The Death of Journalism

The Death of (local) Journalism. An introduction. | March 30, 2010

Over the last year reporters have weathered a number of mind-boggling changes instigated from the powers that be at Northcliffe. It began when they were told that, because profit had fallen (probably little more than a single percent), the company was to make a number of “efficiency savings”. Meaningless platitudes were dolled out to petrified reporters about keeping redundancies to a minimum. Many learned their jobs effectively didn’t exist, and reporters from papers across the newsgroup were invited to apply for each others positions, kind of like a morbid game of musical chairs.

Only no one wanted to play, and in the end no one swapped jobs. Instead over 90 people were shown the door, many of them sub-editors and support staff, the heartbeat of their papers, people who had given Northcliffe, and countless other owners beforehand, years of loyal and unstinting service. In the middle of all this, Northcliffe hired a new directors, probably on a salaries most of those discarded could only dream about, to work out how - ironically - the company could save money.

Thankfully, despite losing a few good friends and colleagues, our paper emerged relatively unscathed (and at this point its fair to say how lucky the paper has been, given the number of people, from Brighton to Manchester, who have lost their jobs in the last few years). The paper has always been comparatively well off in terms of staff, but job losses aren’t just what this is about. The paper has become a microcosm of the death of local journalism.

For whatever reason, be it the transient population of the area, many of whom either have little connection with the patch or don’t read English fluently; the inability to cope with the “threat” of the Internet, the plummeting pagination compared to the price of the paper; the steadfast refusal to consider remedies which cost money; or the fact that, arguably, the paper struggles to appeal to the community it represents, the readership of our paper has fallen over the last three years.

What it isn’t down to is a lack of commitment or passion on the part of those who write the paper. The current editor sets a high standard, encouraging reporters to bring in off diary exclusives and go the extra mile for stories. Despite having obstacles constantly thrown in their way, the vast majority of the reporters strive to do this. And like reporters across the country they don’t do it for the money – I mean the average wage of a reporter is peanuts compared to the skill and dedication required– but because they love the job.

Yet the money men, some even backed up people who, years ago, used to be the penniless peons who did all the hard work, can barely recognise this contribution. In the name of saving money they will, seemingly, do anything to break the spirit of those who work their fingers to the bone to produce a paper they are proud of.

For example, a few weeks ago, reporters received – by email – a notice saying that, as of the beginning of May, they could not claim expenses for working through lunch and they needed to work more evening jobs in order to claim days in lieu. Now, I know lunches went from some newsrooms a long time ago, and while most people in the office work through because they know they have to in order to get their work done, no one is going to complain too vociferously because they can’t claim back the Lion bar they scoffed down in between frantic interviews. The change in lieu, however, is another matter.

The email informed reporters that evening jobs could only be claimed back if they were undertaken on the instruction of the editor. It also changed the number of jobs for a half day off from two, to three. Meaning that if it was your idea to go the extra mile for a story, to door knock way into the night, attend a council or neighbourhood meeting, you could go hang. Effectively – the small incentive we had to work outside the hours we get our peanuts for, was getting even smaller.

Now, I can’t speak for other offices, but I am virtually certain no one at our paper abused the lieu system. In fact, the vast majority of the reporters barely claim back any of the days they are rightfully owed. More fool them, perhaps, but this doesn’t even include the countless number of times they have been in the office until 9pm writing up stories, hours after they had stopped being paid, with no complaint. It’s all part of the job, of course, but there’s only so many weeks of unpaid time you can give, with no recognition, before you start to think ‘what on Earth am I doing?’. To top it all off, you’re effectively accused of abusing the system by people who don’t have a clue and, for the most part, clock off at 3 or 4pm and wouldn’t know a nib from a piece of downpage it jumped up and smacked them in the face.

There are countless other examples, too numerous and depressing to recall all at once, of the money men grinding will power and morale into dust. Yet nothing is ever done about it. The office doesn’t have union representation and the most that results from ridiculous directives is a few expletives, rolled eyes and the unfulfilled promise to look for a different career.

Yet all it does is add to my almost complete disillusionment with the job and journalism as a whole. What I’ve described isn’t new – it’s repeated across hundreds of newsrooms across the country. The erosion of local journalism has been long in the making but surely it has entered its final death throws when efficiency changes effectively bind the reporter to his desk, unable to go out and cover anything but the biggest stories in person, with no time to do the things that should be the heart and soul of a local paper – meet the community, champion its causes effectively, cover issues in depth, etc. No wonder no one is picking up newspapers if the people who write it are being relentlessly ground into submission.

The end result of all this will be the end of our paper. But it won’t be the only casualty. Eventually only the biggest cities in the country will have a local paper. The rest will have no one to chart local history, to cover the sort of story which may not make it near a national but are still extremely important to the average person. The situation won’t be much rosier for those who survive. Picture two or three reporters, struggling to even rewrite a press release because they have to take the pictures, write the stories, edit them and then lay the copy into the same box they laid the story on the same page last week. A victory for churnalism, if ever there was one. A ‘triumph’ that isn’t some prediction of the distant future, but a very real situation for a lot of reporters.

The importance of local reporting cannot be exaggerated and the same people who don’t buy the papers today will be sorry they are gone tomorrow. This is local history we are talking about. How do you find out about something that happened in Brighton 70 years ago? You go to the local studies library and look up and old copy of the paper. Sure the big stories will still get covered (though nowhere near as in depth) but there will be plenty of important aspects of local life across the country which will go completely unreported. It’s no exaggeration to say that years of history are at stake, that wrongs will also go unpunished, and injustices will go unnoticed.

I got into journalism because, as unrealistic as it sounds I wanted to champion the cause of the little guy. I wanted to write about something different each week, meet a ridiculous variety of different people and learn about things I’d previously had no idea about.

Apparently that means nothing. What’s happening at our paper, what’s happening across the country is nothing short of the death of journalism.

If you’ve got any thoughts, if you’ve experienced something similar or perhaps you think there’s still hope, leave your comments below.

*Note: after a lot of thought I have removed reference to the paper I am referring to, save that it’s a Northcliffe paper. I have no wish to increase the pressure on people who are already working their backside’s off.

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