The ADM is not the only thing coming to an end today.
James Doherty, who has been NUJ President for the past 19 ½ months, followed tradition and stepped down from his role during the closing ceremony of the ADM.
But he told us he is not intending to rest on his laurels.
“In a lot of ways I’ll be sad to give up the presidency but I’m still relatively young. I’m not going anywhere in terms of working for members of this union,” he said.
“I’ll still be taking the fight in every direction, and I’ll still be very heavily involved in building on the policies which ADM have directed us to follow.”
“Proud”
James entered the role at a turbulent time. The recession was looming ominously on the horizon, and confidence in journalism was depleting with worrying haste.
“I knew what was coming, and I knew it would be difficult,” he explains. “But I knew that I could negotiate all of the arguments and find common ground.”
“To be able to hold the union together at a time that it could easily have fractured I believe is something that I am very proud of,” he admits.
However, James is quick to deflect any praise straight to the members of the NUJ: “I’m proud of the members who have faced real difficulty, the members who have not known how they were going to survive after losing their work, and the members who also said: ‘we will not take this lying down. We will fight for journalists and we will fight for journalism’.”
A positive outlook
James, despite stepping down from his role as president, will still be at the forefront of that fight, defending journalists’ rights and jobs in the face of a media industry that continues to try to shut them out.
Despite moments of this year’s ADM hanging heavy with doubts and fears of the future, James remains typically positive about the NUJ’s next few years.
“Journalism is not changing. The medium is changing, the outlets are changing, but the same values are not changing, whether you blog or work for traditional media,” he said.
“With that, I know the NUJ will move forward and embrace new technology. But at the same time there will always be a home for journalists in the UK, Ireland and Europe, and that home will always be the NUJ.”
They say home is where the heart is, and there’s no doubting where James Doherty’s heart lies.
