Comments on: Dyson at Large: Shortage of news in Tindle weekly

By: Streatham2

Streatham2 — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:52:11 +0000

Steve, you found 33 news stories in the edition you looked at, and said it was the lowest number of stories you’d seen in a paid-for paper. You might have thought that that would have an impact on the South London Press. And it has: two weeks on, on Friday April 13, including news in brief items, I counted only 24 non-sports news stories in a 56-page paper – with six different by-lines.

The paper looks pretty determined to keep the award for the lowest story count.

How low can it go?

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By: Former SLP reporter...

Former SLP reporter... — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:35:19 +0000

The thing is, you can’t pretend the internet doesn’t exist. Sir Ray has completely ignored the web and has made the paper and all who work for it look like right mugs. The rivals (including not just newspapers but blogs and the new ‘citizen journalists’ on Twitter) have the story, quite often, three or four days before SLP. It has caused terminal damage to the brand of the print edition of the paper.

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By: ex-SLPer

ex-SLPer — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:44:54 +0000

@fishyphil
The SLP masthead was changed about 4 years ago. I can see your point about Impact looking dated but, believe me, the alternative was the SLP being transformed into a doppelganger of one of their other, more rural titles, serif fonts and all. South London is a lively news patch and lends itself a busy tabloid style – turning it into the Tenby Observer would not have gone down well.
Overall I think, for all his good intentions, Sir Ray has never known how to handle the SLP while pursuing the Tindle policy of trying to eke out a profit rather than speculating to accumulate. It’s a huge shame as it’s a great title and with a bit of investment could thrive again.

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By: fishyphil

fishyphil — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:44:44 +0000

@Streatham2
If the SLP has had that masthead for 16 years and Tindle has owned it for part of that time, then he’s had ample opportunity to do something about it.
But look at the Tindle website – http://www.tindlenews.co.uk/editions.cfm – you’ll see that getting that Tindle crest on to every front page matters more to Sir Ray than producing a decent newspaper.

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By: anon

anon — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 12:51:42 +0000

I would echo RT of Croydon and add the following: there are no full time reporters at SLP anymore. A few weeks ago the paper lost its deputy editor, news ed, chief reporter, feature writer and two part timers through a voluntary redundancy programme.

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By: Former SLP reporter...

Former SLP reporter... — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 12:35:44 +0000

Hi Steve

As a former reporter at the South London Press, I can tell you the lack of staff that is the main issue.

In mid March, a whole load of redundancies were made at the SLP. Voluntary ones. People who were so keen to leave that morale-sapped newsroom that they were prepared to take unemployment in this market. A deputy editor, news editor, chief reporter and two other reporters have gone in a newsroom already starved of numbers. This follows three years of Tindle not replacing staff when they leave.

Since the changes were made, two more reporters have resigned, in a desperate bid to get out of there. They were the last two full time reporters at the SLP. It now means that, until Tindle recruits replacements, the SLP is being staffed by a news editor from the Mercury free title, a freelance reporter and two part time reporters. People who are doing their best but simply don’t have the time in the day to write the number of stories needed.

Stories are having to be stretched, pictures made larger, and shorts and NIBs reduced or cut out completely.

I’m only glad I’m out of it. Loved most my time there but the situation at the moment is totally unworkable. Sir Ray and the managing director Peter Edwards need to scrap the Tuesday edition, make it a Friday weekly paper and employ more staff.

Will not happen though…if I was to take a guess, I’d say SLP will close within the next year.

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By: Streatham2

Streatham2 — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 10:20:37 +0000

I don’t think you can blame Tindle for the headline typeface . . . It has been more or less the same for the sixteen years I have lived in the area.
Any plan to make the paper more local by having different editions would be one way of dealing with the shrinking number of pages. In the issue reviewed by Steve Dyson, it works out at fewer than ten non-sport stories for each of the boroughs in the paper’s main area. Some years ago, the paper did for a while produce editions for each borough, with the local news in a centre pullout of, I think, eight pages.

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By: deadMaus

deadMaus — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:33:45 +0000

Agree with fishyphil – the SLP is an eyesore. It’s also gets very little out of a massive area in what must be one of the better patches in the country. Other than the front page, the stories Steve has listed wouldn’t look out of place in a title like the Surrey Mirror but hardly realise the potential for great, off-diary stories in an area like south London.

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By: fishyphil

fishyphil — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 10:54:14 +0000

Tindle is the emperor who wears the new clothes. He might have a lot of titles but there’s naff all in them.

Practically every Tindle title boasts inept typography, appalling layouts, no sense of a style guide and pages that look as if they were slung together in the free version of Serif Page Plus.

The South London Press is no exception. What newspaper designer worth their salt would use Impact for its masthead, let alone the page leads? It’s a dinosaur of a typeface, looks bad and can be knocked up at home rather than on a subs bench or design studio.

The whole thing looks cheap, add in that depressingly low story count and you end up with a product that’s being killed by a owner who doesn’t care about the quality, he just wants you to feel the width of his portfolio.

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By: Underpaid

Underpaid — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 09:50:55 +0000

RT is right.

Steve, your headline should read: Shortage of staff at Tindle weekly.

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By: Unknown artist

Unknown artist — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 09:27:17 +0000

I’d second everything RT has said. When I first moved to Clapham some years ago, I remember buying the South London Press back when it was owned by Trinity Mirror. It was a decent paper (one of the few bi-weeklies in London, don’t know if it still is) and one of the more prestigious outfits in the capital, well-staffed with a good reputation for hard-hitting in-depth investigations. 33 stories for the huge area (certainly population-wise) it covers is just ridiculous.
Frankly every Tindle title I’ve seen has been poor quality including the Enfield Advertiser (which again was far better, if nothing special, under Trinity) and the frankly disgraceful Yellow Advertiser (if it’s still around) which manages to cover about three London boroughs and as many districts in Essex with two reporters.

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By: RT

RT — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 07:30:39 +0000

Hi Steve. A few comments. I don’t think everyone would consider Sir Ray a hero of the local press. Many of his papers are poor, and the ‘no redundancies’ line is a smokescreen as some of his newsrooms are stretched beyond breaking point.
Non-replacement of staff, which has been the Tindle way, is just as damaging as redundancies. More so in many cases, as cuts across the board at least give you the option of deciding which areas have to bear the brunt.
I suspect that’s what has happened to the SLP, which before the Tindle takeover was a fantastic paper in an admittedly very challenging area for both circulation and revenue.
Many of the SLP news reporters have used the paper as a stepping stone to the nationals and haven’t been replaced when they have left. Sports reporters, on the other hand, tend to stay in their jobs for an awful lot longer and I suspect that as well as an imbalance in sports and news content, there is an imbalance in sports and news staffing.
OK, you could always shift some sports reporters onto news, but as you know it’s never that easy. A great sports reporter might be an awful news hack, and vice versa.
If the hyper-local future is true, then very good luck to them. It’s obviously daft to try to cover a huge chunk of one of the world’s great cities in just 33 stories. I hope Sir Ray realises that South London isn’t the Forest of Dean or Farnborough though and gives the local editorial team the freedom to craft a paper appropriate for their market.
Streatham’s changed since you were a lad, Sir Ray.

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