University of West London journalism students visit the Guardian News and Media (GNM) archive
Intro
A group of University of West London final year Journalism students recently visited the Guardian News and Media archive and had a tour of one of the editorial floors at the global news organisation’s headquarters in London’s King's Cross. The GNM archive collects and preserves documents and objects that tell the story of the Guardian and Observer over the last 200 years and can be visited by appointment.
Article body
Students were treated to a bespoke, curated tour of the history of the newspaper group and got to see some unique artefacts, including the remains of the laptops used to write the world exclusive expose from whistleblower, Edward Snowden. Snowden, an American and now a naturalised Russian citizen, is the computer intelligence consultant who exposed mass surveillance of its citizens by the US government in 2013.
The battered rubbish you can see in the photo is all that was left after British security services demanded that Guardian journalists destroy its computers for fear that secret data remained on them,”
explained Senior Lecturer in Journalism Alison Hawkings.
Students also saw a letter from one of the UK’s most prolific spies, Kim Philby, asking for a job on the Observer reporting on events in the Middle East. While working for the paper, Philby disappeared and defected to the then Soviet Union.
In the archive’s temperature-controlled rooms, the visitors saw photographs including images of Nelson Mandela and the Beatles.
It’s amazing to think there are five million photography prints in here. It is also great that anyone can request to see parts of the archive if they want to do research,”
said final year BA (Hons) Broadcast and Digital Journalism student Faiza Khan.
Guardian Online is in the top ten global news sites, with as many 18.4 million visits a month, Alison added:
It was interesting for students to visit its editorial floor and see for themselves what it is like inside the briefing rooms.”
Sophie Rowberry, a final year Broadcast and Digital Journalism student, added:
Wow - today has been interesting, informative and more importantly fun.”
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