”Walk through our corridors,” a lecturer at one university journalism school told me, “and you will hear that homogeneous public school accent.” …In effect, the costs of training, once borne by employers, have been transferred to the prospective journalists…Before they can dream of a salary, many will do several months of “work experience”, possibly for a succession of employers. Some of them will make the tea, as wannabes did half-a-century ago, with the difference that they won’t get paid for it.

For entry to national newspapers and the main broadcasting and magazine companies, the result is geographical as well as social and ethnic bias…  With most jobs unadvertised, families living in the right neighbourhoods, socialising in the right circles and working in the right jobs may provide introductions to those “pals at court” that [Nicholas] Tomalin thought so important.

You work for free and the paid job goes to a writer’s friend. More here.