Let the tabloids fail, but we need a plan to save local newspapers
Newspapers are in trouble. For some this is cause for celebration; indeed Frankie Boyle recently tweeted that ‘there’s never been a more important time to not buy one’.
However, while anger at the behaviour of national tabloids is understandable, the problems facing smaller papers should give us all cause for concern. It’s important to remember that it’s the local press which makes up the vast majority of titles and it’s these, often much-loved papers, which will be the first to hit the wall as the covid-19 crisis continues.
The once hugely profitable and highly visible local press industry has been teetering on the brink for years. The sector’s peak was in the post-war years when The Yorkshire Post sold 120,000 copies a day and the Birmingham Evening Mail 335,281 (more than current figures for the national Daily Telegraph). The huge revenues flowing in from print sales and classified advertising funded huge newsrooms and branch offices in small towns across the country.
The situation today couldn’t be more different. Although millions still view their product online, local papers’ incomes have plummeted as circulations fall and advertising has dried up. The aforementioned Birmingham Mail, for example, now sells around 12,000 copies, a tiny number for a city of over a million.
Many local papers have already either closed offices or shut down altogether. Research by the Press Gazette found that 245 local papers closed between 2005 and 2019. The locations include many archetypal ‘left behind’ places: Oldham, Cleethorpes, Dewsbury, Stockport and Workington to name just a few. When a paper closes, a town loses a central institution. It means the loss of a team of people working to champion community causes and foster local pride. Is it any wonder that people in these areas feel their towns are getting worse?
It also means that a significant portion of local government has no checks or accountability from the press. In addition, new and innovative ideas from councillors or local activists (think of the ‘Preston model’ where the council sought a new approach to keep spending in the local area) fail to get a proper hearing.
It might be argued that all of these functions can be achieved on the internet; citizens can live-blog a council meeting, councillors can tweet new ideas, and Facebook groups can provide a public forum. But social media fails us in a few important ways.
Firstly, dry but important issues will fail to get a hearing. Tech pioneer Jaron Lanier has highlighted how Facebook promotes the most emotive content, skewing politics “not towards the left or right, but downwards”. A quality local paper can ensure that certain stories are given proper attention because of their public interest value.
The second issue is that, despite the initial hopes of citizen journalism, there is a clear need to have professionals reporting on key issues. People generally haven’t stepped in to offer comprehensive coverage; a crucial council meeting may only provoke public interest once its decision has been made. With no reporter in the room we don’t know how proposals which impact our lives have been determined.
Thirdly, tech firms pay nothing for the news content that fills their platforms, yet make huge profits from the advertising that accompanies it. According to the UK government’s Cairncross review into the press, search engines and social media took over 80% of digital advertising revenue in the UK in 2017. If we accept that high quality journalism costs money (take, for example, the Yorkshire Post employing a dedicated correspondent in Westminster), then quality will fall when news providers aren’t compensated for the product they provide.
The big question is what can be done to save the local press and ensure its survival through the current crisis? One solution is (unsurprisingly) that more people buy newspapers. While this would definitely help right now, the wider concern is that we’re growing less and less willing to directly pay for the news we consume.
The government have recently shown a willingness to offer indirect subsidies to papers by purchasing millions of pounds of advertising and offering tax cuts. However, this is a short-term fix which fails to respond to the scale of current losses, with some analysts forecasting a £1 billion fall in industry revenue due to Covid-19.
More promising is media expert Roy Greenslade’s suggestion that a viable model, which protects public interest content, should involve direct government subsides. Although this raises questions about editorial independence, he notes that the BBC manages to operate independently from direct meddling. The revenue for the programme could come from taxes levied against the tech giants.
Even if we rarely buy a copy, I’m sure most of us would mourn the loss of our local paper. Nothing else will fill the gap in our democracy nor impart the same sense of importance on the events of our lives; try taking a screenshot of your latest Facebook post to your nan’s house and see if it ends up framed on the mantlepiece.
The local press has contributed for centuries to our communities. Despite calls for the industry’s collapse, let’s ensure that these papers can continue into the future.
