The editor of one of the five Johnston Press titles set to go weekly next week has been accused of censoring letters by a former journalist criticising the move.
The Halifax Courier will cease daily publication at the end of this week prior to its relaunch as a weekly on 1 June.
Editor Tim Robinson invited readers to give their views on the proposal in a full-page feature published on 20 April, saying: “I want to hear what you think of our plans – good or bad.”
But no letters critical of the proposed move have so far been published, and a former journalist on one of the Courier’s sister title has now accused the paper of censorship.
Issy Shannon, who worked for the Hebden Bridge Times until her retirement ten years ago, initially wrote to the Courier on 17 April, the day after the announcement.
She wrote again on 20 April after Tim’s article explaining the move appeared in the paper, complaining that her original letter had yet to appear.
Issy told HTFP: “I wrote two letters to Tim Robinson and all I got was a letter saying ‘your views have been noted.’
“It’s disgusting, it’s a gagging order that’s gone out basically. You tell them your views, and they don’t go in the paper.”
“I have been told they have been inundated with emails and letters. People are horrified.
“I have no doubt that the next move will be to amalgamate the Hebden Bridge Times, Todmorden News and Brighouse Echo into this new weekly Courier, because there is no way the Calder Valley can support four weekly newspapers.”
Tim told HoldtheFrontPage he was attempting to respond to letters individually rather than publishing them in the paper, but denied suggestions of a group-wide ban on letters critical of the move.
He said he had received “about 22″ letters critical of the proposed change and that some of these had not been for publication in the first place.
Said Tim: “We have received some letters and comments from readers, some of which were in direct response to the article I wrote inviting people to discuss the issue with me.
“I have tried to speak with as many readers as possible to talk about the future of the paper and allay their concerns and clear up any misconceptions they may have about our reasons for doing this.”
He added: “We’re working very hard to make a very important change for the paper and to give readers a significantly better product.”
Tim’s piece setting out the reasons behind the change and asking readers for their views can be read here. Issy’s two letters are published here for the first time below.
17 April 2012
I was stunned to read in today’s Halifax Courier (April 17) that the paper is to cease daily publication to be replaced by a weekly edition in what managing director Helen Oldham informs “our local audiences” (we are no longer readers, apparently) is a move to “platform-neutral publishing” – whatever that is.
This shock announcement, couched in baffling bureaucrat-speak, marks the end of a proud tradition in the Calder Valley. Since 1892 the Halifax Courier has served the community well in its role as a daily newspaper – the emphasis being on the word DAILY. The gobbledegook spouted by Ms Oldham in which she claims that the “relaunch initiative” to a bumper print edition of the newly-designed newspaper once per week on Fridays is somehow an improvement is an insult to readers.
How can a weekly newspaper be better than a daily? The new Halifax Courier will give readers “all the key sections they currently enjoy, as well as some exciting new developments,” she declares. I think a key issue for many readers is that the Halifax Courier is published Monday to Saturday.
Most of Ms Oldham’s focus seems to be on websites and online publishing. What of readers who don’t have access to this kind of technology – or even if they do, still like to read a newspaper? (Printed, you know – what they used to wrap round the fish and chips). Perhaps the writing is on the wall for other local newspapers in the Johnston Press stable too. The Hebden Bridge Times office has been closed for well over a year, at the very least an inconvenience to anyone wanting to place an advert or talk to a reporter, but that doesn’t appear to be an issue for management. I understand that the offices in Todmorden and Brighouse are to close too, staff (the few that are left following what will undoubtedly be a cull) relocating to Halifax.
The blurb for the relaunched tabloid editions of the Hebden Bridge Times and Todmorden News – one of the joys being that you can now read them in the bath, I gather – failed to mention that the two newspapers are now virtually indistinguishable. Perhaps they will follow the new tend and go monthly – or even yearly!
In a completely baffling and highly ungrammatical statement Ms Oldham contends: “Our focus has always been on local and we will increasingly benefit from that core experience with the rapid growth in both social media and in demand for access from mobile devices.” I don’t understand a word of that but then, I’m only a reader – sorry, audience.
Issy Shannon – former journalist on the Hebden Bridge Times
Melbourne Street
Hebden Bridge
20 April 2012
Editor Tim Robinson’s glowing account (20 April) of the launch of the new weekly Halifax Courier at the beginning of June fails to address several important points. In the rush to “neutral platform publishing” – whatever that is – he hardly addresses the needs of readers who do not have access to iPads, email, websites etc. All the focus seems to be on “cutting edge digital developments” at the expense of a daily newspaper, this year ironically celebrating its 120th anniversary. “Drop me a line, I want to hear what you think of our plans – good or bad. Message me via Twitter,” he implores. “I value your opinion and promise to listen.”
But not always, apparently. I wrote in response to managing director Helen Oldham’s frankly incomprehensible announcement in the paper on 17 April, deploring the news and highly critical of Ms Oldham’s garbled account: it has yet to appear in “Yoursay”, despite Mr Robinson’s blandishments. He completely fails to take into account the wishes of a substantial section of the Courier’s readership who, even if they do have access to on-line publishing, still prefer to have the choice of a daily printed newspaper. If an important news story breaks in the middle of the week presumably we will just have to wait until Friday to read about it.
The fact that there are already three weekly newspapers in the Calderdale area completely escapes Mr Robinson; he fails to mention that staff from the Hebden Bridge Times, Todmorden News and Brighouse Echo are to relocate to Halifax, in effect closing local papers that have served their communities for well over 100 years. There’s no mention, either, that 10 journalists are to lose their jobs, with more to follow no doubt. “We’ll be encouraging people to send in reports and pictures and tell us what’s going on all over Calderdale,” he declares. Who needs reporters when readers can do the jobs for them?
A little bit of honesty wouldn’t have come amiss in Mr Robinson’s gushing article, more or less a publicity plug for Johnston Press which is axing daily newspapers all over the country. Sales of the Halifax Courier have plummeted over the past decade and the company is in dire financial straits. So, Mr Robinson, as editor please don’t try and bamboozle readers into thinking the much vaunted relaunch with “cutting edge digital developments” is any more than a desperate measure in desperate times. “The weekly paper will be the same great Courier you know now,” he blithely states, “but much, much bigger – we are looking to publish bumper editions, on average made up of 140 pages.”
Pull the other one!
Issy Shannon – former journalist on the Hebden Bridge Times
Melbourne Street
Hebden Bridge
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I understand the point that Issy was trying to make (and sympathise and agree with much of what she says) but she of all people, as an experienced journalist, should know that the point can be made without slagging-off the paper in such a way.
With the best will in the world, no paper is going to print a letter which rubbishes its position, and criticises its exectutives, quite as comprehensively as Issy’s does.
A more temperate approach, making many of the points in a more studied way, might have been more successful.
I have nothing to do with the Courier, in case you ask, so I am not making apologies for their approach and have no vested interest in this – just saying that I can understand that a newspaper might choose not to publish, at such a sensitive time, a letter couched in quite so hard-nosed terms.
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Issy Shannon is of the view that “there is no way the Calder Valley can support four weekly newspapers.” It’s difficult to therefore understand why she would appear to believe that the area should instead be able to sustain a daily and three weeklies.
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He was a bit of a silly billy to invite all round comments and then not be able/prepared to publish any who took an opposite view.
Hardly open and fair balance there, Tim.
Sounds like the paper’s taking a backward step because of finance and it’s wrong to flim flam with the horrid honest truth.
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Issy has every right to feel aggrieved. It is shameful to call for views and then to suppress them.
To rub salt into the wound, the editor has then chosen to hide behind a bogus one-to-one approach to criticism. It fools no-one.
The Courier should have taken the negative feedback on the chin by publishing it and responded at the end of such material by restating the company’s position.
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How shameful that we have to listen to Fresh Coriander speaking from high on his fence.
We need people like Issy Shannon speaking her mind about a subject that she is most passionate about, as I am too, having spent sixteen years within the industry.
The big publishers don’t really care any more, no matter how they dress it up. It worrys me that in a few years time daily papers will just disappear. Why not just print every other day? Is that not a good compromise?
Well done to Issy for flag-waving the industry and for speaking home truths in plain English. Why can’t more of us do that? We’d have a better country for it, or is that me talking out of my back side.
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Bravo, Issy Shannon: journalists of all people should be shouting from the rooftops about the disappearance of local papers, particularly when those wielding the axe hide behind nonsensical jargon of the kind the paper’s MD spouts. (Just imagine the fun one of the harder tabloids would have ripping her statement apart!)
And to Fresh Coriander: while Issy’s no-holds-barred letters might have been too strong for the fainthearts at the paper to publish, that doesn’t account for the other 20 letters of objection.
It’s clear to me the top brass at the paper just wimped out, from the MD hiding behind jargon to the editor refusing to publish any letters from the anti’s. And if their readers can’t trust the paper to tell the truth, why should they buy it?
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Welcome to the Planet Zarg, from which Roy Woodhall is obviously writing. Of course, print every OTHER day. Damn, why didn’t everyone think of that before?
And Ex-Ex, I wasn’t seeking to stifle Issy’s views – indeed, if you read my post I broadly agree with her. I was just seeking to explain why an Editor might choose not to publish those particular letters.
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Roy, publishing every other day is not a good compromise, I’m afraid. Switching to weekly works because you can lose a lot of cost – newsprint, production, distribution and, yes, staffing – but retain most of the revenues associated with a daily. Pretty much all of the ad revenue bar is kept bar the loss of some front page ads, with the loss of cover price revenue largely offset by an increase in the price itself (e.g. Torquay went from 40p to £1 when it switched last year). Publishing every other day wouldn’t make financial sense as the loss of revenue wouldn’t be matched by cost savings.
I’m not convinced publishing every other day is a good compromise for readers. It’s definitely not as appealing to advertisers as the weekly option.
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Sounds as though Johnston Press are following in the footsteps of such great paragons af free speech as Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Nicolai Ceaucescu and Robert Maxwell.
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Interesting threads. Two further points:
1. JP has got the communication horribly wrong on this – surely someone should have thought about the PR (local and broader), given the likely profile of the changes, and made sure that all of the comms were delivered in plain English, etc. ….Whether we like the plans or not, it is good to see that JP at least has plans, is getting on with them and quickly. But it does look as if the boys at the top agreed the strategy and forgot about the little matter of implementation.
2. If, as it appears, the delivery has been left to local teams, is it possible that the quality of communications is to some degree a reflection of their own buy-in to what they have been asked (told) to do?
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Good points by stillabeliever (and Digger, what are you taking? Can I have some of it?)
No ed would take a job on a daily paper and then be “excited” when it becomes a weekly. Or be happy to lose high calibre staff in yet another cost-cutting exercise. But I suspect eds have learned to be pragmatic, and they realise radical change is going to happen, with them or without them.
Eds will be like everyone else out there in this chaotic industry of ours. They will try to make the best of the situation, talk up the product and keep as many staff as they can. So I’m not surprised that Mr Tim Robinson sought to do that and I hope he is amused (as I expect he was) to be mentioned in the same sentence as Pol Pot.
Are they, by any chance, related?
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Issy bizzy, let’s get Timmy…… (Sorry)
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