The good old days of the ‘boys' club' are long gone

by Steve Barrett, Media Week 29-Apr-08, 07:30

There is an old-fashioned perception among some people that media is an industry revolving around freebies, long lunches and ski trips, punctuated by quick bursts of grudging hard work.

Media is certainly a sociable industry, and networking and building strong relationships are an important part of it. And, in the early days, when there were only a few media owners and fewer media agencies, it is possible that some people working within it used to indulge in "laddish" behaviour.

But in today's ultra-competitive, fragmented and diverging media world, these old-style media habits simply don't wash. In fact, it is insulting to the professionalism and dedication of people working in modern media agencies and media owners to suggest they are any less conscientious than their counterparts in the City, law or, indeed, other sectors of business or marketing communications. Sure, many media people play hard - but not until they have worked their socks off first.

This perception was brought home to me by some of the coverage surrounding the surprise parachuting in of ad-land's Daryl Fielding to replace Simon Barnes as commercial director at Independent Newspapers. The implication in a lot of the comment and coverage surrounding the developments at Canary Wharf alluded to a certain dissolute lifestyle, especially among the newspaper sales community.

Indeed, in last week's profile in Media Week, Fielding herself referred to her preference for being in the boardroom rather than "getting pissed" with work colleagues - the implication being that this was the world she was walking into.

This accusation could certainly not be levelled at her predecessor Barnes, however, who while certainly a decent guy and a popular member of the media community is also a smart operator and did a good job at The Indie under tough circumstances.

Strong relationships inevitably develop between groups of people who have worked and traded together over a number of years. A shorthand language naturally develops that everyone understands and that makes business easier to do. That doesn't make it a "boys' club" or unprofessional.

As Fielding, to be fair, said herself in the same profile, media people are far more likely to be impressed by business-savvy than gender or "clubability", whichever generation they come from. She may find the sector she comes into a bit more professional, creative and forward-looking than she expects - and not just populated by a bunch of drunken "space sellers".