Out With A Bang

This is a path that we’ve trod before… the trick, for me at least, is to sense the tone…

http://www.journalism.co.uk/2/articles/534752.php

“What the problem needs above all is some innovative, quick thinking on behalf of government,” were the words of Bob Satchwell, of the Society Of Editors. His impatience, you suspect, not helped by the game of musical chairs that is Whitehall of late…

Three, supposed ‘champions’ of this digital word of ours – Tom Watson MP, Andy Burnham MP and now Lord Carter – are all exiting centre stage, leaving the new man at the helm of Culture, Media and Sport Ben Bradshaw MP with the unenviable task of actually putting a ‘Digital Britain’ into practice.

For however long this Labour administration has left in office, that is.

“We need Bradshaw to realise how urgent this is,” stressed Satchwell… ‘Of course don’t forget that there are long-term issues that need to be dealt with too. Whether it’s local consortia, whether it is relationships between the BBC and the licence fee payer, all of these issues will take months if not years to resolve.

“The difficulty is that while we’re waiting to create new models to deal with new media landscape the existing reality may be so seriously damaged that it may be too late to apply those complex solutions.”

Ms Bailey has been as equally urgent in her tone before now while at The Guardian, Mr Rushbridger has a phrase that he inserts into a number of speeches that I’ve either heard or read… that ‘for the first time since the Age Of Enlightenment’ we have to reckon on the prospect of a major UK city being without a daily newspaper to call its own… that the Star could, indeed, set on Sheffield.

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=235

Those words crossed his lips again at the Local Media Summit in the House Of Commons the other month; the one in which no-one came to the party with an axe to grind – the Newspaper Society and the Local Government Association, the BBC and ITV… everyone was united in a common purpose as Messrs Burnham and Carter presided over the future media landscape of the nation…. before heading for the hills…

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=285

Since then, of course, the BBC’s row with ITV has only intensified as to who, exactly, is going to pay for the content that someone, somewhere delivers into the regional news ’slot’ on Channel Three..

Likewise, this notion that the pair were somehow going to share office space and TV trucks appears to be going t*ts up… while, if the News Of The World’s sneak preview of the final ‘Digital Britain’ report is to be believed today, then the Beeb are also going to find themselves £120 million lighter as £5 of the licence fee is sliced off the top and pumped the way of ITV…

And won’t that go down well?

Not that the BBC will find many friends on the Opposition benches. The Tories – all set for power as and when Brown’s shambles of a party implodes one last time – already have their sights firmly set on bringing the BBC firmly to heel; hacking into what they perceive to be the culture of excess at TV Centre.

And yet, somewhere, in amidst all that ever-deepening sh*te, OfCom are still holding onto this notion that a gathering of ‘Local Media Consortia’ will ride to the rescue of Anglia News…

The paper also claims that the report will unveil ‘a fund for ailing regional newspapers’ – which will come as good news to the US owners of NewsQuest that the UK tax-payer was riding to its recsue…

What was interesting about Satchwell’s exasperated comments, however, was the vehicle he appeared to offer in terms of delivering an ‘immediate’ answer to the industry’s needs…

“Public money is already earmarked for training initiatives. The government already funds training and should be looking to direct it where it will do most good in the short-term,” he explained.

“If there was money going directly to a local newspaper it might well be that they would continue to hire trainees.

“That means that you create employment and you also ensure that training is continuing, which is always a problem in recessions. But, most important of all, it could help to maintain reporters on the ground.”

That’s an interesting one… short-hand lessons subsidised by the State?

But – wearing my UK tax-payer hat – that’s all fine, as long as that money was indeed put into training schemes for the next generation of journalists; for me, ‘might well be…’ isn’t good enough.

You either do re-train reporters for a life in Digital Britain or you don’t get the money. I’m not in the mood to subsidise the delivery of news by a bicycle in 2009.

But there is one point that screams out amongst all this… and it’s an old one, as far as the pages of this blog are concerned.

The only people who are going to help journalists in both this country and beyond is journalists themselves.

Journalists have to save journalism.

In this country, politicians are far more interested in saving themselves than saving the local rag; besides, I’m not sure any of us actually have an answer.

In fact, having walked this walk for the better part of four years I know there is not one answer; rather, there are thousands; some of which will work for some; none of which will work for others. ‘Nothing works, but everything might…’

All we can do is cling ever more tightly together and collaborate as if our very lives depended on it.

Because Big Government isn’t coming to our rescue; even if there was one ‘big’ idea that could save us, I don’t see anyone with the wit, the will or the wherewithal in Whitehall to deliver it.

No. The only people who are going to save us are ourselves. And we will save ourselves by thinking small, not big.