I have done a piece for MediaGuardian today on the regional press crisis. I spoke to journalists across the industry, someone involved in teaching journalism and was briefed by a publisher. Below are uncut quotes from a former regional newspaper editor, a reporter, an academic and a management briefing which hopefully give an insight into the current state of the industry which has now lost more than 900 editorial posts since July.
You can read the Guardian piece here.
MediaGuardian is also running a blog asking Does regional journalism have a future?
Any comments welcomed.
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8 comments:
It's not just the newspaper industry that's going to need some really big ideas to plug the gap - it's every one of us in the global economy too.
As I read John Slattery's article my heart began to melt thinking of all the innocents who are going to suffer: husbands, wives, children, family and friends. The collateral damage will be immense.
What to the newspaper business is a gap between a failing print model and an undeveloped digital model is, to the rest of the world in general, a gap between a failing economic/social/political model and an undeveloped alternative.
As Clay Shirkey has observed in his recent blog, Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable,
"We’re collectively living through 1500, when it’s easier to see what’s broken than what will replace it... We just got here. Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen."
So we really do need new ideas to develop new alternative models - and fast!
"No one experiment is going to replace what we are now losing with the demise of news on paper, but over time, the collection of new experiments that do work might give us the reporting we need," says Shirky.
So. We can reduce the time it takes to find a new working model and lessen the gap we need to plug between now and then by upping the Research and Development and seed as many new experiments as we possibly can. Yes?
That was the thought I had when I emailed Comment Is Free a few weeks ago suggesting they use the CIF blogging mechanism and Google development strategies to outsource development of potential new models to the crowd of Guardian people online - which would include a significant number of experts of many disciples one would presume.
You never know. It might be worth giving a shot. And it would cost several magnitudes less than bringing Anderson Consulting in. What's not to try there?
But you know what? I didn't get a rejection. I didn't even get an acknowledgement. I didn't even get a robot "Return to Sender" or "Out Of The Office" reply.
And they don't seem to allow comments to your piece either.
So what's all that about then?
Thanks Ian,
MediaGuardian is running a blog on the future of regional journalism
today here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/16/does-regional-journalism-have-future
Thanks John. Have posted there but doubt if that will make any difference either. The Guardian, like everyone else, will no doubt be employing many expansively suited experts who will be finding many convincing reasons why good ideas can never come out of the sticks.
I'm taking resident Observer comic David Mitchell's advice:
"Most people don't comment much online. They're not arrogant enough to think their opinions, or anger, are of general interest."
Repeat 1,000 times after me:
"It just goes to show you can't be too careful."
Marvellous!
Ian McNulty - I see that you have had a conversation with our web chief, Emily Bell, over on our thread: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/16/does-regional-journalism-have-future
Technology and information-wise, the Guardian is trying to open up its information with the launch of Open Platform: http://www.guardian.co.uk/open-platform
Commercially, all media organisations are trying to find answers. If the credit crunch had not happened, it is just possible that old media groups may just have managed the transition from paper to online. The global economic meltdown is, however, destroying the old model before the new model has time to work. New media organisations, with very low cost bases, are entering the situation from a very different standpoint to old media with large cost bases. We are all struggling to see if there is a middle way: one that supports large-scale traditional journalism as well as accepting that revenues may no longer match those of the past
Jon - good feature. Those years at Press Gazette mean that you, better than almost anyone, know the strengths and weaknesses of regional journalism in the UK
Busfield - Near the beginning of this decade I went to London for a meeting with some extremely expensively suited senior execs at a cable telly company. They only wanted to talk about only one thing. Walled Gardens. They had no doubt that was the only way to go. So sure were they that they laughed openly, not to say sneered impatiently, at the stupidity of anybody who thought it wasn't going to work (That would be me on that occasion too). I sighed, packed my things and quickly left the room, promising I would not be back.
I've been through more than a dozen scenes like that over the past forty years. Each time the symptoms just get worse. People who insist they know what they're doing and won't even listen to anybody else.
Each time I've sighed and walked away shaking my head. If they're so sure they know what they're doing, stand back and let them get on with it. Time will tell.
And Time certainly did. For three decades now the extremely "talented" and highly "qualified" whiz kids have insisted there's only one way to go. Put the pedal to the metal, pack up your troubles in a new credit card and hammer down the road whooping-it-up laughing at those who don't.
Now the wheels have fallen off they bring the motor back to the garage saying it couldn't possibly have been their fault. Nobody could have seen it coming. It must be the mechanics who put the spanner in the works. It couldn't possibly have been them. They need a bail out. They need to get the car back on the road as quickly as they can, carry on as before, and the mechanics must pay.
But above all they insist they still have to stay in the driving seat. They're the only ones who know how to get us out. And whilst they're there they need to carry on picking up huge salaries, or their "talent" might have to go elsewhere.
The whole country seems to be buying it. But I'm sorry to say that I don't.
The view from the outer edges of the wheel looking into the hub is quite different from that looking out. Believe me. I know. I've seen both.
The old push-your-opinions-on-everybody-else attitude was a consequence and a necessity of analogue communications in an analogue world. But digital turns that world upside down. Instead of big trains hammering down mainline tracks taking people to a single terminal, we now have digital packets travelling like motorcars through a complex network of roads. Instead of Steam Train Drivers and Guards and Platform Superintendents, the passengers now do all that for themselves.
Newspapers and Radio and TV Channels can keep running like the railways did. No doubt the best of them will. But the vast majority of travelling in the world from now on will be passengers driving themselves.
It's understandable the Platform Superintendents don't get it, and wouldn't want it if they could. And it's also understandable why they should start off by thinking that the new road network needs to follow the old train network's rules. Guys walking with red flags in front of every motor car - Speed limits of 5 mph - Stuff like that.
We laugh at those things now, but nobody was laughing at them then. That was the received wisdom of the day. You'd have to be an idiot to think anything else.
There's one characteristic that all old media types and train drivers share in common. They set the timetables and destinations. They do the driving. The passengers stay out of the cab. Anything that steps in front of the train gets mowed down. You can't make a rail road without breaking a few cows.
So railway types are hard wired to keeping passengers in their place, operating a gradation of time-tested strategies from polite re-assurances, patronisation, public humiliation and barking orders, to physical restraint if necessary. There is no alternative. The passengers must stay out of the cab or all hell will break loose.
When car passengers sit with drivers in the same cab, the relationship is very different, and their relationship to the environment is very different too. Instead of "you can have any colour you like as long as it's black" or "you can go anywhere in London just as long as you get off at Kings Cross" the driver has to listen to the small voice in the back saying "I need a pee" or "Are we there yet?" and has to modify his driving accordingly.
During my own Hunter S. Thompson Fear and Loathing experiences with Guardian Online over the past few weeks I'd say there's quite a bit of evidence to show that certain things are not being optimised as they should.
I'm aware of the Guardian Open Platform. Confident that the machinery will be best-practice and first-class. I'm presuming you guys driving it are experts who know what they're doing. "We are all struggling to see if there is a middle way" suggests to me they may not.
Steve Busfield has done an excellent summary and commentary of the postings made on mediaguardian's blog http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/16/does-regional-journalism-have-future
It pulls a lot of the threads about the problems facing regional journalism together.
Yeah, that's what I thought at first. I did have this niggling feeling that there was something - well - a bit off. But heck, look on the bright side. At least he's read the comments. Things might be looking up.
Then when I looked at it again this morning it hit me. It's teacher handing marks out to the class:
"sutler - Excellent analogy. 10 out of 10. Sue - your make a Very good point. But you did get one very important thing wrong. A new, low-cost, no-shareholders model IS possible. You should have know that. So I've given you a 9. Which, I think you will agree is very fair under the circumstances. Banana On Toast - Your are Right. That's a 10. Newsquestslave. What can I say? You didn't read the question did you? I think Miss Frost has already had words with you about that. But it was well written and you did try your best so I'm giving you a 5. Now nationwide...
Uh-uh, I thought to myself. I can guess what comes next. They always do that don't they? - leave the See-Me kids till the end?
Queueing up outside the staffroom this lunchtime waiting for a patronising lecture or a good caning I have to say I feel quite offended. These people don't pay my wages, nor are they ever likely to. What on earth makes them think they can patronise their readers like that?
I know that most people reading this will think it has nothing to do with the issue at hand. But imho it is the only issue. Forget all the management and union stuff and take a step back. Yes the big corporations have creamed off the profits they should have been using to build the business. Nothing new there. It's gone. It's paying for yachts in Cannes. It's never coming back. Get over it. Move on. Not back to 1986. There was something to fight for then. There's nothing left worth fighting over now.
More than that, we can't afford it anymore. Once the bankers have finished packing what little value is left in our savings, homes and personal assets into their own offshore retirement funds and shuffled off to lives of luxury and eye-watering wealth in their paradise locations of choice, those of us who are left are going to have to rebuild most things from the ground up. With no money. That's going to be a gargantuan task. We need all our energies for that. Not waste what little we have left.
All business models are built on satisfying customer desires. As long as journalists continue to squabble amongst themselves over dwindling space on sinking ships, they aren't doing what their customers need them to be doing - helping them build ships that can float.
On the Guardian's media blog on Tuesday 17 Mar 09 at 5:10pm Steve Busfield wrote:
"IanMcN/JonS - to avoid repeating our conversation, let's continue that one over on Jon's blog: http://jonslattery.blogspot.com/2009/03/regional-press-crisis-views-of-editor.html"
What can I say? I've been hanging around outside the staffroom here for a whole seven days waiting for the Guardian's Head of Media and Technology to prove he's as good as his word, turn up as he promised and stand up his end of the debate.
I think a week is well past enough. I'm off. Before I go I'm tempted to carve this old Dutch saying into the staffroom door with my penknife. Except I haven't got a penknife. If I had, I could now be locked up. So I guess I'll just have to pin a note up here instead.
Meten is Weten
To Measure is to Know
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