Trinity Mirror job losses, new-look newsrooms, Newsquest shuts press, editors go and 30p on the cost of buying a newspaper…phew…

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For a moment I had to close my eyes and squint. There was carnage everywhere.

It has been difficult to consume the media websites Press Gazette and holdthefrontpage in the last few weeks as job losses, editors leaving and presses closing have created a tale of sorrow across the regional newspaper business.

I considered at one point to take a picture of the holdthefrontpage web site and show my students the carnage, but I thought it would be overwhelming.

And the other point is, before I move on, there are many jobs for journalists, but they do not exist in the numbers they used to in the old regional newspaper industry.

I know many of my former colleagues will shiver at that thought, but this is the reality.

We are seeing the decline in one area and the growth elsewhere, everyone is a publisher, so every organisation, business, charity, school, needs a journalist to write for and about them.

So here we go, to all my students, look away, to the rest of you hardened hacks, here’s the front page of the holdthefrontpage.co.uk …ouch.

From holdthefrontpage, a press closure and two editors leaving their posts.

Editors disappearing at a rate, another press closure as a news giant, in this case Newsquest, gobbles up a smaller company, and all this as Trinity Mirror was announcing yet another re-shape of its business with the loss of 49 jobs in the north east following the loss of 49 jobs in the Midlands and west.

Unlucky number that 49.

By chance, I was discussing the structure of the newsroom with my students when I first started in newspapers and how it (roughly) looked now in this age of online first news.

OK, I’m not an artist, but this is how the discussion developed and the drawing evolved on the white board.

Below is how the structure looked (from memory) and below that, roughly what it looks like today with on the right side the newspaper side and one the left a boiled down version of the web.

OK, I admit, fine art wasn’t my strong point.

Hopefully, though, the point of the lecture was well made. So many newspaper jobs/titles have gone.

One of the key areas decimated is the good old production area, where the subs are few and far between and never mentioned in the world of digital news.

However, having heard about the loss and re-organsiation of TM jobs in the north east, it made me think that I might be out of step with some of the new structures.

TM has gone for the regional approach to cut costs. It has decided to get rid of some editors and merge departments.

The idea, I understand, is to move TM towards a brighter/profitable digital future while the decline of the newspaper continues at a pace.

You can completely accept this theory. The readers are disappearing from newspapers so build where the audience is growing, online.

The tough thing is that newspapers still make more cash than online and while the gap is closing, it is not fast enough, Grand Canyon comes to mind.

In reality, the business will have to accept it will never again make the profit it once had, the golden egg is more like a tin pot.

The north east areas consist of Newcastle and Teesside, in many ways, close geographically, about 40 miles, but a distance in terms of identity.

For those in the know, Teessiders don’t find Geordies agreeable and Geordies feel the same about Teessiders with Sunderland (and Durham) stuck in the middle.

So, there would be uproar if they end up in a properly merging content teams, with all the reporters put together, because they will argue that they can’t cover their own areas properly due to a lack of knowledge.

For now, in some key areas, there appears separation.

I guess the plan is to have a North East umbrella group allowing certain content gatherers to produce stories for both areas, in other words a lot of the new roles will be regional, the new local.

As I understand it, Neil Hodgkinson, the editor at Hull, will control the whole region while an editor for print and digital will report into him.

This plan also involves merging certain areas of the newsroom, I guess some parts of the  digital, social media and sports areas, will come under the regional banner.

There will be a few reporters specifically covering Newcastle and Teeside, but as I understand, they are on the digital side.

It would appear there will be three print reporters who will have regional roles with the idea that they cover stories not touched by the digital team and a further three writers will be harvesting content for the newspaper.

I reckon the total workforce specifically for print could be around 12 for two newspapers, in my sums are correct.

It has to amount to fewer local news stories in the newspapers and fewer journalists writing for the paper as mentioned above.

In many regional newspaper these days it’s easy to identify where the local pages are and where the centralised content begins.

I recently did a random local story count in The Sentinel, my local newspaper, where I once worked, I used to have a special story counting method, so applied that.

The number of local news stories was at least 60 per cent fewer than four years ago (and I was being generous), but with staff numbers down and the demands for online news greater than ever before, it’s easy to see why.

There is an argument as to whether story count matters and, on reflection, I feel we tried to provide too many to the detriment of the better stories.

However, the old ‘pack it full of local stories mantra’ was designed to give value for money, but with fewer local news pages and stories, it is no wonder that readers are turning their backs on newspapers.

Add to this the rising cover price cost of newspapers and we have a recipe for further decline.

Here are the latest ABC figures. They sadly show that once great beast of the north, the Yorkshire Post, is 29 per cent down in the last six-month period, selling just 11,494 compared with a decade ago when it sold 42,337. These figures reveal many other tales of woe.

Back to cover price. One of the key survival tools of the regional press has been to put up the price of the newspaper to bridge the decline in income as sales fall.

I have said before, newspapers steadfastly used to put their cover price up at one or two pence a year.

However, that has increased rapidly as the sales fall has set in. Cynics have suggested that it is a case of milking the business dry as it sinks…

What I can say is from some research I have done looking across at a decade of sales decline and price rises, and it looks like I’m telling you the obvious, that while online has pinched the audience, the policy of increasing the cost of the product while reducing the number of local stories in the newspaper, is a recipe which has accentuated the decline.

I was taken aback slightly when the Western Mail, which sells 13,149 daily, decided to do a relaunch, redesign its magazine and slap 30p on its Saturday edition, more expensive than The Times on a Saturday which costs £1.70.

The odd penny always knocked a few off the sale, a grimace at the thought of what 30p might do.

And I can’t help but feel some sympathy with the paper’s editor, Catrin Pascoe, who came out with the well-worn ‘it will now be bigger and better’ for the new package on offer, readers just don’t get this.

They’ll look at the price, then head for their mobile phone or laptop to read something for free, however good it is.

I’m afraid this has all looked a little bleak. But I have some good news.

The University of Derby journalism department recently held a workshop (see below) with TM journalists with the inspirational Christian Payne to help guide them through a range of news apps which can help them tell their stories online.

There is so much innovation and creativity in the way stories can be told. In a way, this should be the most exciting times for story-tellers, but the shadow of cutbacks takes the sparkle off a new industry growing from an old one.

Just let this rabble loose on the streets of Derby. Lock up your stories! #journalism #mojo #TMLive pic.twitter.com/i0HKJN48Ub

— Christian (@Documentally@Octodon.social) (@Documentally) March 13, 2018

P.S A colleague of mine just sent me this link on Delayed Gratification. I love this concept of taking time to write the news and give it greater perspective.

I believe that, in time, we might all get fed-up with the chatter of social media news and look for a more complete picture, this offers that solution.

Do I now quality for the position of ‘happiness correspondent’? Read about that here.

Should taxpayers’ pay for local democracy reporters for (mainly) the regional press as the BBC seeks to protect its empire…and why office newspaper closures hurt our local communities needing a voice…

 

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Bob Dylan’s song title ‘These times are a changin” is appropriate when you consider the how the regional press and the BBC once got on…or not, as the case maybe.

As the great Bob Dylan has often been known to sing, ‘The times are a changin’’…is there a more apt lyric to match the new love-in between the BBC and the regional press?

In many ways, it’s astonishing that the BBC is forking out £8m of taxpayers’ money  to provide content for the regional press.

OK, technically, as a colleague mention to me, the content is open to any viable media outlet, not just the regional press.

But the deal has been cut by Ashley Highfield, who is chairman of the The News Media Association, the voice of national, regional and local news media organisations in the UK.

He also happens to he CEO of the regional press group Johnston Press. So, you can see, it’s pretty obvious where this is going.

Just to add to my argument, look at where the reporters are to be placed, it’s just weighted to the regional press, end of discussion…

• Trinity Mirror – 24 contracts, 63 reporters;
• Newsquest – 17 contracts, 37 reporters;
• Johnston Press – 8 contracts, 30.5 reporters;
• DC Thomson – 2 contracts, 4 reporters;
• KM Media Group – 1 contract, 2 reporters;
• Stonebow Media (The Lincolnshire Reporter) – 1 contract, 2 reporters;
• Archant Community Media – 1 contract, 2 reporters;
• Citizen News and Media (The Hackney Citizen) – 1 contract, 1 reporter;
• London Evening Standard – 1 contract, 1 reporter;
• Manx Radio – 1 contract, 1 reporter;
• Shetland News – 1 contract, 0.5 reporters.

Now that’s done, back to £8m. Actually, the total bill will be £72m for this newly-formed love pact which has a predicated life span of nine years.

Why astonishing? Well the relationship between the local press and the BBC has not always been so cosy, it might not be now.

The reporters at a number of newspapers I used to work for often said through gritted teeth that the local radio station had ‘stolen’ a story from the paper.

I’d ask ‘how do you know’ and they would simply say they could hear the rustling of the paper in the background as the stories were read out and the pages of the newspaper were turned, cue laughter across the conference room.

Maybe, this was a slight exaggeration, but you get the point. This was a time when ‘stealing’ stories was a big no, no, unlike today when it’s a free-for-all.

I also heard many rows going on in the newsroom when the BBC would ask for a story and my bitter news editor would be screaming  ‘no, get your own stories’ down the phone after the request was made.

Of course, in those days you had to feel sorry for the BBC at local radio stations, with so few staff compared with the army of journalists I and my colleagues had under our command in the regional press.

Simply, the BBC didn’t have the strength in depth to cover the stories we could, so it was obvious they would come round with the begging bowl.

The reason for the angry response from the local newspaper was all about professional pride, they wanted the story exclusively.

Also, there was not any real pressure on BBC reporters, they didn’t have to hit their sales/income targets, life was too easy for them, in the eyes of the regional hacks.

However, there were a few occasions when, often thanks to their national colleagues, who had great contacts in Parliament, they would scoop the local newspaper.

This often led to the editor having a fit in the newsroom and the news editor spitting feathers at the local council reporter.

A couple of years ago I was at a Society of Editors’ in meeting in Manchester and one of the most uncomfortable moments was when the BBC and a couple of regional newspapers were talking about a new content sharing relationship.

Behind the gritted smiles it was obvious the plan wasn’t working and the relationship was as awkward as two teenagers on their first date.

In the dim and distant past I had an interview for the BBC and was taken back about the cultural differences in the regional press and the Beeb.

I was asked in detail about my work and there was a perceptible intake of breath when I told them about the ‘death knocks’ I did, they didn’t like it, not their kind of reporting.

Of course, there is a not so hidden agenda behind the plan. The BBC is desperate to be seen as fulfilling its Charter by signing up to this sort of local agreement, it’s an £8m tick box exercise.

Also, maybe more to the point, the BBC wants to hush the noises from the local press that Auntie has an unfair advantage online with a business model that simply doesn’t have to make cash and a resource so large it batters the regional internet offering.

So this is the £8m-a-year gagging order.

Meanwhile, the regional press can’t believe its luck, getting its hands on extra content for no pounds, no pence.

Also, it allows them to cover all the councils they have turned their backs on.

The reduction in council coverage happened for two reasons, the huge reduction in staffing numbers and the fact that many council stories simply do not get web hits, so resources have gone into producing different content.

For taxpayers, you maybe perplexed why your hard-earned cash is being used to pay for this sort of reporting?

Here, there is a brilliant response. Do you want to hold authority to account? Do you want to protect the Fourth Estate? Well, most of us do. End of discussion.

But whisper it quietly, the newspapers seemed quite happy to abandon a lot of this reporting before the BBC strolled into town with its protectionist plan.

Also, a cynic might ask why these positions be funded by the BBC when the likes of Trinity Mirror,  Johnston Press and Newsquest still manage to make a neat profit.

In July this year TM recorded an adjusted operating profit which was down £6.5m year-on-year to £62.6m for the six-month period.

Also Newsquest reported a pre-tax profit of £23.5m in its annual accounts for 2016.

So, why we all know that the businesses have had a beating, the odd £22,000 for a reporter wouldn’t hurt them, but why bother if Auntie is there? Thank you Mr and Mrs Taxpayer.

And then there’s pay. How much for a BBC reporter? The jobs are being advertised at £22,000. I saw one comment on holdthefrontpage that this was a small sum.

But it isn’t compared to the junior reporters being employed on a lot less.

One of my old newspapers is paying less for a junior than when I worked there, a reporter after two years on £16,000.

Meanwhile, on smaller publications this figure is sadly a lot less, so £22,000 doesn’t look bad, but it isn’t great.

I have also heard that some may get paid a lot more. The original TM newspaper reporters were generally better paid than those of the old Local World which it gobbled up a couple of years ago, as an example.

Overall, this does sadden me, as I have always said that the future of journalism would lie around fewer but better paid multi-skilled geniuses. I can’t see this happening.

Another difficult dilemma will be what to do with those newspapers that still maintain a council reporter?

OK, they could apply for the jobs, particularly if there’s more cash on the table, the job has more stability than their existing job.

The newspaper companies have said that they will backfill if this happens, but they may get away with paying less for a reporter.

Then there’s the thorny issue of who manages these reporters, the editors of the local publication or are they answerable to the BBC?

This could be complex. Who decides what they cover, when they publish, the content of that story, as I mentioned early, there are cultural differences.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against this sort of reporting, it is vital to hold authority to account. The regional press needs to be the eyes and ears of the people its serves.

More than anything, it is just uncomfortable that this sort of relationship has been struck up because of neglect.

Of course, there is an irony sitting in the middle of this. We want local democracy reporters, but at the same time newspaper groups are shutting their local offices.

Surely, local democracy also includes having a voice or presence in the towns where a lot of these councils sit?

The closure of so many local offices came to my attention when I was in the Staffordshire town of Leek and came across the office of the Leek Post&Times.

The message on the door was simple. This office will close on Friday, October 13^th. How apt, Friday the 13^th.

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Here here

Surely local democracy is also about having a foot in the town where you report, but sadly, like the Leek Post and Times, town newspaper offices are closing.

Since about 1870 the Leek Post and Times has had an office in the town. A place where people can pop in, place an ad and talk to a reporter.

They probably saw the editor walking through the town and were able to stop and chat to them.

An editor is so important to a place like Leek, or any other similar market town.

They are the voice of the people, raising concerns and campaigning for the town and its people, a figure head, a bastion of local democracy.

Over the years the position has been diminished as newsrooms shrank.

The last real editor of the newspaper, based in the town and working full-time from the office was Steve Houghton, he lost his job in the summer.

His role was merged with the editorship of the Staffordshire Newsletter and the editor was based 26 miles away, until the Stafford office closed. Luckily, they are based closer now, in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, just 13 miles away.

The closure of these offices is the moment when a town loses its champion, an editor who worked every day in the town and lived and breathed the good and the bad times.

A person who, dare I say, championed local democracy.

The readers of the P&T have never liked that fact that it was associated with its bigger sister title The Sentinel.

Sadly, even the newspaper’s website has been dragged into The Sentinel’s website, it’s just a sideshow to its bigger sister.

The demise of these newspapers is sad and I guess if it’s a case of jobs or offices, I would save the jobs, so I understand the decision, but it is still not very palatable.

The voice of the people, while not lost, is diminished by these closures.

 

 

Why ‘death knocks’ are an essential part of the journalist’s toolkit to find out the truth in a world of fake news…and how police are doing the jobs regional newspapers use to do…

Journalists were criticised for approaching the relatives of the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire disaster, but so-called ‘death knocks’ are an important way of telling a truthful story.

Where angels fear to tread…it is with some trepidation that I have decided to write about the unfortunately named ‘death knock’.

The subject is high on the agenda after the terror attacks in Manchester, London and the fire at Grenfell Tower flats.

Journalists have been criticised for even considering door knocking the relatives of the victims. It is because of this that I have considered for sometime the merits of writing this blog for fear of recriminations.

But, it has to be debated.

Dominic Ponsford, editor if the Press Gazette has been given a bit of a kicking by critics who say his attitude of ‘it’s ok to door knock’ to be out of kilter with the way people are thinking in this, read his article.

Like Dominic, what I can say is that door knocking is just about the toughest professional experience a journalist can have.

However, it can also be the most rewarding.

You may now think I have already stepped across the line by saying that, it could appear callous.

What I mean is that from my experience, many families who have lost a loved one are often happy to talk to a stranger about the death of someone who is near to them.

Dare I say that it is actually a cathartic experience for many of them because, simply, it is just too difficult/traumatic to talk to another member of their family.

I hated the thought of doing death knocks and even today the first one I ever did is a clear memory.

Asked by the newsdesk to talk to a family about the loss of their teenage son I drove round for almost an hour before plucking up courage to knock on the door.

The angst wasn’t required because I was welcomed in and spent an hour listening to the story about of their teenage son. There were tears and laughter as his life unfolded before me.

A few days later they rang to thank me for the report, telling me it was a beautiful tribute.

When I was a reporter on the Express and Star, Wolverhampton, I was asked to door knock the family of a lad who had been murdered.

After spending 10 minutes plucking up the courage to knock, I was left speechless for a few seconds when they berated me for not having turned up sooner, they actually had been expecting me.

I walked out with a wonderful tribute and two bags of pick-up pictures, three of them housed in ornate gold frames.

When I worked at the Derby Telegraph I met the kindly Neil Kerr, Ripley district reporter.

The legend was that he had never failed on a death knock. Even to this day, I’m not sure how true this was, but I certainly never knew of a time when he didn’t come back with the story.

Neil was an old-fashioned district reporter, well-known in the area and respected for his faithful reporting. Families expected Neil to be at council meetings, in the courts, at summer fairs and door knocking.

The humour surrounding why he always came back with the story was based around the fact that people just thought he was from the Co-op undertakers.

However, it was the fact that he was known for telling the truth and that he had a winning way about him. He would knock on the door and simply say, ‘it’s Neil from the Telegraph, pop the kettle on, I’ve come to have a chat about xxxxx’ and across the threshold he went.

Dominic mentions a report by Liverpool John Moores University which actually suggests that journalists hard-pressed for time are using social media to pick up tributes leaving the bereaved families unhappy with the outcome of what is written.

I would argue that death knocks are more important than at any other time in journalism. Why you may ask?

The answer is that in this world surrounded by fake or unverified news, or controlled news from the authorities, we need to do everything in our power to get to the root of the story.

It is too easy to accept a bland press release from the police about a sudden death. That’s not our job, just to take it and not check it.

A lot of the public do expect to have their story in a local newspaper. They expect reporters to go to them to check the facts, not just lift from social media or copy from a press release.

If media organisations are serious about telling the story fairly and accurately, they really have an obligation to knock on the door.

Of course, to those outside the profession, a ‘death knock’ might seem outrageous and heartless, but there are many working practices that happen in other professions which to those looking in seem odd.

If the families of the victims of the Grenfell fire hadn’t been able to tell their story, where would we be now?

Certainly, the pressure brought by these interviews, or door knocks, has helped to tell not only the story before us but the story behind the story, the ticking time-bomb of a disaster waiting to happen.

For those who worry about door knocking, they should be reassured that journalists adhere to the Editors’ Code, here are the sections:

3. *Harassment

i) Journalists must not engage in intimidation, harassment or persistent pursuit.

ii) They must not persist in questioning, telephoning, pursuing or photographing individuals once asked to desist; nor remain on property when asked to leave and must not follow them. If requested, they must identify themselves and whom they represent.

iii)  Editors must ensure these principles are observed by those working for them and take care not to use non-compliant material from other sources.

4. Intrusion into grief or shock

In cases involving personal grief or shock, enquiries and approaches must be made with sympathy and discretion and publication handled sensitively. These provisions should not restrict the right to report legal proceedings.

In the end, for those who don’t like the idea of door knocks, they will never change their minds. But if these are the same people who want the truth, maybe, just maybe, they will think again.

A final thought on another matter. I admit I have a bit of inside knowledge on this, but it concerns me deeply that a court case I’m about to describe was reported in this manner.

I’m told by a close friend that they were looking out for a court case involving a member of their family.

It was a nasty stabbing incident at a time in Birmingham when knife-crime is high on the news agenda.

My friend tells me the court story appeared on the police press web site first and then an hour later on the Birmingham Mail web site and later the front page of the Sutton Observer and on its web site.

What concerns me is that it would appear that no news organisation was in court. The police reported it online, of course there was no mitigation, and it was lifted with a few tweaks by the two newspapers.

West Midlands Police, like so many other forces, have clearly taken to covering the news that newspapers can no longer cover.

However, more worryingly, is that if a reporter had been in court they would have surely challenged the order prohibiting the naming of these youngsters.

This case was of such significance that naming them was an important part of the judicial system in ensuring that justice was seen to have been done.

Instead, we have a bland, one-sided version of events, copy and pasted for wider publication.

There probably is a decent follow-up story about the victim who lost a kidney, his spleen and was left permanently deaf in his left ear.

But with the failure to life the ban, who wants a story about an anonymous victim?

While I appreciate the staffing issues of regional newspapers more than most, you can’t help but feel rather sad.

Here are the stories for comparison:

West Midlands police version:

Sutton Observer:

Birmingham Mail: 

 

Are free newspapers dead and buried? As Trinity Mirror newspaper managers ‘quietly’ close another title, is there a future for the poor old free ‘rag’

The Sentinel Advertiser is one of a number of free newspapers which have bitten the dust in recent months.

Is the free weekly free newspaper on the endangered species list?

In the late 70s and throughout the 80s and 90s the free newspaper was a must-have and must-be seen to have toy of every newspaper group.

They were a cash cow, free to thousands of more readers than their paid for chums, hitting thousands of homes a week, even if readers didn’t want them.

Often cheap to run with cheaper advertising, they were the ugly sister, but effective in bringing in revenue.

Advertisers loved them with their large distribution network.

Hacks were not so kind and laughed in darkened corners of pubs as they described using them for their cat’s litter tray.

Free newspapers were like border guards, making sure no other newspaper group was tempted to set up a paid for or free newspaper in their area.

Quietly, before Christmas, one of my old newspaper’s, The Sentinel in Stoke-on-Trent, closed its free newspaper, The Advertiser.

A bit of a pauper’s funeral for this once hallowed piece of newsprint.

This newspaper was a beast at its pomp with multiple editions and a vast distribution, up to 80,000, if my memory serves me right.

It took the title from the original Sentinel newspaper which used to be called the Staffordshire Sentinel and Commercial and General Advertiser — which hit the streets on January 7, 1854.

As I remember, it used to bring in more than £20,000 a week but slumped to around £5,000.

Its death knell was sounded long before it finally closed with distribution slashed without hardly a word to anyone outside the building.

When they first started, free papers had their own staff, but as time and cost-savings gripped the industry they were put together by the same staff as the main paper, as an after-thought.

While I was at The Sentinel , the Advertiser was reinvented on at least three occasions. It used to be full of all the local stories the news editor didn’t fancy.

Then an edict from on high went out from Northcliffe HQ that the newspapers had to be filled with the best of the stories from the paid-for title.

This sent editors into despair. Already under fire from falling circulations and the demands of the internet, the free paper was now in direct conflict with the main title.

But this idea quickly hit the rocks and the next reincarnation came when it was decided that free newspapers should just have trivia and gossip with little or no real local content.

I redesigned The Advertiser into a modern ‘i-style’ newspaper with a load of short gossip stories, no real leads, big pictures and wall-to-wall trivia.

Editors sighed collectively, no more local content and one of the thorns in their circulation woes removed.

At another time, withdrawing your border control newspaper would be tantamount to letting a rival onto your patch.

But these closures just keep coming, Trinity Mirror  recently announced closures and merges of four free newspapers.

Trinity Mirror is not a lone in closing titles. Research by the Media Reform Coalition and the Press Gazette showed that Newsquest, Johnston, Archant and Tindle have all been forced to close titles.

Some of the closures have been due to mergers and having two titles on one patch when only one is required, some others have been due to cost-cutting because the title wasn’t making enough cash.

Since 2005, 198 newspaper titles have perished.  It’s not all bad news, a snap-shot by the Press Gazette shows that in 2015, 46 local and regional newspapers closed with 29 opening, a net loss of 17.

Despite the fact that some people have the guts to set up a new title, the feeling is that you don’t really need a free newspaper to protect your daily because you would need blind optimism to set up a newspaper in these troubling times.

On the other hand, a niche magazine might work nicely, but that’s for another discussion.

So, does this mean the free newspaper is dead? Far from it.

The endangered species tend to be those attached to a bigger paid-for title or in an area where a takeover has happened and multiple titles from the same group are fighting over the same ground.

Soon, when cover price fails to bring in a good chunk of the profit like it did for newspapers such as The Sentinel, the inevitability is that paid for titles will follow the path of some newspapers and become free or part-free.

The London Standard is already free and papers like the Manchester News are free at certain times of week, many other papers are in a similar position.

Just check out the ABC sales figures and look at the last column which shows actively purchased sales, or the percentage of pure sale, for example, the MEN is just over 56 per cent.

Others will follow this trend as the cover price income drifts into oblivion.

It has been interesting to watch the cover price philosophy of late. I have always believed that newspapers have been too cheap.

This meant there was a culture of keeping the lid on the price and rises were one or two pence at a time.

Now, as circulation drops off, the newspaper groups in their wisdom have kept hiking the prices up. The policy seems somewhat flawed.

If a product is doing well, add a few pence on and hope sales are not hit too hard. Now the policy seems destined to bleed the paper dry, whack up the price, and watch the sales decrease at a faster rate.

The cocktail for decline is greater than just everyone is going online. Higher prices, poorer distribution, cheaper paper, poor print quality, far fewer staff, fewer editions have all helped to stick the knife in.

But whisper it quietly, despite the decline, guess where most of the cash comes from? Yep, print…for now.

P.S Did you see the study by Munich and City University academic Neil Thurman which describes how online readers spend 30 seconds a day on the national newspaper web sites compared with 40 minutes in print.

This is surely the reason advertisers will never spend the same amount of cash online as they do in newspapers, they simply have the audience for longer in print.

Why the thought of Trinity Mirror production hubs brings back nightmares and the endangered species…the editor

Trinity Mirror wants to introduce production hubs as it looks to restructure its business. Other newspaper groups, like the defunct Northcliffe Newspapers tried this method of subbing and design and confined it to the waste bin.

 

Production hubs. Those words. They always bring me out in a sweat. After the accountants had finished picking over the bones of the then Northcliffe Newspapers in 2007, the meat slicer came out, it was time to cut jobs.

I’m not sure how, but I was tasked with not only implementing a unified editorial system across large parts of Northcliffe, but also help be an architect of the production hubs.

At the time, I argued that if jobs had to be lost, the best way was not to create large hubs, but to use the technology to improve and speed up production and keep the subs at the local centres.

Ultimately, I was right, as the hubs collapsed in bitter recriminations and production was returned to the local centres.

Now Trinity Mirror is set to create those beasts of the newsroom once more.

One of the main problems with Northcliffe was that they used an editorial system which was being developed as it was rolled out.

This meant that most centres used the system differently and often this meant poorly.

Many editors didn’t like an inferior deputy editor like me coming in to tell them how to work, so the battles were long and hard to get one system in across the group.

One of the main advantages was that we needed to have the ability to share content, this could only really be done if we had one system and a shared server.

Getting in the new software, however, was only one tip of the iceberg. The real battle started with which centres were going to have the subbing hub and which centre would have their content subbed in a darkened warehouse many miles away.

This was the true war of the worlds stuff for editors who quickly realised that having a production hub on their site gave them enormous power and influence, plus it gave job security to their own workforce.

In many ways, a lot of newspapers benefitted from the hub system. The reason is that subbing at some centres, I’m afraid to say, was not brilliant and they benefitted from being subbed at centres with more experienced staff.

But, there were many, many downsides. The errors due to lack of knowledge about an area were extraordinary.

If you sat in a hub in Hull or Nottingham your knowledge of Lincoln or Leicester was often not up to scratch and errors were made by hard-pressed sub-editors.

There was also a proliferation of headline boxes which went out with the standard ‘Headline 42pt in ere ereere’ or ‘Fill this J please ere ere’ and a lot worse.

There was also a massive amount of posturing from editors as pressure to churn out pages increased.

In the hub I looked after with some excellent, extremely hard-working colleagues, we chucked out 1,000 pages a week.

It got competitive, the fight for survival and which centre produced the most pages most efficiently, a ‘who had the biggest balls’ contest.

To say the least, it was gruelling, it was like working in a factory, just churning out page after page.

I was tasked to spend time working out how many pages one sub-editor could do a day.

Of course, if every page had a 20×7 ad on, you could do a lot. So an average figure of eight pages per day became the agreed task for every sub.

I was not happy with the figure, but there had to be a benchmark, ‘let’s weed out the lazy ones’ one of the most senior editorial gurus in Northcliffe growled at me down the phone.

‘Mmmmmmmmm…’ I said, with a hint of desperation.

A colleague of mine bravely agreed to sub and design eight blank news pages as a trial. This experienced sub and designer worked flat out without a proper break for 10 hours and managed to achieve the task.

He admitted to me that after just one day of that, he was on his knees, how he said would he feel after two or three days having to do this? ‘Knackered’, I said.

I believe he may still be on medication…

Yep, eight pages without ads every day would break most subs, no wonder errors rose dramatically. The other major issue was getting copy through quickly.

Traditionally, as all us hardened subs know, reporters have a knack of delivering copy as they put their coat on and head for the pub at their close of play.

In the hub, this wasn’t possible, content had to be sent with military precision, each page had a deadline and if you couldn’t fill it, the front page lead would be grabbed and whacked in as a 140-worder so Page 47 could be sent.

In a way, the hubs were a sprat to catch a mackerel. They allowed major reorganisation of production, code for making a lot of people redundant.

It forced editors, who had fought tooth and nail to keep staff, to rethink their strategy.

They simply agreed to take subbing back to their own centres with a massive reduction in the original staff who used to sub and design the newspaper.

It wasn’t a case of back to square one. Most news pages were templated, you could have taught a child to drag and drop a page.

The boxes on the pages were sent to reporters to fill, including the headlines. At the end of the day, a quick refresh and the page was full and ready to go…sort of.

The main issues were that despite some training, reporters struggled with headlines, particularly making them interesting.

Reporters, under huge pressure to fill a quota of boxes as well as feed online often filled a box which was 200-words when the reality was that the story was only worth a nib.

Anyway, Trinity Mirror does seem fixed on going down the hub route. It will probably mean large, actually, not too large (there aren’t that many left) offices with rows of subs.

It could also mean that some production people stay at their centre, but have to sub copy from across a large area.

Whatever the outcome this time, it was clear to me when Northcliffe brought in the hubs that subbing copy a distance away from the patch was far from ideal.

It also goes against my view of the industry. I think newspapers should be light on their feet, able to change at the drop of a hat, not being at the mercy of a vast subbing pools weighing down the rest of the business.

Also, it surely contradicts the philosophy that journalists should be multi-skilled and not tied to one particular part of the business?

An editorial floor should be a place where journalists can turn their hand to any job if a gap in what is required for the day’s business appears.

The silos in a newsroom should be confined to the spike.

Newspapers including the Grimsby Telegraph and the Lincolnshire Echo will no longer have an editor. Sad news.

The Telegraph has for more than 30 years been one of the better performing titles in the former Northcliffe Newspaper and Local World group.

It’s consistency of performance and great journalism has been in no small part to the editors, the late Pete Moore and the present editor, the excellent Michelle Lalor.

As for the Lincolnshire Echo, I had some of my happiest times at this fabulous paper under the editorship of Mike Sassi, now editor of the Notts Post.

It was a newspaper which truly championed the community with the editor being the heart and soul of this.

Local newspapers without an editor to represent the newspaper and be part of the community can only mean a disconnection between the newspaper and the city, town or village it represents.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trinity Mirror’s editorial big guns Neil Benson and David Higgerson stirred by Croyden Advertiser’s Gareth Davies after Twitter storm

Former Croyden Advertiser chief reporter Gareth Davies created a social media storm with his criticism of Trinity Mirror.

 

There have been few occasions as far as I can recall when two such prominent editorial executives such as Trinity Mirror’s Neil Benson and David Higgerson have been moved to respond in such detail from the criticism of one reporter.

I understand that there was an emotional outcry when former Croyden Advertiser chief reporter Gareth Davies spilled the beans on how he felt TM was destroying his beloved newspaper.

The response from Mr Benson and Mr Higgerson showed as much passion for what TM is doing as Mr Davies obviously has for the Advertiser and his belief that TM is ruining it.

As stated eloquently by Mr Higgerson, TM hasn’t banned stories which generate less than 1,000 page views.

But, from what I know one of the firm’s digital documents states that 43 per cent of stories on TM’s top 12 web sites have generated an audience of fewer than 1,000 page views.

This is in a section which asks how well the firm’s journalists know its audience. The inference from this section clearly is that 1,000 pvs is a benchmark for stories…

Based on this, you can perhaps conclude that there’s a misunderstanding by some of the TM team over what is required, this isn’t a ban, just a quiet word of guidance.

What is clear, is that TM has a plan, this has not always been the case for many newspaper groups. It is based around growing its digital audience, so the focus of the newsroom is clearly geared towards this.

Analytics of the audience is a tool to help this growth. Never has an editor had so much quality intelligence about its audience.

It means, for the first-time, editors can base decisions on hard facts and not just finally-tuned instincts. I do think Mr Benson describing journalists as ‘arrogantly’ choosing what they want to write about as slightly harsh.

Most journalists I have worked with write stories which they believed were important to their readers. There was never a day when an editor and his top team worth their salt didn’t talk about sales and how to improve them.

The times a gleeful newspaper sales manager entered a news conference to proclaim a sales spike on the back of a top story are too many to remember.

No, the newspaper men and women I worked with were obsessed with their ‘audience’ (readers) so there is nothing new on that front.

The difference is that now there is more evidence available to work out which stories the audience is reading.

What would you rather rely on, fact or instinct with a teaspoon of evidence from the sales history of a newspaper?

However, there is a word or two of caution here, the web audience is different to the newspaper audience, so what works well online doesn’t necessarily reflect what might work well in print.

There is little evidence to suggest newspapers are doing well thanks to the digital-only policy, indeed, sales decline for many still smashes double figures.

I was also concerned with the point raised that there’s more content in the newspapers. Recently, sadly, I spent a day counting stories and pages in a couple of TM’s biggest regional papers.

I used the same formula as I had used when I was a deputy editor and editor and it was clear to me that rather than there being more stories there were fewer. I used to aim for between 65-100 local news stories a day in my papers and a minimum of 15-17 overnight pages.

Clearly, from my research, this wasn’t the case and there were a lot of centrally produced pages, which I didn’t count, because I wouldn’t have previously.

This is not a direct criticism, but there are fewer local stories, fewer pages and newspapers cost a lot more. With staff cuts and an emphasis on digital, something has to give.

One of the reasons for fewer stories is because a journalist will be asked to go out on a story, cover it live, write Tweets, post it on Facebook, a version or two online and then it is shifted to the paper.

This takes time, so one story will be polished, but there’s many other stories that won’t be written due to lack of time. The idea is to get, say 20, great stories online and get the audience to come by building content around them.

I guess the way to resolve this is to harvest content from elsewhere to publish, but once again this takes time, unless you can get out the automatic content scrapers.

When we got rid of the editions of the newspaper and printed overnight the newspaper felt dead, we dreamed of those adrenalin busting days of swapping stories around and writing breaking news.

This died with overnight production, but the web gave us a continual edition and I think reinvigorated the newspaper office, the buzz returned and that was great.

However, the demands are many for the journalists at any newspaper group. The 21st century journalist has to have an array of skills, which is exciting for the next generation.

At the centre of this is the ability to tell a great story using core journalistic skills but they also need to understand how to attract an audience using analytics, understand Twitter and Facebook, after all, just view these as modern day bill boards, the ability to use Facebook Live or Periscope, to edit video and write great SEO.

Challenging, yes, but this multi-skilling has helped to reinvent a business which was floundering. It is because a journalist is asked to do so much that massive effort is put into key stories.

What these stories are, is now based on a history of performance online. Is this click-bait then or the ability to give the audience content they want to read?

After all, a newspaper and a website are products which have to be sold, I can’t see Tesco’s selling something no-one wants to buy.

Similarly, why would a media organisation provide content no-one wants to read?

Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of concerns about the ability of firms to hold authority to account, for example, how many local councils and health authority meetings are covered today?

Newspaper groups may well argue that the reality is that no-one wants to read this anyway, where is the audience, so why cover them?

I completely understand Mr Davies for being so annoyed with the way TM has developed. But what choice did the firm have?

Newspaper sales are in terminal decline and there’s a chance to keep the business going by throwing resource into digital.

The issue however comes down to cash. Most of the money still arrives from newspaper advertising and sales, as sales decline, so will the cash.

However, no newspaper group will ever be able to get the same revenue returns online, even if the cuts go deeper.

So we will all have to accept that it’s a different business, one with less income, better audience knowledge, journalists with different, but more skills.

Is it better or worse than when I started? Difficult to say, it’s just different. I often had the discussion with my newsdesk about content.

I constantly challenged them on whether the stories newspapers had traditionally covered were the stories for the 21st century readership?

What we are seeing is that the content produced has to reflect the new needs of the audience.

The web has proved that a re-focus of what is good content is needed and that is why it has changed and Mr Davies is unhappy, as are many other journalists who plied their trade when regional newspapers were in their pomp.

There is an argument to say that the policies of modern newspaper groups has accentuated the decline.

But for at least two decades the industry dithered over what to do with the web and while this went on the world passed it by.

Now there’s a lot of catching up to do.

Regional journalism has some great challenges ahead. My hope is that surely, continuing to tell great stories means that it will continue to be the best job in the world…for now.

 

 

 

 

The folly of 24 as it joins the graveyard with New Day…and regional editors continue to face print v digital dilemmas

 

After the demise of New Day, 24, the North’s National Newspaper has also shut after just six weeks.

 

Like most media pundits, I have no pleasure in being right that 24, the North’s National Newspaper has shut after just six weeks.

I flippantly said that not even Kiefer Sutherland could save this 24, sadly, like so many people in the newspaper industry, we wished it success, but deep down knew it had little hope.

Six weeks is not long enough to see if something will work. However, I would be more concerned about the thought processes which set the wheels in motion to launch the paper in the first place, as I was over the strange decision to launch New Day, which lasted just nine weeks.

I admire entrepreneurial spirit, but with the landscape increasingly bleak for papers in the regions, just look at the latest ABC figures, and the next batch will not look much better.

The figures suggest that the newspapers with the lowest sales have a lesser decline because there’s nowhere else to go in terms of decline, while the biggest papers just keep losing big chunks of sale.

The dilemma an editor faces today is where to put his resources. Within a company such as Trinity Mirror there is a clear digital first strategy.

Previously, I have discussed how, despite putting a brave face on it, the newspapers are taking a back seat  as TM newspapers strive to get a slice of the digital audience.

This has left many journalists at the group upset with industrial action threatened at some of the newspapers.

But the reality is that there’s a relentless move to bring in the audience and get page views at all newspapers.

Based on this the editor has to decide to whether to put all their eggs in one basket and just do digital or carry on doing the paper and hope no-one notices that digital performance is lagging behind.

Of course, you might say that editors need to do both. The reality is that with fewer staff than ever before you cannot be all things to all men.

The philosophy of digital content has shifted. In the early days, regional newspapers used to put up every story written for the newspaper, often in one bulk upload.

Things are more sophisticated now and there’s a constant flow of content with particular emphasis on key times of the day and for the digital operation, rather than throwing up as many stories as possible online, to polish fewer stories and build more content around it.

The outcome is that many of the digital stories can take time to put together. If a reporter is out live blogging from an event, or on Facebook Live, taking pictures, and sending out Tweets, the chances of doing many more stories in a day is limited.

So when the print gang turn up to produce the newspaper they may not have as much content to play with as they had in a bygone era, where story content and value for money were high on the editor’s agenda.

What I have noticed is to compensate for the drive on digital in the regions, paginations have gone down, as has story count, while at the same time the cost of buying a newspaper has risen dramatically.

While the decline in sales has been endless, the above is a recipe for a nose-dive.

But does it matter? The business is firmly placed in digital land and the newspaper is just one aspect of that.

While The Independent took a brave step to bin its paper version and go digital only, I still think that a modern media firm needs both a presence online and in paper.

At the moment the revenue from newspapers sales continues to boost the coffers of these firms, but increasing cover price will inevitably see the readers disappear.

Once this happens, a different model for print will have to be created and the once great regional beasts will probably have to consider either charging £2 a copy or going free or part free.

But, as the grip on staff numbers tightens, who is going to want to read regurgitated content in the newspaper which appeared online 12 hours earlier?

My thoughts were always to make online the first read and the paper the last read.

The Times has taken a similar stance, both in paper and online. It doesn’t published continuously unless a big story breaks. This allows the paper to print online in an edition structure and the benefit is that readers get the fuller story rather than endless snippets.

This flies in the face of just about every other news media outlet, but it is not without merit when you think about the endless content put out when a story is breaking and having to piece it all together like a jigsaw.

It is an experiment worth watching but perhaps reflects the readership of The Times, 55+, who frankly do not fancy endless news feeds.

However, we all have to remember that the paper is still the cash cow. Simply, advertisers pay pence for page impressions and the cash coming in is not enough and certainly will never reach the scale of the amount of money made by newspaper businesses in their pomp.

Finally, I was with an SEO news guru a week or so ago and they stopped me in my tracks. Passionately they spoke about how to get your news on top on the Google pile and it’s often down to the fine art of SEO headline writing.

Who were the best headline writers? Sub-editors. The expert went onto say that media groups will regret not having this much-maligned breed back in their newsrooms, surely they said, they would have been the best SEO headlines writers in the business?

Food for thought.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Should journalists be gagged by their editors from putting their views about Brexit on personal social media?

Should journalists be free to write their own opinion on their personal social media? Has an editor the right to ask them to ask them to stop writing their own views?

 

‘Some people’s idea of freedom of speech is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage…’ – Winston Churchill

Most journalists believe in the idea that they are still part of the Fourth Estate, holding authority to account and preserving freedom of speech.

But the rise of social media has certainly tested this freedom to the limit. Many editors have been forced to wince every now and again when one of their troops says something they are unhappy about.

This is particularly true if their staff are saying something they may not agree with.

So, if an editor spots one of his journalists commenting on something they dislike, have they the right to tell them to stop?

If this was the case, wouldn’t the editor be at the very least going against all the historic and ethical principles of free speech?

I agree that most of us can tell a tale of how one of our colleagues or friends wrote something which made us shudder.

And firms, such as Sky, are keen to view the social media output of people they are interested in employing, to make sure there’s nothing too controversial.

Personally, I repeatedly tell any youngsters I know looking for a job to clean up their social media, or at least have a professional one and personal one, which should be for their mates only.

So, back to journalists. Has an editor the right to impose a gagging order?

Surely journalists should be free to express an opinion or is it right if their editor warns them to be neutral, even if the editor is clearly biased?

I guess, if the journalist is writing under the banner of a media outlet, then they have to think carefully about what they write.

They cannot be seen to bring the organisation into any kind of disrepute, but there has to be a sensible boundary.

So, if impartiality is required by the business, then they have to sit on the fence.

However, what if they are expressing a view on a personal account?

Ok, most of their mates will know that they are a journalist, but even journos deserve to have a private opinion, don’t they?

What’s more, as I have often experienced, editors have a view and ensure the paper or web site support that personal opinion.

I have known editors, for example, who insist on writing headlines on certain issues so the ‘tone’ is right, in other words, supports their view of the story.

So if you are sitting in an office listening to the editor mouth off about their opinion and write headlines to match it, would you perhaps think that you had a right to also have your say?

It is easy to hide behind impartiality to stop journalists having an opinion if that suits your game plan. But the idea that journalists should be gagged because of their profession seems unfair and even unethical.

In the Brexit debate, many people have taken sides and debated the issues, this is real democracy, as opposed to informing journalists to keep quiet, that’s tantamount to tyranny.

Journalism is built around the premise that it is a bastion of freedom and democracy.

These are fine principles as long as you practice what your preach and effectively telling staff to keep quiet is a bit of a blow to this philosophy.

Personally, I always encouraged freedom of speech, but would warn journalists that their reputation was always on the line, so sensible comment was preferred to a bias rant.

In the case of the Brexit, I would have asked for the same. If writing directly under the banner of the newspaper, I would have said stay balanced and pose questions rather than forcing out an opinion.

As for any other account, I would encourage them to choose what they say carefully and professionally, but journalists are entitled to an opinion.

It has to come down to a matter of trust. You have to trust the professionalism of your staff to do the right thing.

Anyway, much of what is written in a newspaper has an opinion behind it, just look at all those campaigns which are so often heralded.

They are clearly designed around a bias opinion, or the editor’s own agenda, so it is nothing new for journalists to have an opinion, like everyone else.

So it would seem rather cheap if an editor was to put the fear of God into his journalists by sending out a ‘Big Brother’ is watching you memo.

If the opinions of a journalist are against the majority, or the editor’s own views, it doesn’t mean that they are not worthy of being broadcast.

Editors who attempt to enforce a policy on journalists inevitably lose the respect of their newsroom.

Are the BBC going to sack Danny Baker for his rather outrageous and possibly offensive remarks about the England team?

I think not. Even the BBC believe in some kind of free speech.

So I would say to all journalists, have a voice, our industry is a broad church of opinion and if it becomes restrained by dictatorial editors, the world will be a poorer place.

Meanwhile, I know I keep saying I’m going to write about skills audits and redundancy. Ok, it doesn’t sound too much fun, but there are some unusually dark arts at play.

More of that to come.

 

 

Not even Kiefer Sutherland can save the north’s 24 after failure of Trinity Mirror’s New Day

Good luck to 24 – The North’s National paper. I love to see a newspaper group buck the trend and set up a newspaper as others continue to decline or close, like the poor old Grantham Target.

However, I’m a little surprised this has happened just a short time after the dramatic closure of Trinity Mirror’s New Day. On the one hand my heart wants to cheer the news of a newspaper opening, but my head just says it’s a train crash waiting to happen.

And what sort of newspaper is it? It will have an editor and two reporters bravely drafted in for however long as the paper lasts. Much of the content will be supplied by PA and the reporters will spend time giving the content a northern feel.

The newspaper, the idea of independent regional publisher CN Group, is modelled on the Metro, which also uses lots of wire content but doesn’t have a foothold in the area. The new paper will cost 40p for just 40 pages, a penny a page, while the Metro is a free pick-up based around the transport network.

According to the Press Gazette, CN’s Group chief executive Miller Hogg says that the decision to launch a new title was based on research into the distribution area and is aimed at people who “want a straight-talking newspaper which is of relevance”.

Interesting. What does ‘relevance’ mean in this case. I can only assume it means that it has stories from the north. Mr Hogg talks about covering northern football and court cases from the big northern city.

Sad to say, but not even Kiefer Sutherland can save 24 from ending up on the scrapheap.

This is fine, but why would it work? This is a traditional format of news, bundling up stories and throwing it at the public. It is clear the public no longer want this, or to be more accurate, they don’t need to have this form of bundled news.

The public are now their own editors. They don’t sit and wait by the letterbox for a newspaper put together by an editor who has decided what they need to read.

Readers are now their own editor, they decide what news they want. Thanks to search engines they can find their specific areas of interest and don’t even look at other news out there.

For years editors fed the public with news, but the reality is that people chose what they wanted to read in a newspaper and glazed over the rest.

What the web has highlighted is that much of the news produced in a bygone era failed to register with readers, unless they had an interest in it.

This is why newspaper groups monitor to depth what they put online and if an article, video or blog brings in an audience, they add similar content to feed the audience until they have had enough.

This is part of the reason for the decline of newspapers, the idea of bundling up news and giving it to readers is out-dated.

You could argue that 24 will be read because it has its own bundle of northern news, but this will not be enough. The only saving grace is that CN is looking for at a conservative readership of 10,000, usually the breaking point where a daily becomes a weekly.

But, like the New Day, not having its own web site is a big hole in the business plan. Having said that, Google doesn’t like duplicate content and with much content coming from PA, this will be inevitable as stories are picked up by other outlets.

It is interesting to note that recent research shows that 60 per cent of those who use Twitter and Facebook rely on these social media giants to provide their news, this figure can only go up.

Similarly, Mr Hogg argues 24 is after a slice of regional and national advertising. He is in for a battle as Facebook and Twitter continue to suck up advertising, damaging traditional media income by up to 30 per cent.

I wish them well, but fear not even Kiefer Sutherland can save 24 from ending up like the New Day.

 

 

 

Trinity Mirror’s New Day, what’s going on? Plus, why the digital revolution is on the march in regional newspaper land

New Day. Not exactly an inspiring name for a newspaper, it sounds more in-keeping with a name given to a church newsletter. But let’s not be gloomy. One paper gone, The Independent, another one arrives.

I’ve read extensively around why TM wants to launch the paper today, with stories of gaps in the market and a large untapped audience, plus a commitment to newspapers, but, unless there’s some deep intelligence I’m unaware of, I can’t make too much sense of it.

Many pundits have been surprised that Trinity Mirror has launched a new newspaper and I ap;laud the company for its bravery.

I can only think that TM has thrown its dummy out of the pram at not acquiring the i newspaper and decided to go head-to-head with it.

On the other hand, maybe TM still realises deep down that there’s still cash to be made in print. Remember, don’t be fooled by the web revenues, as I have said before, some newspaper firms are creaming off money from print advertising income to make online look better.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with this, except it is hiding the reality that online will never make-up for the decline in print revenues.

So back to the launch of New Day, ok, I’ve only seen one copy, but if this is the future of newspapers then I’m slightly perturbed. You have to wonder who will buy it?

I have said that many were surprised by the launch of a new newspaper because it goes against the TM philosophy which is completely committed to the web, just look at its online figures for the regional press and then the sad newspaper sales figures.

Also, look at the fact that TM is already introducing its 3:1 newsroom into the former Local World editorial newspapers. Sorry, apparently it’s not former Local World, just Local World, despite being taken over…I wonder why that is?

While my former colleagues thought that the so-called ‘transformation’ under David Montgomery was huge, this is in a different league, it’s digital, digital, digital, oh, and a bit of newspaper.

A student, aged 18, asked me the pertinent question of the week: ‘Why has it taken newspapers so long to buy into the digital world?’

The question was spot on.

Back in the dark ages, about 1999, I entered my office in Lincoln and the only way to get online was by dial-up…and that didn’t work.

By that time Northcliffe did have news web sites, but the desire for them to be a success just wasn’t there, someone even told me that ‘hell would have to freeze over first.’

The reasons were mixed for this failure to embrace the web, but mainly it was due to the fact that editors’ feared the web would destroy the newspaper and now The Independent may well have proven a little bit of this story.

On the other hand, was the newspaper doomed anyway? The chances of meeting a journalist who has worked on a newspaper with a circulation rise in the last 30 years is the equivalent of seeing a dinosaur walking along the A50 to Derby.

As I have said previously, by 2006-07, with classified lost to online and households having access to broadband wi-fi, the newspaper business was in crisis.

It was at this point that printing overnight to save costs was the only way forward, which left the door open to the argument that there were now two editions, one for the paper and one online.

The battles between newspaper editors and the digital bods, who had the nerve to ditch their ties, had been won by digital, or so it seemed.

Since 2007 regional newspapers have continued to toy with the web like a playful kitten, many staff not really buying into the culture.

‘Of course we are digital first,’ was the scream heard from the newsroom with a knowing nod and a wink as the best story of the day was held back to sell newspaper in 15 hours time.

Having witnessed the latest Trinity Mirror editorial shake-up taking in the old Local World newspapers, you know the wind of change is just about to sweep through the newly-acquired titles.

Taking a broad brush, TM titles have performed better online than old LW titles, while the LW titles have had better newspaper circulation figures.

But TM’s business is far more digital first. While TM makes encouraging noises about the newspapers, if you picture a large room the newspaper team is over in a darkened corner, waiting patiently for content from the digital team on its 2pm-2am shift…

To put it simply, if I was in charge of a regional newspaper owned by TM I would be ensuring that all my mates suddenly had a role with digital in their title to ensure they were protected…or would I?

If I was an accountant I might be wondering how TM can afford to create this digital empire based on the fact that the cash isn’t really there while the newspapers continue to grind out higher profit.

Back in the digital land of TM, as I understand, you either buy into the ‘revolution’ or you are out on your ear. So all those journos who played lip-service to online, be warned.

There are several aspects to the TM digital model.

Skills are important, but they are not the traditional skills we all associate with being a news journo. This will have a profound effect on those who train journalists, knowledge of court, council or public meeting take a backseat, hello to wizards of social media who understand web analytics or can pull a Storify article together in five minutes.

Then you have to ask about the roles in a newsroom. Effectively, if your story doesn’t get enough uniques, then should it have been written? So, for example, if health or education stories don’t get an audience, why bother doing them?

What about the editor? Does he actually have to edit the newspaper any longer when the focus is clearly on the web? Is the solution is to put someone else in charge and just keep an eye on what’s happening in the cupboard?

If there is no need to have certain specialisms which have been a must in the newsroom of old, what are the roles required? Well, what gets the biggest audience would be the first question I would ask? The answer is football.

This role wouldn’t be just writing match reports, match previews or a story about the odd groin strain, it is far greater than that.

It is all about generating content which leads to debate online, analysing football stats, feeding social media audiences with gossip and tit-bits of information, looking at what content does well and then feeding that with more content.

This is a far cry from a football reporter chatting to the manager over a brew before filing a couple of articles and disappearing off to the pub.

So what does this new newsroom look like? It has experts in a field of content which grabs audiences, forget instinct to pick stories, go for data, move in a data analyst, social media editors and content writers who write stories in advance to pick up the mood of the nation for big events or those special occasions such as Christmas and Valentine’s.

Oh, and if the editor is not keeping a watching brief over the newspaper, you need to have someone in charge of that old-fashioned print publishing. So what you will be asking is this good or bad?

Well, it seems to have worked for TM, its digital audience is good. Is it good for journalism? As ever, there are dangers. As I have said previously, rip up the old news agenda and look again. Never have news organisation had such great intelligence on what the audience likes.

But should content be purely based on what the audience wants? I guess, welcome to the real world of retail, has Tesco knowingly ever sold something that it knows people don’t want?

So why should journalism be immune from the art of good business? When the news editor provides a brief from a parish council meeting just ask them, who is going to read it?

Does this mean that those stories based around holding authority to account are now gone, farewell Fourth Estate? This is very possible.

The Independent has said that it will maintain the standards of its journalism online by ensuring big hitters like Robert Fisk are still employed, but what if he doesn’t get a big enough audience?

Who or what will pay for editorial? If the Guardian can’t make money from online and The Sun and The Mail are struggling, what does the future hold?

Both say that the decline in print revenue is not made up with digital revenue and this is the case for most news organisations.

Based on this, can The Independent survive, is there enough cash coming in to keep journalists employed while turning over a profit?

Back in the old LW domain, if you fancy staying in the mix, think, talk and sleep digital, but keep an eye on the newspaper, after all, the old beast still turns a coin.