As has been muttered before in these parts, there is much to keep an eye on in and around the valleys of Tyne, Tees and Wear.

The arrival of the impressive-looking http://www.hohound.co.uk/ over the forthcoming days merely re-inforces the impression that there is much good a-foot in them there parts… much that is worthy of comment and inspection.

http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2009/11/26/if-anyone-wants-to-know-where-the-future-of-the-uks-new-media-landscape-will-be-forged-and-decided-itll-be-in-the-north-east-of-england-starting-on-monday/

… at which point Johnston Press were about to build a paywall around the Northumberland Gazette and test to see just how many folk thereabouts would be prepared ‘to bow to the masters and pay rent to the lords’, to misquote Billy Bragg, The Diggers and Co…

http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2009/11/30/as-i-look-at-the-new-pay-wall-that-johnston-have-erected-around-the-northumberland-gazette-you-do-begin-to-wonder/

That Tyne-Tees/Borders region continues to command my attention as many of said masters and lords line up to vie for the OfCom shilling in the shape of the forthcoming ‘independently financed news consortia’ (IFNCs) for which there is currently something of an X-Factor challenge afoot – with everyone from ex-Birmingham Post editor Marc Reeves to Will Perrin of TalkAboutLocal sitting in for Simon, Piers and Sharon.

Today, the judges delivered their verdict and whittled down the runners and riders to just three for that disputed border region…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jan/13/trinity-mirror-regional-news-pilot

In one corner is TrinityMirror, PA and TV production company Ten Alps; in another UTV – the ITV franchise-holder for Northern Ireland – and finally Melvyn Bragg, ITN, Johnston Press, Newsquest, Metro Radio and ITV Tyne Tees and Borders news staff.

OK, if we now drill that down to a few more, on-the-ground specifics… that, to me, says its the TM-owned Newcastle Journal and Chron plus Middlesborough Evening Gazette in one corner; versus the JP owned Sunderland Echo and NewsQuest’s Northern Echo in the other.

And, of course, the aforementioned Northumberland Gazette. Complete with its new-born pay-wall.

How UTV are planning to put foot-soldiers on the ground from a distant Ulster is another matter… what’s interesting, to me, is where this leaves the Northumberland Gazette pay-wall model.

Because I can’t quite see how they can offer that content for free on our Melvyn’s new-look platform – and yet charge for it on the Gazette site….

Something has to give, doesn’t it?

They can’t give to Melvyn for free with one hand and charge with the other… surely, that wall will have a come a-tumbling down, won’t it?

It is intriguing.

Because what is abundantly clear is that the onus is firmly on all concerned to deliver a sustainable business model that will survive – one strongly suspects – the time when the top-sliced cake runs out and, more imminently, the arrival of an in-coming Tory administration who may be that much more determined to see the nascent IFNCs pay their own way.

Hence Mr Hooper’s final command…

“Let me be clear about what we are looking for,” said Hooper.

“Quality news reporting with a mix of local, regional and national (in the case of Wales and Scotland) audiences firmly in mind; genuine innovation, not just business as usual; strong multiplatform applications working together across the web, local newspapers, local radio and television where appropriate, utilising each different medium’s special characteristics; and finally, a revenue generation model that aspires to longer term sustainability…”

That’s a very interesting use of language.

“A revenue generation model that aspires to longer term sustainability…”

If JP are banking on a paywall sustaining the long-term viability of the Northumberland Gazette, is that an ‘innovative’ solution that will be employed to under-pin the Bragg bid?

Or will the Gazette’s pay-wall be quietly dropped, in the belief that between all the various parties concerned they can discover enough platform-agnostic ad bucks to deliver the kind of long-term sustainability that Mr Hooper is demanding?

We shall all know the answer come March by when – ideally – me, @Addiply, @SunderlandUK and @JoshHalliday will have joined a few dots of our own deep in the heart of that disputed border region.

http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2010/01/08/can-we-join-the-dots-in-digital-britain-mine-a-small-pot-of-gold-at-the-end-of-the-local-rainbow-well-maybe-look-above-you/

Fascinating times, me thinks.

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=44242&c=1

Not the fact that NewsQuest is now heading into the world we tend to call ‘hyper-local’. Every man and his NYT dog is now looking for a hyper-local ‘Patch’ to call their own.

No, what’s interesting is the range of new ’skills’ that NewsQuest appear intent on arming the next generation of small-market-town correspondents with…

‘Each of these new sites will be staffed by members of the communities they serve with recruits given training in photography, story structure and use of the each websites content management system.

‘The local correspondents, who are expected to file around three pieces each week, are then mentored by a Northern Echo reporter…’

OK, just to repeat… the NorthernEcho’s man/woman in ‘Cockfield, Darlington, Durham, Ferryhill, and Hutton Magna… will be taught how to take a photograph, write a story and upload it onto their website.

But NOT how to sell an ad.

Why not?

For me – and it’s a bee in the bonnet; apologies – but what makes us so special that we still think we don’t need to sell an advertisement to support our journalistic living? That someone else can do that little bit for us…

Who, exactly?

I clearly haven’t wandered through the ad sales dept on the Northern Echo, but I would hazard a guess that it has just as many empty desks as the editorial floor; more, probably.

Unfortunately for local ad reps the world over, they don’t tend to have the NUJ or the Guild rep shouting loudly from the rooftops every time one of their jobs goes down the pan.

So I would be amazed in this current climate if the great northern burghs of Cockfield, Ferryhill and Hutton Magna still had an ad rep to call their own.

And yet, by the same token, I would strongly suspect that somewhere in the industrial estates and High Sts of Cockfield, Ferryhill and Hutton Magna there weren’t dozens of little local businesses that would consider placing their ‘brand’ on-line locally; somewhere were the local digital eye-balls tend to congregate. Albeit briefly en route to YouTube…

So, if we work on the basis that most of us can take a photo, most of those that volunteer to man/woman the editorial front-line in Cockfield, Ferryhill and Hutton Magna might already know how to write a story, wouldn’t all concerned be better off if they were mentored by an ad rep – and not an over-worked, centrally-based reporter?

This, for me, is the BIG, BIG leap that all of us are going to have to make; we’re are going to have to recognise that we ain’t that special any more; that our futures – particularly at a local/provincial level – might be more about selling for our supper than singing for it…

We can’t afford to think that ’selling’ is somehow beneath us; that it’s not our problem; that someone else will do that; we’ll just stick to our carefully crafted words, our secret short-hand codes… and everything else that has had us believing we were this breed apart.

You know what? Them days are gone. We’re nothing special anymore. We have to be jacks of all trades; we can’t earn a living by being just a master of one.

Hence the Greenslades need to walk into a newsagents in KempTown and come out with both a story AND an ad….

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=296

It was the same message for the J-School kids at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism…

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=289

That if their students will, indeed, be ‘…encouraged to connect with readers by writing out of storefront newsrooms in diverse Chicago neighborhoods…’ why can’t they actually get an ad and a frothy latte off said store owner?

It is the same message that I’d take to Richard [Koci-Hernandez] and his grad students at www.MissionLocal.org and www.OaklandNorth.net as they return to Berkeley this semester; that as we all look to re-tool and re-train ourselves for a sustainable future on the web, we have to learn to sell…

In newsrooms of old, the demarcation lines were simple.

I wrote footie stories. End of.

Someone else took the pictures.

Someone else put a headline to it.

Someone else sold the ad next to it.

Someone else printed it.

Someone else delivered it.

Now I need to do it all.

And while reaching for my mobile and letting Flickr or TwitPic be my ‘photographic department’ might be kinda fun, it’s kinda more important that we learn how to cover our hosting costs every month; that we learn how to make a local ad dollar or two.

Cos no-one else is going to do that for us. We need to learn how to sell – just as much as the new town correspondents of NewsQuest North-East are taught ‘photography, story structure and use of the each websites content management system…’ , so they need to be taught how to find an ad.

Because we’re not that special any more; the days of the free ride and the free lunch are over. We need to pay our way; make our own ends meet.

And sooner rather than later.

�

There has been more than a whiff of revolution in his nostrils for a little while now…

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=245

But more than that, he’s now walking the walk as well as talking the talk… which is rather more than one or two other prominent media commentators do.

http://www.theargus.co.uk/communitypages/kemp_town/4395529.Kemp_Town_newsagent_defies_trend_to_expand_into_the_marina/

For me, that page is fascinating.

First, further credit to the Greenslades. Because if I’m not mistaken it was Mrs G – aka Noreen Taylor – with her point-and-shoot mobile phone that took the picture; ensuring that KempTown is something of a family affair.

‘Danielle Wright serves Roy Greenslade with a well-known local paper Picture: Noreen Taylor …

It also ensured that the Argus didn’t have to send one of their over-worked staff snappers to said go-ahead newsagents; a mobile phone had empowered the Greenslades to bring their own picture desk.

So far, so hyper-local good.

Now, we go our different ways.

Because while Roy walked out of that shop with a hyper-local story, what he forgot to do was to walk out with a hyper-local ad…

For a newsagents?

Why not? Particularly, when the whole point of the story is that this business is expanding; think ahead; being all 2009…

‘He also introduced new services and ensured that his core customers were serviced properly through a more efficient home delivery system across Kemp Town. His routes stretch from Roedean and Marine Gate in the east to Church Place on the west.

‘Computer-billing, a method of online payment and email communication have dragged the business into the 21st century. There is also a website.

‘It was the success of that business that emboldened Guy to venture into the marina… blah, blah, blah… ‘

The line that screams out at me there is not the fact that he’s moving into the marina – as interesting as that might be to The Kiosk’s loyal customers.

The line that should have smacked Roy in the face is the fact that he now has a website….

‘There is also a website.

Bingo.

That’s when Roy’s ‘other half’ needs to kick in; that’s when he needs to switch from story-teller to salesman. And it is a trick that we’re all going to have to learn. We haven’t the luxury any more of thinking someone else can do that dirty bit; we have to be a jack of all these trades…

I suspect Roy is doing this out of the goodness of his journalistic heart, but if we can now re-arm and re-tool him with the means to be the ad department as well as the picture desk, why not start to put a bit of pocket money into his back pocket? Or divvie it up with the Argus? Work a hyper-local ad commission deal?

And, for me, it’s not that hard. He’s known the bloke for 37 years; he will give him an ad for just that reason; he’ll do his mate a favour; might come off after six weeks but he’ll do it.. ‘Go on then, Roy, I’ll give it a go…’

You’ve just got to start ‘pitching’ – and thinking with the cash side of your brain as well as your story-getting one. It’s exactly the same process that Richard’s kids on the streets of Oakland are going to have to get into as they wander round with www.addiply.com up their sleeves in the search for 50 bucks for www.OaklandNorth.net

‘You’ve got a website, that’s great…

‘Yeh, really pleased with it. Part of a network, but think it’s important that we try and reach our customers online…

‘Exactly. So what are you doing to promote and market your website?

‘Well, I hadn’t really thought about it, to be honest…

‘Why don’t you advertise on my KempTown page?

‘Makes sense, after that’s where my customers are – no point in advertising in Withdean is there? Not for a newsagent…

‘No, no, exactly…. You want to be where the hyper-local eyeballs are. Tell you what, how about a fiver for a week… you place a little text ad on my KempTown page… It’s easy, just place your ad here… ‘

Yes, of course, I’m biased. I’ve got a product to ’sell’. But I’ve walked that walk for the last three years; selling advertising for the day job on www.myfootballwriter.com/norwichcity My ‘learning curve’ has come from dire, financial necessity…

But if we’re ever going to find a way forward in this sorry mess of ours, we need to find a way to empower an army of part-time Roys to fill such hyper-local holes as the one he’s found on his door-step; give Roy and 000s of Roys the ‘kit’ that they need to make this happen.

As it is I look at that Argus community page and see sponsored links from You-Know-Who; none of whom – as far as I can immediately tell – have any obvious relevance to either KempTown or The Kiosk.

In fact, when I look at that sponsored links box – and it could well be different for everyone else out there; particularly for someone that is ’spotted’ as living within that area – I see a link through to Brighton Hotels.

If that appears when I actually live in Brighton, my chances of clicking on it are pretty nil.

Now, clearly, without setting up my lap-top outside The Kiosk, I can’t tell you what ads might be running through that site were I sat in BN2… nor do I know whether NewsQuest are running those on a CPM basis or a Pay-Per-Click.

Or, of course, how much they have ever earned, advertising-wise, off their KempTown community page with its celebrity ‘beat’ reporter; a very big cherry pounding the streets of that EveryBlock.

But if Roy had been empowered to walk out of that door with not only his first hyper-local news story in the bag and a picture on his Mrs’ mobile, but also his first hyper-local advertiser sorted for a fiver a week, then I think we all might be slightly richer for the experience.

And, yes, it might only have been a tiny step in the right direction.

But it would still be one, tiny step towards our ultimate goal of delivering a sustainable hyper-local news platform for the people of this country.

�

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=257

And today, there’s a little sign that Northcliffe/DMGT are starting to get itchy feet.

http://www.journalism.co.uk/2/articles/534339.php

The fact that they, like TrinityMirror and Newsquest before them, are starting to turn their thoughts towards hyper-local is nothing new.

In fairness to TrinityMirror, they caught the bug early on with the postcode-based sites they first launched on Teesside… the trouble, as always when you live your life in a silo, is having done something very well in TS10, how do your replicate that model in, say, NR14 which is Archant-land…

Or, indeed, in BS10 which is in Northcliffe’s…

It was something we touched on on the back of my scribblings at last year’s JEECamp; to where we return tomorrow, by coincidence – poorer in one, obvious sense and richer in another for the 14-odd months that have passed in between.

But at JEECamp was the good lady from Trinity who had started to break the mould with TS10; the question was, of course, more about when she was going to break the silo, not the mould, and make a proper network out of Trinity’s hyper-local thinking as opposed to bolting it on underneath any one of their existing local newspaper ‘patches’…

http://outwithabang.wordpress.com/tag/itv-local/

Without stepping out of that silo, to my mind, they could never hope to get the kind of elegance and efficiency you can secure from running a network.

Now, here comes Northcliffe. And in amidst that story is one line that leaps out a mile…

“Where we’ve got Northcliffe content, we’ll share it. But Northcliffe only touches around 12 per cent of the population. It’s more interesting to see if this will work outside Northcliffe areas,” he [Seamus McCauley] said.

“In every town, sooner or later a big issue comes up and local people will try and knock up a website very quickly. We want to set up these sites so that when an issue arises, they’re already there…’

Mmm.

So whilst the launch plan is limited to their own backyard in Bristol and the South-West, the implication is clear. They’re building a network that takes them out of their current, 12% silo and on into someone else’s patch.

So, given it is my old manor, what happens when Northcliffe start to head west out of Bristol and – just in case a ‘big issue’ comes up – they set themselves up with a town blog template for a Chippenham, a Malmesbury or a Calne? Just in case…

All of whom are in Newsquest land?

And what happens if there’s a ‘big issue’ with Hobart High School here in Loddon; does that mean that there’ll be a Northcliffe model for NR14 to which we can all turn for content and comment in our hour of hyper-local news need? As opposed, of course, to turning to an Archant site?

Or, best of all, what happens if something ‘big’ kicks off in downtown Redcar? Under Plan Seamus will Trinity’s own TS10 platform now find itself with a competitor?

Spin that story and that speech whichever way you want, but it seems to me pretty clear that Northcliffe are taking the gloves off and are coming to any small or medium-sized market town near you.

And not out of the ‘ThisIs…’ brand either.

For ‘ThisIs…’ limited them to your Nottinghams, your Bristols, etc…

Dump the ‘ThisIs…’ ties to a specific geographical silo and Northcliffe can start to trample all over the neighbour’s back lawn with their new hyper-local, small town template model.

And because they’re looking at the content being UGC/Facebook-esque kind of led, they don’t even have to worry about putting a full-time reporter in place under someone else’s nose… some part-time curator can do the job as they whip eyeballs and, in theory, local advertising out from beneath the feet of their long-time provincial rivals.

They’re building a network; not a silo.

And once one person starts to leave that gentlemen’s agreement on a shelf somewhere, so they all will.

In the race for survival, the gloves always needed to come off… particularly if HM Government weren’t wholly buying into the idea or relaxing cross-media ownership rules; or rather if they were, it was unlikely to trouble the statute book until the other side of a General Election.

And as the man from Northcliffe muttered at that recent Local Media Summit in Whitehall, time is not on their side. You either get to build tighter, stronger silos – or you start ripping up that age-old rule book and go treading on eachothers’ toes by building the kind of fledgling networks that Northcliffe are now proposing.

One pops up within sight of the walls of Fort Dunlop and it will be interesting…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/apr/26/bbc-share-local-media

On a number of fronts; not least in the fact that someone, somewhere has found me a ticket to tomorrow’s ball and so alongside ‘… Helen Boaden, the BBC’s head of news, and David Holdsworth, controller of the English regions, as well as other industry executives and the National Union of Journalists….’ will be yours truly.

Given that I’m a big fan of the Tom Hanks film ‘Big’, I have this image of me being sat round some corporate table at Portcullis House tomorrow, gingerly poking my hand in the air and saying: ‘I don’t get it…’ as all the well-heeled execs fawn over the insect that becomes a building.

Or, in our case tomorrow, the silo that becomes a bigger silo.

Which, of course, is all that the provincial news industry needs to save its bacon, according to Peter Preston in The Observer yesterday… Give Archant the keys to the Diss Express and the Bury Free Press and that’ll be it – job done.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/apr/26/media-preston-mirror-newspapers

We digress. Back to the Beeb… and the arrival of Ms Boaden and Mr Hollingsworth at the summit table bearing gifts.

This is a block we’ve been round many a time before; but, yep, I’ll have one of those thank you very much… Oooh, and a bit of that too…

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=76

Some six months on and the arguments for doing what you/I do best [words] and then linking to the rest [video and audio] hold even greater water as all and sundry get crunched like there is no tomorrow. Which, for many of us, remains an all-too real prospect.

So, as the Beeb turns up at Andy Burnham’s table in a new spirit of OfCom-induced co-operation with the very people that scuppered their own Local Video plans, the problem remains the same.

The BBC is a network.

Not a silo.

And if you’re going to start sharing content between the two, the practical, every-day difficulties of doing what you do best then linking to the rest need to be borne in mind now. Or perhaps tomorrow.

Take football.

And it’s a big one. It drives huge amounts of traffic to the provincial newspaper web-sites; it also [still] sells them a huge number of newspapers.

It is also a big, big source of sticky content for the BBC as all their local radio stations follow their local football teams up and down the land.

And the level of that content is about to ratchet up another couple of gears from the start of next season as the BBC take over the TV rights to the Football League.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/7080696.stm

And, in particular, these lines…

‘The BBC Sport website will also show goals from all Football League clubs.

‘Director of BBC Sport Roger Mosey said: “We are genuinely excited about the potential of the Football League properties on the BBC.

‘”Our aim in the three seasons of our agreement is a simple one: to showcase the new acquisitions across all our platforms, and to make our commitment to football deeper and stronger at every level.” ‘

Now, I’m there with a budding football network in the shape of www.myfootballwriter.com/norwichcity and www.myfootballwriter.com/ipswichtown and, all of a sudden, here comes Auntie with her iPlayer toy.

And, yes, I’d love some of that please; as – I strongly suspect – would my c30,000 monthly uniques on MFW/norwichcity. Now I don’t have to pretend to be a TV station and wander round with a hand-held camera; I can do what I do best [write] and link to the rest… the Beeb.

Bingo.

But – and in terms of any new eco-system for news that may yet develop across this forbidding digital landscape – I’m not going to just take, take, take… I’ll offer to give, give, give… in the shape of a networked written content deal back into the BBC.

Sourced from fully-accredited football journalists still sat in the Press Box, it’s big, sticky, written content – something that the Beeb don’t do. Or if they do, it’s a case of someone deep within The Mailbox in Birmingham having to transcribe four or five pars from a Radio Norfolk audio clip on a Sunday.

So why not help yourself to my post-match manager’s piece on a Sunday morning? 800 wods of big, sticky content that then sits very easily with your existing and newly-enhanced audio and video feeds.

Doesn’t bother me; I’m getting the goal highlights clips back off my embedded iPlayer.. it’s a swap. And, besides, I’ve already posted my piece up on MFW/norwichcity.

There could even be a little syndication deal to be had; which – in HM Government eyes – might be one way of subsidising provincial football reporting on the sly if the BBC was ‘encouraged’ to out-source its written Championship football content to an independent content production house working off 24 kitchen tables every weekend.

One deal; network to network. Eminently do-able cos I work on Sundays.

Try to do that with, say, five provincial newspaper groups – none of whom traditionally work on a Sunday; opting instead to give the punters their football news when they see fit, ie a Monday morning – and how you get five silos to fit into one network will be a test and a half.

Particularly when you take the cases of say, Reading and MK Dons. One club now serviced by a bi-weekly paper in the Reading Chronicle and one by a weekly in the shape of Johnston’s MK Citizen.

So, on previous form, are either GMG or Johnston Press about to share their content with Auntie when it requires them to ‘feed’ the great BBC beast two or three days before they need that same content to feed their once or twice-weekly papers?

Maybe, needs must. That this time, they’ll see the benefit. Perhaps.

And, maybe, the BBC will find a way to drag some sort of elegance and efficiency out of a content share deal with the Newspaper Society.

But for what may well be already be two unnatural and unwilling bed-fellows, it is not going to be an easy fit. Sorting out a content supply chain from eight Northcliffe Championship clubs, two Archant, six Newsquest…

Find another network and the BBC might find a far more willing and natural partner; someone for whom neither deadline time nor geographical dislocation has ever been an issue.

And it doesn’t have to be MFW; it’s conceptual as much as personal… perhaps PA will sniff an opening. Perhaps.

But ditch the silo, build a network and Digital Britain can start to make far more sense. It might even start to make a little more money…

�

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2009/mar/27/local-newspapers-trinity-mirror?commentpage=1&commentposted=1

That their distribution model, for example, is busted beyond repair.

‘…the publishers cannot seem to admit to themselves (understandably, given the logic of the economic system they serve) that the business model of newspapers is busted for ever…’

As we’ve muttered before, to do that would be like King Canute calling for a towel.

Far better to stick to the safer ground of battering the impudence of local councils and their newsletters and insisting that the publication of planning notices is their’s by medieval right.

And as Pete Kirwan pointed out this week, few amidst the circle of friends that is the Local Media Alliance and Lord Carter would want anyone to overly chip away at the thought processes and practical implications that lie behind greater media consolidation…

http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/mediamoney/2009/03/26/regional-press-making-the-anti-consolidation-argument/

…that what it might actually mean for, say, the Newcastle United reporter on the Sunderland Echo if any Trinity-Johnston tie-up got the green light and the Echo found itself consumed within the Chron to the north and the Gazette to the South.

It would, of course, enable Trinity-Johnston – Trinston? – to claim that that such a mega, North-East news hub would enable them to roll out their commendable, hyper-local postcode news sites of the TS10 variety through the Wear Valley – and on into SR4, SR12, etc…

But if we’re ever dreaming of creating a networked world that truly befits a ‘Digital Britain’, if you can do TS10 and SR7 but still can’t do NR14 because that’s still in someone else’s silo, are we really furthering the provision of a sustainable, hyper-local news platform for the UK?

‘Why should we believe that a merger between, say, Trinity Mirror and Johnston Press will solve the problem,’ Roy writes.

‘It would allow a reduction in printing plants. There may well be further economies of scale. It may well, for a time at least, boost profits and help to reverse the stock price decline.

‘But it is very doubtful if it will sort out the colossal debts and the problems of funding pension schemes. It will most certainly not lead to the re-hiring of journalists. It will not improve the public service element of papers.

‘Note that the public are already losing out: important court cases are not being covered, councils are not being held to account…’

Linda is.

Only this time it would seem that it is HM Govt that the deputy leader of Blackburn with Darwen BC is calling to account…

http://www.darwenreporter.com/2009/03/deputy-leader-of-blackburn-with-darwen.html

Looks like she’s got one eye on Darwen Mags court, too…

http://www.darwenreporter.com/2009/03/darwen-house-builders-fined-for-illegal.html

And something about a successful planning application…

http://www.darwenreporter.com/2009/03/new-tank-farm-for-crown-paints-darwen.html

Now, for me, that looks as if one, hyper-local community journalist has managed to cover the three bases that probably matter to the people of Darwen – the local council, the Mags Court and the local planning process.

Now, I’m quite sure that things will slip through Linda’s net; and, no, she can’t be everywhere at once.

But, I’d bet my bottom dollar that the local newspaper was likewise letting one or two items slips as it applied the axe to the local newsroom.

And, yes, I’ve got an interest; cos Linda’s helped herself to our ‘Addiply’ system; she’s giving that a beta trial… but that’s me empowering her to give it a go; to give her the chance to try and earn a few more quid, here and there…

And she’s clearly smart; she wrote her own ‘launch’ bumph for ‘addiply’…

http://www.darwenreporter.com/2009/03/advertise-with-darwen-reporter.html

… because sat at my kitchen table in Loddon – just as Linda is sat at hers in Darwen – we don’t have a marketing dept; we try and enable people like Linda, like Craig on www.thisfrenchlife.com and the boys and clever girls on www.peoplesrepublicofsouthdevon.co.uk to work it out for themselves.

Let them find a solution that works for them; I’m not handing out tablets of stone to anyone. That’s not how the web works…

We’re collaborating; we’re telling eachother what works, how it works… have you tried this… have you seen what you can do with an AudioBoo, etc, etc…

We’re not fiddling while Rome burns. We’re trying to make a difference. Where it matters. On the ground. In Darwen, Lancs.

Where people ‘get’ Linda; where they don’t ‘do’ data.

And that’s where Roy and I will go our seperate ways. Because his idea of this BBC/PA-esque quango doesn’t do anything for me.

And right now I don’t see it doing too much for Linda, either.

‘We should contemplate the introduction of some form of public subsidy, to be administered and overseen by an independent body, in order to preserve local newspapers.

‘As I wrote in last week’s London Evening Standard, we should think positively about the creation of a BBC-like public service body, possibly under the aegis of the Press Association… ‘

A public service body that is designed to keep who in business, Roy? Newsquest or our Linda?

Who, actually, is likely to be servicing the needs of the people of Darwen better going forward? Newsquest, Johnston, Trinity et al – or Linda? If, that is, someone ever deigns to offer her a helping hand?

For me, its not local newspapers that need preserving.

It’s the local news journalists that need our help. They’re the ones with the families to feed.

�

Have to admit at first I thought it was a typo in Laura’s piece…

http://www.journalism.co.uk/2/articles/533270.php

But now I know. It means ‘opposite’; ‘being in diametrical opposition…’

It also means saying ‘No!’ to a state subsidy for the UK’s ailing provincial newspaper industry.

Which comes as a certain relief that our Lords and Masters are now thinking along networked lines…

‘Is it time to develop a sensible strategy that uses the converging nature of the journalism to sustain a vital local news media?” was Mr Burnham’s burning question for the great and the media good gathered at Oxford today.

And, ‘Yes!’ would be the answer. That and ‘Right, when?’

But, otherwise, that’s quite cheery news. That a near-bankrupt UK Plc won’t be bailing out Gannett in a near hurry. Was always just soooo antithetical to Newsquest’s needs.

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=42868&c=1

And there was Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland’s finest, Ashok Kumar MP, doing his bit for TrinityMirror.

“It’s clear there is a case for some sort of rescue package,” he said…

Why is the case so ‘clear’? Because local newspapers are the only bastions of local democracy that we can think of?

What’s this all about, then… http://www.theyworkforyou.com/?

Lorely Burt, MP for Solihull suggested a partnership between the BBC and local newspapers.

Fantastic. ‘Do what you do best, link to the rest…’ So you swap BBC’s local video for the local newspaper’s words, that kind of thing?

That’s what she would appear to have in mind…

“Couldn’t the BBC use local journalists in a joint venture website?” she asked. “It would keep local journalism alive and kicking…and create a synergy.”

Ah… clearly someone hadn’t mentioned the fact that there had been a ‘bereavement’ in the family recently; besides, the local newspapers really didn’t need anything the BBC had to offer anyway. We were all catered for perfectly well in that department, thank you…

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=42869&c=1

But what is really interesting in all these debates is the increasingly urgent tone that underlies them all; the simple fact that everyone appears to be getting so concerned about £15 million worth of local planning applications suggests that, right now, every last penny counts.

Which well it might.

Because I’ve seen or heard nothing of late to suggest that this current downturn has in any way bottomed out; what if the last of the Treasury’s coffers – those that might, just, have had the provincial newspaper industry’s name on them – have been syphoned away to keep the banks in business and with it, UK Plc afloat?

What if – Whitehall-wise – certain subsidy spirits were still willing, but the financial flesh was weak – that there simply wasn’t the pennies there to be given?

Whilst meanwhile, back out in the killing fields of the provinces, what if the ads simply weren’t out there? Other than those that arrived via either the local Job Centre or the local district council’s planning department, the order book was bare…

So with ‘news’ of Christmas and New Year sales now gone, every retail advertiser was simply battening down the hatches and trying to see out the spring without a marketing budget?

Ads-wise – certainly in terms of the provincial newspaper industry – could we still be in an autumn of discontent, with a nuclear winter revenue-wise still to come?

That’s why, you wonder, whether the publication of the ‘Digital Britain’ report next week will prove to be one of the defining moments for the UK’s media landscape.

That if, as expected, the Government are looking to kick-start the economy into life with the kind of massive public works that a pledge to deliver high-speed broadband for all would entail, then – perhaps – each and every one of us will need to cut our media-cloth to that delivery platform.

That for a new, networked delivery system of a Watson’s imaginings only true, networked solutions will suffice.

That all said, there is one form of Government subsidy that I would heartily approve of – both with my ‘work’ hat on and that of a UK tax-payer.

Post-code tagged digital advertising.

Targetted messaging to the vulnerable in GY13; the over-weight in NR14; the unemployed in TS10.

On a CPM model, it’s not a hand-out; as a tax-payer my money is only being spent when that ad is seen; targetted at the right communities, the right audience, it’s a social service, not a subsidy.

And that works for me.

And it ought to work for Trinity Mirror; they deserve to be commended – and, indeed, rewarded – for their efforts out of TS10 and beyond. In a way, it’s not their fault that the Web and those medieval circulation fiefdoms don’t mix; that along came Mr Shirkey with a sledgehammer for their silos.

But there’s a plan for the provincial newspaper industry; put a pot of Government gold at the end of that postcode rainbow and incentivise as you subsidise.

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=184

Anyone would have thought that there was a concerted campaign afoot. But, anyway, here’s to a near-bankrupt UK Plc subsidising Gannett (Glasgow)…

http://www.journalism.co.uk/2/articles/533216.php

What makes this one particularly sweet is this glorious line from the concerned MSP in question, Ted Brocklebank. And if it was left to hang there deliberately by the journalist concerned, top marks. Go to the top of the class.

“It seems to me that the government is moving away from placing recruitment ads with local and national newspapers, and from statutory and public notices. These are major parts of the income [for newspapers]. This is symptomatic of a much bigger thing,” Brocklebank told Journalism.co.uk…

Mmm.

‘Symptomatic of a much bigger thing…’

That’ll be the Web, Ted.

�

About two weeks into the new year and some tame MP is sent into the House with his cap in hand.

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=42828&c=1

It’s one block we’ve trod all-too many times before.

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=196

OK, so it’s not the Newspaper Society with the hand out; but it might just as well be. He’s talking their kind of language.

“I will be asking in the debate if the Government will examine the concept of some form of state support for local newspapers that are struggling, so as to allow them to survive the downturn,” said Labour’s finest for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, Ashok Kumar.

A man intent, clearly, on preserving the bicycle as a primary vehicle for the distribution of news in the 21st Century.

Sits very comfortably with the Government’s forthcoming ‘Digital Britain’ launch.

But this was the line that really irked.

“Our local press is crucial to both local democracy and to the retention of a locally well-informed public.”

Fair enough. Even if I’d swap the word ‘press’ for media; covers a multitude of sins.

“At the end of the day, if a shop sadly closes, one can usually find other similar shops nearby. But if a local newspaper closes, then the chance of rescuing or replacing it are next to non-existent.”

Mmm. ‘Next to non-existent…’

So, therefore, UK Plc ploughs millions into the Gannett-owned Newsquest? Er, how does that work..?

And if that doesn’t float the MPs boat but shovelling more millions Trinity Mirror’s way does, do we then expect the good tax-payers of Brighton to part-fund the survival of the Evening Gazette in Middlesbrough as we let their own, US-owned Argus go down the pan?

‘To allow them to survive the downturn…’ Which is going to last how long? Because, of course, it is only cyclical factors at work here; there’s no hint of a huge, structural challenge in the mix; one, to which, there really might be no answer?

And ‘next to non-existent’?

What’s this?

http://www.aboutmyarea.co.uk/Northamptonshire/Towcester/NN12

Or this?

http://www.kingscrossenvironment.com/

Or, indeed, this?

www.myfootballwriter.com/norwichcity

And how many state hand-outs have any of us had? I’ve had one – if 4iP counts as a state hand-out. After the better part of three years busting my b*lls to find someone with a spot of vision and belief.

Mr Kumar, let’s have a coffee…