As the world and his wife – aka the NUJ and 100-odd MPs – start to turn against the notion of enabling the likes of Trinston and Archcliffe to safeguard their magnificent medieval fiefdoms by building bigger silos together…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/apr/02/nuj-local-newspaper-ownership
and, again…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2009/apr/02/downturn-local-newspapers
… there was one name that stood out among that list of MPs who signed the Early Day Motion of Roy’s piece.
That of Janet Anderson… ‘a member of the culture, media and sport select committee…’
On whose watch deciding the fate of the UK provincial newspaper industry probably falls.
Presumeably she will also be involved in the Select Committee’s Inquiry into the future of local media; an initiative launched just last week…
http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/culture__media_and_sport/cms090325a.cfm
All of which is very interesting.
Because Janet Anderson just happens to be the MP for Rossendale & Darwen. In Lancashire.
The home of www.darwenreporter.com
Since we last we looked – and at that stage, having just launched her Addiply panel, our Linda had just one hyper-local advertiser trying to part fund her local journalism living… http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=272
… DarwenReporter.com now boasts four hyper-local advertisers.
Clive’s Photography has been joined by Shires Gift Hampers, Holistic Hypnotherapy and the Lydgate Guest House.
Four Darwen small businesses who, presumeably, believe that Linda’s decision to sell her advertising space at £5 per week represents good value for money in this current climate; one hyper-local, Darwen reporter now, in part, kept in hosting and phone bills by the £80 per month she is already taking home via Addiply.
And that’s five of Ms Anderson’s Rossendale & Darwen constituents who are engaged in the kind of little experiments that Mr Shirky thinks are essential to work out just what might work in the midst of these revolutionary times.
Will this work? Can we drive Linda a bigger and better living; can she tweak the model in a couple of months to charge her ad space out at, say, £10 a week? Or will Clive’s Photography run a mile?
Can she find seven local advertisers to compete for the six ’slots’ on the home page and get one to bid against another, offering Linda £11 a week for her Paypal meter if that meant he or she got the greater prominence that came with the top slot?
But this is not all about Addiply. Honest.
Addiply is just one tool that we need to be arming Linda with to give her a chance. And, no doubt, other hyper-local ad models will spring up off any smouldering forest floor.
The other, big tool that we need to bring to bear is central and regional government advertising.
And this is where Ms Anderson could start to pick up big, political brownie points.
Because as the local MP she should know the social and medical needs of Rossendale & Darwen; she should be able to tap into digital advertising from the Dept of Work & Pensions, the Dept of Health, etc, etc… that can then be cascaded down into www.darwenreporter.com and thereby offer Linda a second income stream.
You marry hyper-local advertising of the Clive’s Photography type to the hyper-targetted of the ‘Let’s fight heart disease together…’ variety and see what happens…
It is a state subsidy, but of a digital advertising variety; organised on a CPM model – because Whitehall might find that model more to their liking than the £5 per week Clive enjoys – I, as a bankrupt Britain tax-payer, have few objections.
The advertising is being drilled down in front of the appropriate eye-balls – those communities with a higher than national average rate of heart disease – but based on a CPM model, I’m only paying when the advert is seen.
And at the same time, I’m helping to finance a hyper-local community news site that is keeping one eye on the re-birth of Darwen Town Council.
And, likewise, if I’m Ms Andreson and I have one eye on getting myself re-elected next time out, I know that – in true Obama fashion – I have to find a way to digitally engage with my voters.
Some of whom will now be lingering on the pages of www.darwenreporter.com whenever ‘they get a mo…’
Most of whom, these days, will have long ago forsaken buying the local evening paper from the now-closed corner shop at the end of the street.
That, for me, is where we need to be going; we need to be thinking how we can empower the Lindas of this world better; how we can create and sustain an army of Lindas; a network of 21st Century village and postcode correspondents who can keep local democracy in order as the local print presses start to fall silent.
The aims of that Early Day Motion, as signed by Ms Anderson, are eminently sensible. Far better than empowering Trinity, Johnston, et al to build bigger silos and – as the NUJ rightly fears – then take a further bloody axe to anyone caught in the middle of the merger mixer.
“… further notes that coverage of court trials, council meetings and local elections is in massive decline; re-affirms a commitment to high quality local journalism as an integral part of engaging people in their community, strengthening local identities and democracy; believes that government action in this area must focus on supporting local journalism not simply propping up companies that have already extracted millions of pounds from their businesses whilst cutting investment in editorial resources;
… and therefore calls on the Government to explore innovative solutions to preserve local journalism and to ensure that state support, either in the form of deregulatory measures or financial help, is given only where firm guarantees on investment in local journalism are secured.”
It, ‘therefore calls on the Government to explore Innovative solutions to preserve local journalism…’
Here’s you big chance Janet Anderson; there’s one right under your nose in Rossendale & Darwen; one that, IMHO, deserves your support and encouragement.
And not a hand-out.
Just give Linda access to hightly-targetted, central and regional government advertising to supplement the money Linda can make herself from advertisers within her own, local community and we are starting to make a difference.
Starting to nurture the green shoots of journalistic reovery.�
First off, I read Linda’s site every day (I live near by). It’s everything a community news outfit should be and hopefully it will continue to grow. And while I understand where you are coming from in terms of suggesting that sites like Darwen Reporter are part of the answer for the future of journalism, I think another part of the answer has to include ensuring that self-sustaining full-time journalism is part of the mix.
Tradtionally small, community newspapers have had a real battle to get anything from the public sector in terms of advertising, and will the Government ever be able to justify such targetted advertising into community news sites, regardless of the local MP’s knowledge of the health issues of the area, when they start totting up the cost of delivering it at their end?
MPs do need to communicate digitally during the next election, and I think part of the solution has to be MPs taking sites like Darwen Reporter seriously, but do they deliver an audience that different to the Lancashire Telegraph, a paper I worked on for six years and which still has a strong sale in Darwen? I fear the focus of the next general election will be tapping into those people who have probably never voted, such as the fabled Facebook generation, and be it community news site or regional newspaper website, we need to make sure we’re part of that interaction.