Simon English, financial journalist and author of Roxhill’s Tomorrow’s Business newsletter, made his ten predictions for 2025. His ninth prediction was: “The hollowing-out process in journalism and PR of anyone over 50 will continue. Soon, no one who can remember anything before 1980 will be in employment.” We asked him to elaborate:

What would an ideal newsroom look like, personnel wise? 

How about this:

1. A small number of very senior editors, devoted to the task of journalism who get paid the big bucks in return for devoting their life to it. They are tough, but wise. Even occasionally kind.
2. A much larger number of young, ambitious reporters who want to break some stories and could care less who they upset on the way. They are hungry, but they have the sense to listen rather than merely broadcast.
3. In the middle are a bunch of very experienced 50-somethings who have seen it all and continue to observe events with something close to ironic detachment. They may not care to learn new skills, but they can remember who Margaret Thatcher was. They use their phones to actually ring people.

The senior editors know they need the latter; recognise they have strengths where there would otherwise be holes and forgive their trespasses.

The young reporters realise the same and note that they sometimes escape blame for something they got wrong and got credit where it was barely due.

That’s what newspapers were sort-of like when I started working for them in the mid-90s. My career was a treat and there were loads of jobs if you could remotely cut it.

I moved between the Telegraph, The Sun, The Times, The Cayman Observer (it’s a long story) and the Evening Standard (that was best of all) with relative ease.

It was hard work; it was also quite often a great laugh. Better than working for a living, anyway, we all used to say.

Newsrooms now more closely resemble a creche which the adults have deserted.

The senior editors are still there, locked in meetings, managing cost cuts to ensure an ever-greater portion of the salary pie goes their way.

The young reporters come and go apace, openly stating that their intention is to get two years on a famous newspaper for the good of their CVs before they go and work somewhere that treats them better.

The 50-somethings are mostly gone or going. The FT still employs, bless it, lots of middle-aged white men, but they aren’t planning to hire more of us.

This is not a complaint on my own behalf – the benefits of being middle aged, male and white have certainly come my way.

I do find it depressing how many former comrades say, with sadness, that they don’t expect to work again. They mean anywhere, doing anything.

That must be a loss to the trade and to other employers. It took those guys decades to get this good at what they do.

They’ve still got it.

Simon English is the author of the Tomorrow’s Business newsletter sponsored by Roxhill and a partner at digital pollsters Findoutnow.co.uk