Wednesday, 19 May 2010

Steve Dyson or Sir Ray Tindle: Who's right?










Steve Dyson in his blog reviewing regional newspapers, hosted by HoldtheFrontPage, announces a new feature today: 'Pointless story of the week'.
His first winner comes from the paper he is reviewing, The Gazette, Blackpool, and is headlined 'Caravan raid': "Officers are searching for a burglar who forced his way into a caravan at North Drive, Cleveleys, some time between Sunday and Tuesday. Nothing was stolen."
I was at the same conference as Steve last week, Local Heroes, organised by Press Gazette and Kingston University.
Sir Ray Tindle, the king of the regional weeklies, gave the keynote speech and spoke movingly about how he had saved the Tenby Observer (established 1853) from the clutches of the Receiver.
Sir Ray told how he put the paper back on the road to success by insisting on local news. "A cat must not have kittens in Tenby unless it is covered in the Observer, but forget the rest of West Wales," he told the paper's staff.
They obeyed instructions and produced a "magnificent" Tenby paper, Sir Ray said, adding proudly: "They had localised the paper as I had asked - literally. Here is a quote from the front page 'Theft of two clothes brushes from caravan'. "
To Steve that might be a non-story; but Sir Ray, showing his grasp of the latest media trends, asked: "Could this be another early example of being hyper-local?"
at

5 comments:

  1. Steve Dyson19 May 2010 at 09:42

    Ha! Good spot of caravan theft comparisons, Jon! But Sir Ray is right in my mind... such stories SHOULD be in hyper locals like his town-specific weeklies. The Gazette, I would contend, is no such paper... it's a daily covering the large town of Blackpool and a dozen or more larger towns and scores of villages in Lancs. For this size of paper, I reckon a caravan brea-in with nowt stolen in a particular village is pointless to the majority of its readers. Tick me off if I'm wrong, but I reckon this backs Sir Ray's point...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jon Slattery19 May 2010 at 10:14

    Fair point Steve. You are both right. You and Sir Ray could be the David Cameron and Nick Clegg of the regional press.

    ReplyDelete
  3. GreyBeard19 May 2010 at 12:02

    English grammar or Jon Slattery: who's right?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jon Slattery19 May 2010 at 12:22

    Thanks to GreyBeard for pointing out my headline howler. I had put "Whose right?" Arrrghh! There must be a fault in my new editorial content management system. Apologies.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Steve Dyson19 May 2010 at 14:33

    It used to be possible to blame the printers or type-setters...

    ReplyDelete