POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY EMILY HILL IN THE GUARDIAN
Emily, I think you've missed the fact that journalism has always been the preserve of the well-off.
I speak in statistical terms, of course, there are exceptions.
But the top newspapers have always hired pretty much people with costly credentials. Graduates of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, and similar places have always provided the lion's share of bylines at quality broadsheets. They also provide key television reporters and columnists.
I do believe if you check the family backgrounds at such places, you won't find a lot of genuinely humble ones.
The press also values the connections which come with graduating such institutions. Graduates of Oral Roberts U. or the Open University lack these entirely.
Journalism is much like the law in this regard. Not all degrees are equal, and with the tendencies in American higher education over the last half century, being copied earnestly in Britain from what I read, this actually only becomes more true.
Orwell, himself, was a graduate of Eton, not your typical experience. His family wasn't rich, but it was successful, ambitious upper middle-class.
