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Five things I’ve learnt about… pay walls

February 8th, 2010

Pay walls, micropayments, premium subscriptions… whatever you want to call them, they all have one thing in common: we have no clue what works. Yet.

But we all have our own opinions on what won’t work. The anti-paywall brigade – I’m in it, I think, perhaps, possibly, slightly – will say stacking up all your content behind a big barrier is no way to gain an audience.

And others will add that ‘news’ – whatever that is – can’t be sold. It’s just information. Technically, we’ve never sold news. We’ve sold a newspapers; printed, delivered and physical. But never the actual news itself.

As Jim Tucker once told me, it was a very disheartening experience indeed to learn that his readers – he used to be the editor of a national Sunday paper in New Zealand – got more angry about a crossword being moved than they did about anything else.

Maybe people haven’t ever wanted to buy news? Depressing.

But fear not. Read around a bit on pay walls and you discover some decent initiatives. Yet, to great frustration, we’re sometimes our own worst enemies. Here’s five things I’ve learnt about pay walls – for good or for bad.

(by gyn_ti46 on Flickr)

1. Newspapers are very, very selfish

A few days ago, the Guardian’s legal affairs correspondent Afua Hirsch tweeted that Alan Rusbridger said (possibly paraphrased): “if New York Times goes behind a paywall, Guardian will be most widely read enl-lang newspaper in the world.”

Well congratulations. I don’t think anyone can match the Guardian online right now – it really is a brilliant website which manages to mix normal, hard news with niche industries. Perfect. But Mr Rusbridger is seriously mistaken if he thinks being the most widely read english language newspaper in the world will solve any of his problems.

If you can’t make 30 million visitors work, then I’d argue no amount will turn things round. If anything – it’ll get worse.

And I can’t help thinking it’s a rather selfish response from the Guardian. They’d be much wiser, surely, to just keep schtum and see if Murdoch’s plans work. If they do, it’ll be better for everyone – especially the Guardian who, with a successful pay wall, could really benefit from all those Media Guardian addicts among us.

But, alas, we’ve got to put up with pretty pathetic bitching between each side… which brings me onto my next point:

2. It’s about to get messy

Perhaps it already has. Bullshit, says Murdoch of Rusbridger’s notion that newspapers will “sleep walk into oblivion” if they adopt pay walls.

I’m no Murdoch fan – nothing personal, but his control on the world is scary, no? – but I’m starting to think we should give him a good chance with this. Maybe we’ll look back in ten years and say ‘hey… he really saved the industry’. It’s possible.

But before then it’ll be mud-slinging all round. I can almost sense the excited fingers of comment writers just itching to get stuck in News Corp when the first major pay walls go up. Presuming it’s The Times, what’s the betting that we’ll see a whole heap of bile about the quality of the ‘paid’ Times compared to the free Telegraph? Very likely.

But again, as in point two, we’d be far better off diverting our energy into working as a collective to embrace new ways of paying for news online – rather than picking into each other for some short term traffic gains.

Imagine that. “Our newspaper is out of business because we couldn’t adapt to a new business model. Damn. But hey, on the plus side, in the month we slagged off the other paper we got 800,000 extra uniques!”

Mugs!

3. BBC News Online doesn’t change anything

“Dumping free, state-sponsored news on the market makes it incredibly difficult for journalism to flourish on the internet. Yet it is essential for the future of independent journalism that a fair price can be charged for news to people who value it.”

The words of James Murdoch, son of Rupert, and chairman of News Corp.

It’s an interesting point, and at first glance it appears he may have a point. Right now, the BBC is probably the biggest news-gathering organisations in the world. To be a correspondent is to be at the top of your game. And the website with all this stuff? It’s free.

Obviously not 100% free – there’s a licence fee and all that. But in the minds of users, it feels like a free service. No barriers, no pay walls – you just log on.

So how can anyone compete?

Easily, I say. You see, BBC News Online is all about the here and now. What’s happening today. Yes – that’s the point of a newspaper too – but in a different way, I’d argue.

Newspapers can pile on the analysis. They can doggedly chase stories in a way that is different to the BBC.

Take the expenses scandal as a good example – would the BBC have been able to report that story the same way the Telegraph did? Of course not – it would fall down at the point of paying all that cash for the information.

So my view – a biased one, admittedly – is that if newspapers think the BBC News website completely kills of the level playing field they need to just be more imaginative.

4. It’s a brilliant thing for quality journalism

‘Tits for hits’ is a phrase we jokingly use in our office. It’s true – any story with a promise of some flesh is a surefire way to get hits.

It doesn’t bode well for the future of quality journalism, does it? If all we click on is boobs, then it would be easy for news editors to just save money and make all their stories about Angelina Jolie. Seems like the Daily Mail does that anyway – take a look at their right hand nav.

With pay walls that all changes. I wouldn’t pay to read about Jordan getting married (again), but I would pay for the brilliant One in 8 Million series from the New York Times. I’d pay an awful lot, actually.

This means that, for the first time in our industry’s history, what the journalists want will be in tune with what the bean counters want.

If good journalism sells – which it will – then we’ll be needed to do more of it. Happy days.

5. The makers of Press+ are going to be very, very rich

I prattled on a few months back about how micro-payments could work if there’s a single payment method for every newspaper/news site in the world.

A Paypal for papers, if you will.

I think this is the most crucial aspect of the whole pay wall debate. If there can be one central system that powers it all, for everyone, then we’ve got a system that will succeed.

Put it this way – when you by The Times, do you have to go to a special newsagent which just sells that paper? Do you then have to cross the road to get the Telegraph? No.

Well someone’s only gone and done it. Press+ is touting itself as an out-of-the-box solution for pay walls. From PaidContent:

“Any consumer with a Press+ account should only have to enter payment info once to use the account for any publisher taking part.”

Spot on. So let’s just get on with it, eh?

1 comment »

Posted in Five Things, Multimedia, Newspapers, The BBC, The Future, The Web

NUJ on BNP: Putting words in journalists’ mouths

October 21st, 2009

"Calm down dear, it's only a political debate!"

From the National Union of Journalists today:

We believe the BBC is wrong to invite the BNP to appear on Question Time and will support any member who refuses to work on this week’s programme in line with the union’s code of conduct and conscience clause.

The NUJ applauds journalists in the BBC and elsewhere around the UK who are subjecting the BNP’s racist propaganda to professional scrutiny – and exposing their lies where they find them.

There is no opportunity for this sort of forensic examination in the knock-about soapbox environment of Question Time.

Interesting. I’m not here to debate the presence of the BNP on QT. Indeed, this post should stand whether I agree or disagree.

My issue is with the NUJ deciding to speak on behalf of its members without having asked them in the first place.

If public opinion polls are to be believed, the nation is around 60 per cent in favour of the BBC’s decision. Therefore, it’s likely a sizable portion of NUJ members are in favour too.

Not all, maybe not even a majority, but enough to question the NUJ’s judgment in declaring the Union as a whole is against the show.

By releasing a statement like this, its effectively putting words into its members’ mouths without asking permission.

21 comments »

Posted in Comment, NIJ, The BBC, nuj

Tags: bbcqt BNP nick griffin nuj question time

James Reynolds near Tiananmen Square

June 4th, 2009

If you didn’t vote in today’s European and council elections, you should watch this. This is how a country without a democracy operates.

3 comments »

Posted in Comment, The BBC

Tags: bbc european elections james reynolds tiananmen square

Let’s make love, not walls

May 13th, 2009

The ugliest phrase in journalism at the moment is ‘pay wall’. Isn’t it just the worst possible way of describing what we want to achieve? Wall says restricted. Wall says “this isn’t for you”.

And wall sums up an entire attitude too. An attitude that we desperately need to shake off. An attitude that says the choice we have is either a) a free online newspaper or b) a paid for subscription for an online newspaper.

I say bring this to the table: c) A newspaper with added valuable extras which cost the reader.

What are valuable extras? Your star columnists. Your war correspondents. Your exciting multimedia. They can — and should — be behind the pay lid

What aren’t valuable extras? Hard news, breaking stories. In other words, the stories that every news website in the world can — and will — publish.

In today’s Evening Standard, Emma Duncan says the pay wall will never work because of one crucial enemy: the BBC. There’s no escaping it — the BBC’s resources, know-how and power could never be rivalled by any newspaper. That’s been the case for years. But she’s missing the point.

Later on in the same paper, their new sex columnist, Nirpal Dhaliwal suggests lovers should “Get yourself on to the roof of any major skyscraper for a similar adventure — Bush House for instance.” What better place to embrace your lust than on the top of the BBC World Service’s headquarters?

So taking Nirpal’s lead, I say let’s make love, not walls.

Newspapers may not be able to compete with the BBC. But on the same token, can the BBC ever compete with newspapers? A new colleague of mine at the World Service argued that newspaper journalism is REAL journalism. It’s the digging in. BBC News crews are so wrapped up in covering every major story of the day that they have literally no time to think about what it all means.

Take the recent Daily Telegraph scoop. Could the BBC have followed that one to its dramatic climax? No way. Couldn’t happen. But the Telegraph could. And boy, it did.

So far from looking at the BBC as an immovable object, I say the BBC is allowing newspapers to get on with it. The BBC News website is the Mr Muscle of online publishing. It really does love the jobs you hate.

Now if my time at the BBC has taught me anything, it’s that ideas are worthless — it’s working examples that really get you somewhere. So, taking the Telegraph scoop into consideration, here’s how you could handle the story online while making back some of the reported £150,000 you spent finding it all out:

Here’s the homepage for the expenses story (enlarge by clicking). What are your valuables here? The great scoop about Lib Dems? Strangely not. This is the story that will — and indeed, already is — be thrust around news sources in seconds. In fact, I’d argue that none of the stories in the main area are valuable extras at all. In old money, they would have been — they would have been the money-grabbing front page. But not today. Big stories are shared stories — the important bit is using the kudos to your advantage.

The valuables, then, lie elsewhere. Look at the sidebar, what do you see? Comment. Simon Heffer on the spirit of Cromwell. Denis MacShane on how the BNP shouldn’t be allowed to capitalise on the scandal. These are your valuable extras. Knowing that it was the Telegraph that did the digging — isn’t its own analysis considered to be the golden nugget of its output?

And there’s more. You could charge for things like this. People appreciate the effort. Indeed, I didn’t buy the Telegraph this week, but had I have done I would have immediately looked up my local MP. This article appeals to me, and a micropayment arrangement would have worked.

And to top it off, the Telegraph could hurl in income by saying offering a one-time payment (two quid?) which gives you access rights to all expenses-related material on the site.

It’s all actually rather easy.

1 comment »

Posted in Comment, Newspapers, The BBC, The Future, The Web

Tags: evening standard expenses make love pay wall telegraph

Nothing like a bit of passion

May 12th, 2009

I love this. Who wins? I’m not sure.

4 comments »

Posted in Multimedia, The BBC

Tags: bbc carrie gracie expenses Lord Foulkes

Twitter to introduce paid pro accounts

March 26th, 2009

Dug away in an article about Twitter in the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Stone says Twitter recently hired a product manager to oversee the development of commercial accounts. The accounts would offer users more features in exchange for a fee, but Mr. Stone says Twitter hasn’t set a launch date for them.

So there we have it, then. The business model will be paid accounts. And maybe advertising too — who says there has to be just one way of making money? Right now it seems likely that those little text ads that have appeared in the top right corner of your Twitter homepage will soon be sold. Right now they’re up there for free — which I assume is part of an experiment into how many clickthroughs they can promote to potential partners.

But I sense advertising will be little more than a nice slice of the bigger pie: the pro accounts.

Offering special accounts to businesses is a way of making a shedload of cash while still managing to retain its massive userbase.

I wrote about what a pro account could involve a little while ago — and it seems like some of those predicitons are going to come true, namely this thought:

Say you’re a publisher. You want to reach people in as many ways as possible. Currently, you have to just hope they’re reading their feed and they spot you. How about, for a fee, Twitter gave you the ability to allow any user — not just those with Personal Premium accounts — to subscribe to SMS updates from your feed.

Your fee would depend on two things: How often you post, and how many people subscribe. In other words: how many texts are sent. In the same way that websites have to assess their bandwidth costs, Twitter publishers with Publisher Plus priveledges will be able to monitor their reach — upgrading if neccessary.

I also suggested a personal pro account — something I still feel would work. But, from a public relations point of view, Twitter are wise to begin by charging the rich people.

Since then, I’ve been thinking a little more about how Twitter can make money and, if they go ahead with pro accounts, what should be in them.

In my job as co-editor of the BBC Internet Blog, part of my day-to-day task is to monitor what is being said over social networks. Twitter being the most useful. To do this, we have a Pageflakes account which searches various terms like “BBC” or “iPlayer” and so on. I keep an eye on this.

A pro Twitter account should do this for me. It should allow me to track RT’s relating to the BBC. It should allow me to have a league table of most linked to sections of the BBC website. It should have a Tweetgrid-style interface built in to a pro account control panel which I could use to monitor things as I do now — without the need for Pageflakes.

The pro account should give me statistics for my Twitter feed. As a normal user, sometimes I get a flurry of follows during the day and I’m left asking them where they came from. Sometimes I get a reply, sometimes I don’t. Twitter should be able to tell me — if I was running a company I’d want to know if I was being followed as a result of negative or postive press.

But most importantly: a pro account holder should have the ability to send text messages to all their followers (if they opt-in, of course!). The value of that really cannot be understated.

Update:

More about the plans on Silicon Alley Insider:

Commercial entities like Whole Foods, Starbucks, Mission Pie, 52 Teas, JetBlue, even the Korean taco truck guy are all on Twitter—users and businesses alike are finding value.

Our question is, how can we help? What can Twitter offer for a fee that will improve the experience? Will it be account verification? Will it be lightweight analytics? Will there be opportunities for introducing customers to businesses on Twitter.

So many questions. But the key is to understand that Twitter will remain free for all to use—individuals and companies alike. We are thinking about simple business products that enhance and encourage what is already happening.

No comments »

Posted in Comment, Social Networking, The BBC, The Future, The Web

Tags: pro accounts tweetgrid twitter wall street journal

Tipping point: The Big Journalism Bail Out

March 25th, 2009

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.

11 comments »

Posted in Comment, Newspapers, Regional, Tabloids, The BBC, The Future, The Web

Tags: bail out charles arthur craig mcgill polly toynbee

Is the BBC reporting on Twitter too much?

March 8th, 2009

In the last six months, thanks to a certain Stephen Fry, Twitter has catapulted from being a past-time restricted to, mainly, geeks and journalists into a mainstream hit.

It’s everywhere. On Thursday, freebie London mag Shortlist led with it on the cover, a magazine which generally tends to stick to top actors, sports people or beautiful women on their front page.

It’s also all over the BBC, as this Google search demonstrates. It appears some readers have had enough.

This post by Darren Waters on BBC News Technology dot.life blog fell onto the pointy end of the licence fee payer stick in the comments:

Here is a line-up of self-appointed ‘techies’, neither of whom can claim any real scientific or technological qualifications, who are being paid, with license fee-payer’s money, to inform us precisely how they waste our money.

Says one.

Any chance you could shut up about Twitter, and start to do some journalism for a change? For example, a half-decent investigation into Phorm and BT, or are you scared you might upset someone?

Says another. And one more:

You’re peddling the same opinion (note, not “story” or “news”) again and again – that Twitter is a journalism tool. We get that you believe that. Thanks for pointing it out. Repeatedly.#

It would be wrong to ignore their points (and indeed, I was surprised to learn when I joined, comments are taken very seriously at the Beeb. Pressure from readers via blogs really does make a difference here).

It’s easy to see their argument. If you don’t use the service, it must be a bit tiresome to see so much coverage on what is essentially one solitary website.

In comparison to other sites, though, the BBC is relatively Twitter-free. Darren Waters tweeted these figures a few moments ago:

Readers complain we talk about Twitter too much. BBCNews: 450 refs in 1 month. Guardian:1,700 Times.co.uk 4,500 NYimes 9,800.

And what if those nay-sayers are just, y’know, wrong? When BBC blogs (and most mainstream media blogs) first started out, the comments ranged from the crazy to the bored unemployed. But now their a little more diverse, and often raise points as well put as the original piece. I draw your attention to this (from the same entry):

It’s *really* nuts to complain that Twitter is just full of “mindless drivel”.

Twitter is a medium, not content.

Content is provided by human beings, not the medium itself.

Hence, if you’re reading drivel it’s because you’re talking to the wrong people. If you were at a party listening to a bunch of people stood around together and the conversation was rubbish, you’d drift away quietly and find some more interesting people to talk to.

This is like complaining that it’s the fault of “the telephone” that people ring you up and try and sell you double-glazing. Or putting your foot through the TV because you’re watching a rubbish programme on a crappy channel.

Twitter is an extremely powerful tool that enables conversations between lots of people simultaneously. That’s all. If you’re finding it tedious, follow some different tweeple.

Brilliant point, I’d say. Many of the readers that are anti-Twitter complain it is simply full of rubbish. The above comment deals with why that’s no reason to give up on it.

But we must consider this valid perspective too:

You see, conventional social discussion mediums such as email and SMS (used by the BBC, in this case, for the acquisition of public opinion on TV and radio channels, read out by presenters) are all regulated by international internet or phone network standards, none of which is protected or owned by a particular trademark or brand name – at least not one the BBC ever endorses. You can SMS a BBC TV or radio station with your opinions in numerous different ways, as you can also email from any domain or webmail package out there. It is transparent, free and bereft of any endorsement or brand advertising.

But Twitter is different. Twitter isn’t a standard or a protocol, it’s not regulated by any government or any international internet organisation. It’s a brand name. A trademark. A business. It is self-regulating and self-managing. And for the BBC to chime out messages, from the public writing on Twitter, to their audience via TV or radio, they are endorsing Twitter – simply by mentioning it to this audience.

I couldn’t possibly argue against this. He/she is right. We rarely say ‘micro-blogging’ is taking the country by storm, do we? We just say Twitter. But then why wouldn’t we? Micro-blogging, on the whole, isn’t doing all that well — Twitter is only popular choice. But it’s still a business which will, eventually, come to use its dominance for commercial gain. The BBC, in that respect at least, should be very careful.

But here’s the twist: I firmly believe Twitter is part of a communication revolution. It’s not just some little website.

Just like the telegram, the telephone and the email that came before it, Twitter is already changing how millions of people communicate.

Therefore, it’s the BBC’s duty to be on top of its every development. To not be would fail licence fee payers. Technological advances are never popular — even among technology readers. Scepticism runs wild: “Why do I need this?” is the common cry. But, I’d argue, it’s our job to hold onto a makeshift crystal ball. There are few tech journos who don’t think Twitter is a major player in the internet. I myself recently penned a piece assessing how Twitter can be right up there with Google in web search stakes — look out for that soon.

Whenever I think of sceptics, I think of two groups of people. The first I was reminded of a couple of days ago when I met a man who worked on the launch of bbc.co.uk. He told me that there was some opposition to the BBC using the internet at all. I wonder how those opposers feel now.

The second group was a bunch of people who said that the video phone was a pile of steaming proverbial. And they were right.

I’m not saying Twitter is as significant as the maturing of the internet. What I’m saying is that the principle behind Twitter is, despite its simplicity, a major shift in how the world interacts. A shift that should be covered, disected and scrutinised at every turn. Not only by the BBC, but by everyone.

3 comments »

Posted in Blogs, Comment, My Work, Social Networking, The BBC, The Future, The Web

Tags: bbc darren waters dot.life technology twitter

NUJ follow up: I’m still not convinced

February 12th, 2009

I’ve been doing some thinking about this whole NUJ thing. My post the other night reads very ranty — indeed, I guess it is very ranty — but I’m pleased to see that many readers of this blog agree with what I’m getting at.

And, from the defence, I received some rather predictable responses against my argument.

I’ll start with this point, from Joanna Geary (formerly Birmingham Post, now The Times):

I have much sympathy with your argument, although £13 a month for legal protection may be worth it and it is for that reason I am still an NUJ member.

Of everything I received (and blimey, there was a LOT) this was perhaps the most useful. £13 a month, as Joanna says, is very good to get legal protection.I can’t argue with that.

But it’s comments like this from ‘Chris’ (no link given) that remind me why I wrote that post:

But you wait till you’re staring down the barrel of redundancy – through no fault of your own, just because it happens that your team is being shut down.

Wait till you’re being forced to accept alternative work in a place you don’t want to live or in an area you have no interest in.

Wait till you’re summoned to meetings for a “quick chat” and end up facing four senior managers using classic intimidation tactics.

Then you’ll wish you had a union rep by your side to help fight your corner.

It’s always good to have a union behind you if you’re facing redundancy. Now, I underqualify myself here, as not only have I never faced redundancy, but I work for a corporation that is arguably more ’stable’. In other words, licence fees are still coming in. While not immune, we are safer.

But my issue is that while the NUJ are fighting a corner, it’s all rather pointless. Take this recent example of an NUJ ‘fight’:

The NUJ has strongly condemned the decision of Independent Newspapers to enforce three redundancies at The Kerryman newspaper in Tralee.

Séamus said: “This proposal represents a direct attack on the editorial heart of one of the oldest and most significant newspapers in Ireland. The inevitable consequence would be a poorer newspaper, which would not adequately reflect the community life of Kerry.”

At a meeting with the union yesterday, management announced its intention to make three journalists redundant. The NUJ chapel held an emergency meeting at which management was urged to rescind the decision, which staff say will have a detrimental effect on The Kerryman and Corkman titles.

My issue with this goes back to my ‘SAVE THE JOURNALISTS!” argument. The NUJ is pouring its efforts into protesting job cuts, when really they should be coming together — as a union — to offer more productive aid to their members. Advice on training, re-skilling and re-deployment.

Ed Hart’s comment:

As an objective observer on this one, I have had good and bad experiences of unions. If I had to sum up what I would want a union to do and be, it is to work on behalf of its members. The problem is that some unions lose touch with what this means, and see themselves as lobbyists, or big movers and shakers; when in fact their remit remains low key, but essential to those who really should matter – their members. Do they occasionally forget who the customer is, and what their customer wants?

Helps me counter this argument from ‘thatstheway’ (uh huh, uh huh, I like it!):

Someone so self-consciously hip like you could have some input into its digital media strategy if you weren’t so busy doing precisely what you accuse the NUJ of doing all the time, which is complaining, and making digital media sound like some big deal that’s going to require your special skills alone.

I feel I could contribute with the NUJ no more actively than I could to ASLEF, the train drivers union. Why? I feel I don’t have a connection with their outlook in any shape of form.

I’m all for protecting the strength of print. By doing so, we uphold the values that have made our profession truly great. But I’m also aware that, like the industry, a union has to change and adapt. Sometimes there are battles that cannot be won by standing outside a building with a placard.

I think it’s time for the NUJ to take a step back and reflect.

It needs to swallow a bit of pride and admit that just because journalism is online, doesn’t make it bad. In fact, it can make it very, very good.

It needs to stop posting videos like this, which show not only a devestating lack of understanding about online media, but also an aggressive “We’re trained and you WILL employ us” attitude that we just can’t afford to have anymore.

Maybe what we need to do is knock our collective heads together and search for ideas of how the NUJ can modernise and become the forward-thinking union we all need it to be.

Because here’s the thing: I want to join the NUJ. One commenter on my last post accused me of having no sense of solidarity which, and I hope my friends would vouch for this, couldn’t be further from the truth. If the NUJ can bring itself up to speed, I would love to get stuck in and get my hands dirty.

I believe in the future of journalism. I believe that journalists will be as important in 50 years than they have ever been. I’m preparing myself, and training myself, for a world without newsprint. It’s time the NUJ got ready too.

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