Reporter on a daily regional: "I love the news industry. Journalism is all I ever wanted to do. But today I applied for a PR job because I don’t believe the news business today has a career for me. Can I aspire to being an editor one day? Not any more. My dream job doesn’t exist anymore."The papers are all closed or merged or subbed off site. So what are the choices? Hope you don’t get made redundant before a job comes up at a company that has got it right. Take your ideas and set up by yourself. Or leave a job you love because you can’t bear to see it devalued any more."
Stephen Glover on regional job cuts imposed by the Guardian Media Group: "The Guardian, for all its appearance of virtue and high-mindedness, is as ruthless and mean-minded as a Dodge City card sharp. What particularly gets my goat is the lack of generosity evinced by Media Guardian. Last week Campbell-Greenslade in his blog suggested that the closure of free local newspapers was "no loss to democracy". If Rupert Murdoch suggested that the closure of The Guardian was "no loss to democracy" there would be a run on smelling salts at the paper's HQ."
Ex-Regional newspaper editor on the current crop of regional editors: “They’re forced to sit in meetings telling lowly-paid senior reporters with families and mortgages that they’re going to be made redundant when they know that handsome profits are still being made, but they have to do it in the hope of hanging onto their own jobs. The hypocrisy and guilt is eating them up."
Nik Hewitt, ex-Northcliffe Digital multi-media specialist in an interview with journalism.co.uk: "It wouldn't surprise me if within the next three years at least 50 per cent of local titles are just printed in one large area, with an insert put into them that tries to make them as local as possible."
NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear on regional journalists: “The feedback is that there is an enormous amount of anger at what people see as the squandering of many years of profit and the esteem their newspapers were held in. There is anger that their papers are being rundown at a time when their web sites are not being developed. They are demoralised about journalism as well as their jobs as journalists.” I got this quote for my Guardian piece on the regional press but it was squeezed out.
Hitman posting on Peter Kirwan's Press Gazette blog Media Money : "History will record that it was just unlucky that this financial hiatus came at a time when the regional press was in the hands of deadhead accountants and jumped up sales reps who had always feared and loathed journalists and all their foul works. "It was the excuse they had been dreaming of. They've always wanted to do this; sack most of us, grind down the few survivors, and fill our papers with any old PR shite that happens to get emailed in. It's their turn, they are in charge, the time to exact their mean and savage vengeance is now - and Christ, are they going to make us PAY."
A newspaper management view: "It is proving very difficult to recoup advertising revenues lost from print titles on the web. Online display advertising, which many thought could one day provide sufficient revenues to support journalism, is seriously challenged as the vast over-supply of online advertising inventory has forced down yields dramatically. This inventory has become commoditised -it is very difficult to get premium rates even on media owners' high-quality websites. In other words, making serious money online is a nut the industry is yet to crack."
A journalism teacher's view: Ian Reeves, University of Kent: "No sane person involved in journalism education can feel anything but uneasy about preparing students for an industry where so many senior jobs are disappearing and so few entry level positions are becoming available. The paradox of course is that while there's never been a worse time to find a job, there's never been a better time to learn about the dazzling array of new techniques that are now at the journalist's disposal. With so many new tools emerging for research, dissemination and storytelling, this really should be a Golden Age for online reporting."
Tony Boullemier, co-founder of the Northants Post Group: "The level of corporate greed is appalling. Newspaper groups are simply competing in a macabre race to see how few journos they can get away with to bring out their titles as internet advertising closes its grip on customers. The job losses are heartbreaking and the terrible long term consequence of local papers going under will be the lack of accountability for corrupt officialdom and criminals. Perhaps a new generation of journalistic entrepreneurs will step forward with a new 'local' media idea to break the mould and grab readers and advertisers. Oh for a crystal ball."
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