Abstract
There's much gloom about the future, but this veteran newspaperman feels fortunate to be back where he started
The newsroom of the mid-1960s when I joined the Northern Despatch in Darlington couldn't have changed much from late Victorian times. Reporters clattering away on heavy, sit-up-and-beg typewriters. Cigarette smoke everywhere. Copy boys waiting for “takes” to be delivered to the subs. Dick Tarelli, the grizzled news editor presiding over the pandemonium, looking at his watch to see if it's time for his ritual lunchtime pints at the Conservative club.
Changed, all changed utterly. Even the dear old Despatch has gone, finally defeated by trends in advertising and readership, and its formidable rival, the Middlesbrough -based Evening Gazette. In place of this scene is something more akin to science fiction. Computers winking and discreetly bonging, journalists hunched over their screen. No cigs, little noise. And certainly no lunchtime trip to the pub. Not that there is a pub to go to: the office is on an industrial estate miles from town, indeed, quite possibly in another town altogether, miles from the one the paper purports to serve.
There isn't the daily trek to the local magistrate's court, or the easy socialising with councillors, police officers, trade union officials and the rest of the gang they called “pillars of the community”. Nor do people come in off the streets to the front desk, demanding “the editor” come and listen to their story, but grudgingly telling it to a junior reporter.
So, is the romance of journalism dead, gone with the icy wind of change that blew though provincial newspapers? Absolutely not. I speak from personal experience. The career, if such it may be styled since none of it was planned, that took me through a half-century in the trade from the Despatch to Brighton's Argus, the Manchester Evening News, The Glasgow Herald, the Sheffield Morning Telegraph, The Times, The Observer, The Independent on Sunday and the Daily Mirror has come full circle to The Huddersfield Daily Examiner, for which I now write a weekly column.
Returning to Yorkshire from exile at Westminster a year ago, I was dimly aware of the Examiner, in the way I knew there was a Dewsbury Reporter and a Wakefield Express. But after being made redundant from the Mirror (and re-signed to do freelance features) I didn't expect to write for a local paper. Bit of a come-down from Fleet Street, what?
Nothing of the sort. It's quite like the old times in County Durham, but zingier. The Examiner is a lively, informative, entertaining and, when the situation requires, hard-hitting paper. When it found out that members of Kirklees Borough Council hadn't paid their council tax on time, and in some cases not at all, it pushed ahead with the story in the face of flat denials until the truth was out. Politics wasn't an issue. Councillors of all three main parties got the same treatment. In recent months, it's been in the forefront of a campaign to save Huddersfield Royal Infirmary from closure. I'm vhappy to work for the Examiner. I'm famous in Almondbury and I get fan mail from a 76-year-old dinner lady in Ravensthorpe. Mirror, eat your heart out.
Coming full circle
It's not a unique journey. My quondam parliamentary lobby colleague Bill Jacobs started at the Burnley Express and travelled via the Hartlepool Mail, Birmingham's Evening Mail and Daily Express and Westminster. He's come full circle to the staff of the Lancashire Telegraph, Blackburn.
“I'm back home,” he says, “and surprisingly looked up to by my young, keen colleagues. Part archaeological exhibit, part cantankerous newsroom pet and often the newsdesk's first resort for a difficult story, apparent wild goose chase or splash rescue job, as well as local government and politics correspondent. They still ask me from time to time ‘How did you do that?’ or ‘How did you know him or her?’
“The youngsters are entertained by my stories of how it used to be, and laugh at my attempts to use iPads, social media and write to shape. They've helped me to come to grips with the digital world, and I teach them a few tricks of the trade not on any NCTJ course.
“They'll never get the training and speed of the old evening paper culture, and many openings have vanished, but there are new ones. I still love the job, it's what I do and it proves the dictum that after six months as a journalist you don't want to do anything else, and after 12 you're not fit to,” he adds.
“I'm writing a spread on the 130 years of the Lancashire Telegraph, and I'd like to think that in 20, 50, 100 years' time some other journo will dig up this special out of the archives, wonder at how many things have changed yet many have not and even think, that old hack could write a bit.”
My new home is an even older institution. Originally published as the Huddersfield and Holmfirth Examiner in 1851 by the local woollen manufacturer Joseph Woodhead, the paper followed an independent Liberal line, calling for full representation of the people in parliament, no state management of education, free trade, no vested interests and promised to “befriend all classes”. Something of that radical tradition survives today in a different world. Circulation is around 12,000 in a demography of around 80,000 people, against stiff competition from a clutch of local rivals and the Tory-minded Yorkshire Post, which modestly titles itself Yorkshire's National Newspaper, but sells not much than twice as many in a county of more than five million people.
In a first for this journalist, I interviewed my editor, Roy Wright, for the BJR. Wright, 56, has edited the Examiner since 2002, having started with a Manchester news agency before working at the Hull Daily Mail and the Liverpool Echo, where he was assistant editor and deputy sports editor. “There is a future for the paper,” he insists, but “probably less certainly than for the Examiner brand.
“Online is the future. We still have 30 staff — as many as there were in 2002. There are fewer subs, but the same number of reporters because live news is king. It's what sells the paper and brings people to the website. That's why, as far as I can, I will protect the number of reporters. The question of becoming a weekly — like the Halifax Courier — crops up, but to date there is no suggestion of that.”
He adds: “It would be a sad day when the town of Huddersfield can't sustain an evening paper, because it reflects the vibrancy of the place. Having an evening paper is good for the town and I'd like to see it continue. It has one of the highest circulation penetration rates in Trinity Mirror for size of population, even more so for the website.”
Indeed, according to the regional media research group JICREG, 152,458 adults are reached by the Examiner's multimedia portfolio across the Huddersfield area each month, some 67 per cent of the adult population.
Isn't the concentration of local paper ownership a worry? “Twenty years ago it would have been inconceivable that Trinity Mirror should own the number of titles it does today,” Wright says. “It would have been referred to the Monopolies Commission — and turned down.
“But I will say two things: the stewardship of Trinity Mirror is pretty good compared with some of the other major groups. I do think they have a strategy, and are prepared to invest. And in 15 years as editor I've never been steered or leaned on to follow any political line. It could be a lot worse.”
A comprehensive redesign of the Trinity Mirror titles is under way, so that papers published across the group, including Newcastle, Liverpool, Middlesbrough, Birmingham, Coventry and North Wales, will all end up with the same fonts, same typefaces, same grid layouts/templates. This is all meant to “ease” production. Does this mean regional editorial hubs? “There are no plans to do that,” Wright says. “You can never say never, that would be dangerous. I still believe papers should be written and subbed in their circulation area.”
Newsroom of the future is here
But his journalists have to be jack of all trades unknown not so long ago. The “newsroom of the future” is here already. Reporters have to be ready to write the story online first, film videos, write blogs and upload material on to Facebook and Netscape (at least, that's what my shorthand says). They have to be on Facebook and Twitter, and well versed with social media sites. “The role is a lot more complex now,” Wright admits, “which is why it's beholden on us to support them with the right training and management.”
Has the move from four-storey town-centre offices to a business park on the outskirts of town had an impact? “Yes,” is the unequivocal reply. “I understand why we moved and the logic behind it. But it inevitably had a detrimental effect, because once upon a time reporters would stroll into the town centre to get a sandwich or even just catch the mood of the town, being among the people. That was better than where we are now. We used to get 20 callers a day, now it's down to one or so.”
Pay at the Examiner is about average for the industry: £17,000 for a trainee, rising to £19,000 and in the high £20,000s for experienced staffers. So would he encourage a son or daughter to go into journalism? “Yes, with reservations. They'd have to have an enthusiasm for the subject and empathy. If they were just going into journalism because it had a touch of glamour and they thought it would be showbiz, then no.”
Reinvention of the newsroom and the pressure to go digital, Wright says, has put younger journalists with little grounding in the traditional career route into key positions. “Everyone signed up for print. Digital has been foisted on them. People are getting it, they understand it and support it. But you can't get away from the fact that the reason they are in the industry is because they signed up to newspapers. They want to stay. They will embrace digital — though some will leave.
“They are asked to do a lot. I don't think they're being asked to do too much, but they need a lot of support, training and guidance. We have had people off with stress here. It can feel stressful — if you're the only reporter on duty on a Saturday it can feel like a heavy responsibility.”
The local and regional newspaper industry has experienced savage decline and heavy owner-concentration in recent years. There are now only three major publishing groups: Trinity Mirror (publisher of the Examiner) with around 200 titles, Newsquest (165), and Johnston Press (165 paid-for weeklies, 13 paid-for dailies and 28 free titles at the last estimate.) They put their readerships and unique website users in the tens of millions, built on hard-driving management techniques.
Journalism has paid the price of this profit-driven process. More than 150 papers have closed since 2011 and the industry has made 5,000 journalists redundant. For those who remain, according to a recent report by the Reuters Institute of Journalism, 20 per cent of journalists earn less than £19,500 a year — at or below the living wage. And 83 per cent of those in their mid-to-late 20s earn less than £29,000, “which makes getting on the property ladder a significant challenge”, the report notes primly.
This problem of low pay exists despite the almost-universal academisation of journalism — 98per cent of new entrants to the trade (I refuse to call it a profession, there is no National Journalism Council to bar errant practitioners) have a bachelor's degree and 36 per cent a master's. By the same token, there is much less on-the-job training, which would cost the employer money rather than the aspiring journalist starting work with a shedload of student debt.
Conditions at work have also changed radically. In the world of multimedia story-telling, journalists are routinely expected to work on digital platforms and video. Hours have increased “a lot” say one-third in the Reuters survey, while time for researching stories has decreased, also “by a lot”.
Stress has increased for those lucky enough to keep their jobs. At the time of writing, members of the NUJ at Johnston Press titles in south London had voted 71 per cent for strike action, 81 per cent for action short of a strike in protest at staffing levels, workloads, quality, health and safety, and pay. In the face of management non-co-operation on the issue, journalists at Johnston Press are conducting their own survey into health and safety after reporting “experienced staff, frankly tough as old boots, crying with sheer frustration”.
Increased profits by cutting staff
I asked Professor Stephen Dorril of Huddersfield University's media studies department (where I am a research fellow) for his views. He says: “Companies owning local newspapers have done remarkably well considering the difficulties but they have kept up profit levels by taking money out of the industry at a higher and higher rate of return. They have only been able to do this by increased ‘efficiency’, which is just a tag for cutting staff and resources devoted to news gathering.
“The numbers of journalists going out to interview people, putting their foot in the door, covering court cases and planning committee meetings has dropped dramatically.
“Over reliance on the internet for information (to save money) produces a serious shortfall in journalism's objective of keeping a watch on local government and business. When the local press is in decline, corruption flourishes and we are back in the realm of ‘rotten boroughs’.
“The development of regional hubs, the recruitment of young journalists with little knowledge and the drastic cutback of staff means much of the local press is little different to the national press in presentation.”
The veteran editor Ian Hargreaves, professor of digital economy at the University of Cardiff, insists: “The outlook [for journalism] is more promising than is often suggested.” But Dorril is unconvinced. “It could be argued that we are at the end of local newspapers and that they need to be rejigged or started afresh.”
A new, ultra-local press could fill the gap left by traditional local papers. “There are, however, difficulties with this as the young have clearly not embraced local journalism. They simply do not see any worth in it, having been brought up in an internet age which has dissolved borders, distance and time. They don't read newspapers, only a slimmed-down version online, and are totally apathetic about local politics.
“There are still journalism students with real enthusiasm for becoming a local journalist, who find their placements a joy. But will there be any opportunities for them? Salary levels are low, working conditions deteriorating and permanence a thing of the past.”
Dorril adds: “Many newspapers are being produced with a skeleton staff and are managing to produce a good product, but the industry is on the edge: a declining readership that is getting older, advertising online under threat from ad-blocking, and alongside huge debts and pension funds in poor states, a determination to keep up profit levels at the expense of investing in news.”
True, news is expensive, but the technological revolution has changed the way even I do the job. I can work from home, 30 miles across the Pennines from the Examiner, and file a weekly column by email. No need for copy-takers or hunting for a phone that works.
But in retrospect. I'm one of the lucky ones. It seems unlikely that my journey will be replicated by the generation now coming into journalism. The future offers only a semi-circle: in at the ground floor of local newspapers, onwards and upwards to the nationals — and then that's it. Off a cliff, not back to where you started. It would be nigh on impossible for a journalist of the old school to acquire the extraordinary array of technical skills that are now essential to the job in the digital age. I came into the game writing and I'll go out of it writing.
