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We put local news on the national agenda

Seven delegates from the Oxford branch attended an NUJ parliamentary lobby on Wednesday March 25th, to call for urgent action to save local newspapers. The lobby was called in response to a crisis in the provincial press that could threaten its very existence and aimed to put protection of local news-gathering capacity at the top of the agenda.

The scale of the crisis in the provincial press cannot be overstated. More than 25 newspaper offices and more the 60 titles have been closed since last June, with the loss of more than 1000 editorial jobs. The week leading up to the lobby saw 18 newspapers put into administration, while one of the countries big four provincial press groups, Northcliffe, announced it would be cutting 1000 jobs across its local and regional titles. Newsquest, another of the big four, which owns the Oxford Mail and Times, together with the Oxford Star, the Herald series, and the Witney Gazette, Bicester Advertiser and Banbury Cake, has announced it is cutting the level of redundancy pay for all future redundancies, raising fears that cuts on a similar scale may be in the pipeline.
The industry’s response to the crisis has been to call for further relaxation of restrictions on ownership to clear the way for further consolidation of Britain’s local newspapers into the hands of even fewer mega players, and to give them the right to own local radio and television in the same geographical area. “That path has been tried and failed,” was the message Jeremy Dear, NUJ General Secretary, delivered to a committee room packed with MPs and their parliamentary assistants. “We need help to be directed towards protecting journalism.”
For the past decades, said Dear, newspaper owners have been making unprecedented profits, often around 35–40%. But far from reinvesting this in journalism, it is shareholders who have reaped the benefit – to the tune of $6.2 billion since 2000, in the case Newsquest owners Gannett. During this same time, newsrooms have been steadily shrinking, the demands on journalists’ time have been increasing, with every paper now producing its own web version, the quality of the product has suffered, and circulation has fallen, leading to further cuts and creating a downward spiral.
“Any plan for saving the local press must ensure that money gets funnelled into journalism, or history shows it will go straight into the pockets of shareholders,” said Dear. “Allowing the industry to decide how to save the local press would be like allowing bankers to decide how we set about rescuing the banking system.”
Almost 40 MPs from all parties attended the meeting in person – which is very high for these sorts of meetings – and many of them spoke of what was happening in their areas: closures of titles, reduction in news pages, reduction in coverage of local council business, or even crime. Chris Huhne, Liberal Democrat shadow Home Secretary, and MP for Eastleigh, near Southampton, said even the police are troubled, because papers are no longer able to cover magistrates courts, and potential wrongdoers are therefore no longer deterred by the fear of being named and shamed in their local community.
Sir Nicholas Winterton, MP for Macclesfield, spoke of his alarm at what is happening in his area, where the Manchester Evening News is closing all its local officers, including the one in Macclesfield, and making 78 journalist posts redundant. He questioned how a seriously depleted number of journalists could continue to cover a large town like Macclesfield when they no longer have a local base. One former journalist on the Western Mail explained how local coverage was being maintained in the South Wales Valleys, where sister paper the South Wales Echo had recently closed all its local offices. “One day a week, a journalist will go from the Cardiff offices to the valleys towns, where they will spend a day in a charity shop and ask for local news.”
Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat MP for Southwark and Bermondsey, and Fiona Mactaggart, Labour MP for Slough, were among a number of MPs deploring the proliferation of free local government ‘Pravda sheets’ – papers funded by rate payers but controlled by whichever party holds the majority in the council. They argued that local councils have a democratic duty to support a strong independent local press.
Finding local solutions was a strong theme throughout the meeting, with a number of MPs suggesting that the Local Government Association and representatives from regional economic development agencies should be invited to participate in the stakeholders meeting that Andy Burnham, minister for culture, media and sport, has promised to convene as a matter of urgency.

WHERE NEXT?
The April branch meeting will discuss how we can begin to involve local stakeholders in a discussion about what is happening to the local press, and how we can work together to defend local newsgathering capacity. One suggestion has been to invite all the MPs in the area to work together to convene a meeting that would include local government bodies and development agencies, as well as small businesses and media workers. We also need to plan how we as a branch set about gathering our own evidence on the impact cuts are having on our ability to do our jobs properly.