Out With A Bang

First things first; declare our interest – Bob Russell MP is a very valued columnist on our Colchester United site, www.myfootballwriter.com/colchesterunited – and as an ex-local journalist himself, is more than well-placed to put the following early day motion in front of his Parliamentary colleagues…

http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=36391&SESSION=891

…and calls upon them to: ‘…engage with the local newspaper industry to ascertain what steps can be taken to ensure the survival and prosperity of local newspapers in the best interests of the local communities which they serve…

It is a noble cause – the survival of a local news platform upon which the likes of our Bob can be held to account by the community he steadfastly serves is, indeed, a pressing concern. And ought to be a key component of any fully functioning and mature democracy.

The difficulty, of course, comes when Parliament is asked to ensure the future ‘prosperity’ of local newspapers.

How any Government does that is an intriguing question – particularly when an in-coming Tory administration already appears intent on ripping out all those local planning applications and statutory notices out of local newspapers – saving local councils £17 mill into the bargain.

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=60

Because whilst local newspapers do, indeed, have a compelling role to play in this whole democratic matrix into which our daily lives are entwined, do we want to be offering state support to US-owned Gannett; granting state hand-outs to Johnston Press now 20% owned by Malaysia’s second-richest man, a man valued at £2.4 billion by Forbes?

After all this is the same local newspaper industry that through the Newspaper Society gave evidence to Lord Fowler’s recent House Of Lords committee and offered their lordships a ‘very upbeat’ assessment of where their industry was… they didn’t seem in any particular need of help then…

And this, of course, the same local newspaper industry whose traditional model of prosperity has been feathering the nests of their shareholders for donkeys years; as a tax-payer do I want to be keeping the provincial newspaper industry in dividends?

Or do I want my money to be spent funding new platforms that are rather more fitting for the world that we live in – on platforms and networks that aren’t over-reliant on staining wood so that fleets of little, diesel-guzzling vans and spotty teenagers can deliver the ‘news’ to my door-step 24 hours late?

Long story, but I went down the central Government funding route via NESTA – the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts… http://www.nesta.org.uk/

Making innovation flourish… is the motto. “A unique and independent body with a mission to make the UK more innovative…

So we duly put in a funding request. Was turned down. All very polite; all very well-meaning.

The reason? We were, they said, outside their area of expertise and experience…

Love Bob Russell to bits, but if a penny of my tax-payer’s money goes to enabling the UK provincial press industry to carry on flogging the same old dead horse – and all for their shareholders benefit – while we get bombed by the likes of NESTA because we were far too innovative and different for their liking and I really will go down kicking and screaming.

Cos that’s just wrong. Just plain wrong.