, but over the course of the next week or two I realised that out of 36 aspiring postgraduate men and women, only 2 of us were self funding/from a working class background. The rest, when I incredulously asked how on earth they were able to afford one of the two best/most expensive courses in the UK (at 30, I was by far the oldest in my class, as the idea of needing £12,000 for a year just to study was way beyond my means for years; even now my credit rating is mud because I defaulted on the loan after redundancy), said without embarrassment that mummy and daddy were funding it.

That was the first point I thought a) everyone here is posh and hasn’t a clue and b) that’s journalism, because anyone who isn’t posh doesn’t have mummy and daddy paying for them. My fellow classmates were mostly nice enough, but they were so sheltered.

Which brings me to BBC4’s On the Streets (Mon, 10pm). I worked with homeless people for five years before becoming a journalist, so tuned into this genuinely wanting to see a programme about London’s homeless. Firstly I was annoyed at the doe-eyed portrayal of some quite frankly assholish people, as the equally doe-eyed reporter let them ramble on with nothing more than a polite ‘Mmm-hmm’ every few seconds.

Again, I’ve worked with homeless people, and like any group there are plenty of dicks among them, but also plenty of tragic gems that still make me want to cry when I think of them. This reporter was clearly going for the tragic gems angle – as Ness in Gavin and Stacey would say, Fair play – but for the love of god be able to differentiate between the two if that’s what you’re going for. Cooing how disadvantaged all homeless people are and letting them spout whatever they want no matter what just showed how hopelessly out of touch the reporter was. Just because someone’s homeless doesn’t mean they can’t be an asshole – but then if you’re a clean young middle class journalist and they’re all scary unwashed types how can you tell?

Then she spoke to a young man about self harm. 'And *why* did you do that? *Why* did you cut yourself? Your mum died? Oh yah, my mum is dead also.' Hmm.

This, together with her nervous giggles when someone said they were looking for dog ends or found their aftershave in a skip, made me finally switch off. The reporter was the exact personification of a student on my course – posh, too sheltered, didn’t have a clue and had never actually met (god forbid) anyone poor, never mind homeless.

Earlier, she actually had the gall to say, bright eyed and puzzled to two homeless men in a park: Why are you *drinking*? What does that *do* for you? And of course the same giggle when they made an answer – which of course she wasn’t listening to. This was frankly offensive TV, made by Sloanes, for Sloanes. I can just see her cracking open the champagne with her friends in Islington afterwards. ‘Yah! Great show, Francesca! And OMG you were so brave!’

My postgrad journalism course – regarded as one of the best in  the country and so one to do if you want to even think about breaking into this highly competitive profession – cost almost £6000 for nine months. This was in London. This was before rent, food, books, living expenses, transport, dictaphones, work clothes for work experience or anything else. As I say, I was one of only two working class/self-funding students – and I can’t pay back my loan. I’ll never be able to get a mortgage, or a loan, or anything I might want to borrow to get. I don't really care, but that's not really the point.

The reporter of Life on the Streets, and all potential journalism students, should be forced to have at least a year’s work experience in any sector, but particularly the public one. Perhaps meeting and working with the great unwashed might enable the journalists of the future to know what to ask, how to treat people properly, and, more importantly, to not treat documentaries like this as some sort of personal anthropology programme. ‘See you back on the street, then,’ she trilled at the end to one of her subjects. Yeah, right.

If journalism, TV, the BBC or whoever, seriously thinks they want to research and report on proper stories, properly, perhaps journalism should stop being a middle class preserve or a soft option for Sloanes. Here's an idea - why not set up strings-free bursaries for at least half or three-quarters of students on any journalism course, undergaduate or postgraduate, to get in on merit rather than daddy’s salary? This isn’t a matter of ‘everyone who wants to study 19^th century French poetry had a god given right to do so’, but to ensure that what we’re given on TV is representative of everyone in the country. And that those reporting it are representative too.Not rocket science, dahling.