There was always going to be a tipping point. A moment when a cut back meant no newspaper — rather than just less subs. Or less court reporting. Truth is, a newspaper can’t survive without journalists. Now that serious redundancies are knocking at the door — of the regionals, for now — newspapers face a year of desperation.
In the past six months we’ve jumped from being a throw away society into a bail out society. It was only a matter of time until those over-used words started to get banded about with the newspaper industry in mind.
So should it happen?
Yes. It should.
Will it happen?
Perhaps.
That’s a scary ‘perhaps’, isn’t it? When you consider what’s at stake, you could be forgiven for getting more than jittery about our chances. Like all bail outs, it would take millions. And can we justify millions of taxpayers money to publications that do things like this? We may not miss the Daily Express, but I would resent any plan that chose certain newspapers over others. Every newspaper has a right to exist. While we could perhaps sell the benefits of having the likes of The Times bailed out and saved (not that I’m suggesting it’s in trouble), it would be nigh-on impossible to convince the masses that taxpayer’s money should be spent saving the Daily Star.
Because here’s the killer: If people wanted to save the Daily Star, they’d buy it. Same with every newspaper out there.
And think of the consequences. Suddenly all newspapers would face the same kind of scrutiny that the BBC comes under every day. If a newspaper publishes a story that people disagree with — the public would have more weight behind them knowing it was their cash spent saving it. Imagine The Sun and Hillsborough happening all over again?
A bail out is akin to a mother slipping a son a tenner a few weeks before pay day. It’s borrowed, yes, but probably won’t get paid back any time soon. But the son needed that money and things will pick up once pay day arrives, so not to worry.
Bailed out banks are — fingers crossed — waiting for that pay day. When the economy recovers, they’ll be able to go back to their lucrative money-making selves.
But can newspapers? Probably not, no. Newspapers were in trouble well before the credit crunch took hold. There is no evidence to suggest it’ll be any better when all this mess is over. A newspaper bail out pot would not be bottomless and it would soon run out, leaving us right where we are now.
Polly Toynbee wrote about this in yesterday’s Guardian. Craig McGill has a decent dissection of her main points here. She’s sticking up for newspapers, as you’d expect, but with, as Craig agrees, blatent snobbery, she clouds her very good points. In Polly’s bail out, we save ‘quality’ papers like the Guardian, but ditch rubbishier ones like the Express. I’ll admit I’m not its biggest fan, but to steal a quote, I’ll defend its right to exist to the death.
My two pence? The newspaper industry needs help. It’s on life-support, and the only way it can be saved is by outside intervention. Journalists of old would spin in their graves knowing that the free press is reaching out to the government for a hand out, but it’s for the greater good.
But let’s not see that money wasted on newsprint.
Money should be spent on giving regional news outlets a proper online presence. It should be spent on equipment for local audio/video. It should be spent on allowing every regional newsroom to be right in the heart of the town it covers — not in some soulless newspaper factory in a big city. It should be spent on giving regionals better individual controls over their web output. It should be spent on making the coder and the graphics person as important to the news operation as the reporters, subs and editors. It should be spent on community managers, whose sole job is to reach out to readers in a way that goes far beyond a drab letters page.
A bail out is needed. But this is no bail out for newspapers — it’s a bail out for journalism.
We have to convince the British public that what they’ll be getting in return for their money will be noble and dignified. Like the bankers who will have learned the hard way for risky loans, the press needs to learn the hard way about bad journalism. Paparazzi garbage has no place in the bail out plan.
We need to become PR people. We have no excuse getting this wrong. Hell — we tell PRs how badly they’re doing their jobs all the time. Let’s show them how it’s done.
Without a powerful press, our country will suffer. But ask Joe Public whether they’ll miss newspapers and I think we all know that he wouldn’t. We need to stop making this argument about newspapers, and start making it about democracy and freedom. Only then will we win the psychological battle with the public mindset.
Good luck everyone.
“a bail out is needed. But this is no bail out for newspapers — it’s a bail out for journalism. We have to convince the British public that what they’ll be getting in return for their money will be noble and dignified.”
Couldn’t agree more with that. The trouble with people like Toynbee arguing for a bailout is that they will benefit – it is the begging bowl approach from the people who – with enormous respect to what the Guardian has done – screwed up in the first place. We should back networks not institutions.
(Oh..BTW I hate the tipping point phrase – no such thing)
I concur.
Charity IS a business model… so is being government funded.
People do still want to read (and often even buy) newspapers. Unfortunately 50p for a local rag just about covers the printing and distribution.
So it doesn’t matter whether people want to buy newspapers – it’s whether advertisers want to spend money with them. Evidence suggests many still do, but nowhere near on the scale they once did.
Some companies are trying the centralised model (city centre publishing) to get economies of scale. It’s probably the only option short of subsidisation. Perhaps more home working will provide the physical local presence?
That should be ‘fewer’ subs, not ‘less’ subs
While you’re likely right that some sort of aid package would be helpful, do you really want direct intervention? The idea that an agency like the government would directly fund the supposedly non-partisan press is one with which I personally am not entirely comfortable.
Charlie Beckett over at POLIS has an interesting take on this: he doesn’t come down on one side or another, but he notes that in the early days of the United States, the newspaper industry was encouraged through tax subsidies, incredibly cheap postage for subscription, etc.
Reduced taxation and other incentives to encourage industry growth seem like a better option. But perhaps we’re way past all that.
I don’t like the idea of government assistance. Leaving aside the obvious issues of impartiality, the big problem is (as Polly Toynbee says in her piece) that a lot of papers, especially at a local level, are rubbish. It would be a nightmare trying to ensure that changes were actually being made, especially as many editors seem unable to grasp the value of the web, and technology in general.
This isn’t a particularly constructive post as I don’t have a better solution, but I’m pretty sure a mass bail out wouldn’t be particularly effective and would see a lot of good money being thrown after bad.
Matt’s last blog post..Bye bye Convers
There are ways of subsidising news outlets at arm’s length. In the good old days of the press France used to guarantee distribution which meant far more prominence for minority newspapers than they gained in the UK.
It’s surely not impossible to find ways of providing a broad based series of subsidies covering tax, training, guaranteed local government advertising and so on. The amounts involved might not pay Polly Toynbee’s salary, but they could be sufficient to support hyperlocal news sites as a substitute for local newspapers.
Ignoring considerations of partiality and implementation, there’s a far more serious problem with the idea of government funding.
Unlike the banks, where the government has a clear interest in propping up the failing branches of capitalism, there is no (or a very limited) interest on their part in supporting journalism.
Quickly on bankers: The only thing they will have learned is risky loans can blow up in their faces. The loans and CDOs were brilliant for them and made them fabulously rich, until they failed. They’ll do it again, using different tools.
As for journalism, the government (and many other large institutions) have an incredible interest in bad journalism. You’ve read Flat Earth News, so I won’t go into specifics. Having a press that is weak and rarely doubts the official line is great for them. A failing press that can no longer hold them to account is a wish come true.
The criminal does not give money to the police.
But how do you suggest they make money from ‘online prescence’? I thought that was a big part of the problem journalism is facing – people turning from print to online, and online not making enough money. Certainly it looks like the public wants to engage with online new media, yet we need to work out a way of making money from this rather than putting money into it without a suitably sustainable model.
Katy Murr’s last blog post..£2000 a month and no clutter? Would I ever say no?
*presence, even…
Katy Murr’s last blog post..£2000 a month and no clutter? Would I ever say no?
“Money should be spent on giving regional news outlets a proper online presence. It should be spent on equipment for local audio/video.”
and who, ever, will read the online edition with any real loyalty or enjoyment?