Regional publisher Johnston Press has relaunched another of its weekly titles with three quarters of the content contributed by readers.
The paid-for Pocklington Post in East Yorkshire has been rebranded as a “people’s paper” with the aim of bringing a range of “new voices” to its coverage of local issues.
Reporters will continue to provide news reports including coverage of courts, crime and council matters, but a panel of readers will work alongside the editorial team to determine the content.
It is the second such experiment by the publisher in a matter of months, following November’s relaunch of Lincolnshire weekly Bourne Local with 66pc UGC.
The new-style Post, which hit the streets yesterday, includes a teenagers’ page, a pub of the year competition, a church news section branded ‘views from the pews’ and a range of news features written by readers.
It follows a series of conversations and meetings with people who responded to an invitation to help create a “new, fresh paper” for the market town.
Editor Ed Asquith said: “In recent months we have been talking to many people in the area, some of whom we know and some of whom have come forward following our appeal for new voices for a new paper.
“Together we have created a newspaper mostly written by contributors. They have helped us to expand the breadth and depth of our coverage.
“Working alongside us, they are now part of a new editorial panel providing extra ideas and articles to supplement the work of reporters.
“The editorial team has responded very positively and with great effort to help get the Pocklington project off the ground in a relatively short space of time.”
The Bourne Local was relaunched in November as The Local along similar lines after local schools, groups and individuals were invited to become key contributors.
At the time the company said the so-called ‘Bourne Experiment’ could be rolled out as a new model for other small, weekly newspapers in the group if successful.
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**** adopts brace position – moaners incoming ****
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What a mess. How many times do we have to be told that it’s “written by you” and ‘Post’ looks like an add-on. I take it the blue oval in the advert should actually be a circle. The new panel will definitely buy it, unless they now get it for free (in which case they’ve lost readers!) but I’d like my paid for news written by a journalist, not a neighbour. Of course you shouldn’t judge a book by the cover, but …
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How did the rest of us get it so badly wrong for all of those years? We believed newspapers had to have offices at central locations; editorial , advertising and front office staff were essential points of contact for the public and profits were needed for the improvement of the business, not to service debts due to empire-building management’s greed and incompetence. What if the next step is to have readers run their own JP-free weeklies? Community newspapers…now there’s a thought!
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So if it’s 75 per cent UGC, will it now be just 25 per cent of its original cover price? No, thought not.
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“Reporters will continue to provide news reports including coverage of courts, crime and council matters, but a panel of readers will work alongside the editorial team to determine the content.”
– Next time I take my car into the garage I think I will ask the mechanic if I and some of my mates can come and give him some advice on how to change the oil……
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The sun shrine, the sun – yes, unleash the moaners! It is inevitable and, yes, it does have a depressingly familiar ring to it.
But – the inescapable fact of this and other moves towards ‘people’s papers’, no matter how it is dressed up as the otherwise laudable aim of getting readers involved, this is being done and will continue to be done because JP, Newsquest, Local World and the rest think it will be cheaper than having those pesky journalists doing it.
It is the regional newspaper industry equivalent of reducing the contents of a box of cereals, a Mars bar or pack of razor blades without reducing the price to the customer.
I don’t think anyone who reads HTFP really wants to dismiss the efforts of others, especially when they really are making the best of a bad job.
But this audience is more likely to be critical, questioning and curious –
Der! – because we are journalists and hopefully professional not amateur ones.
And – have you seen how much less soap you get in a soapbox these days?
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How long before the Editorial Panel turns into the People’s Front of Judea, or is it the Judean People’s Front?
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Every road in the country is a killer road so what’s new?
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This is story is hilarious. Seriously. I’m losing my job with JP come April, so I haven’t had a lot to smile about lately. But this did make me laugh.
This just goes to prove that leaving this joke of a company is the best thing that could’ve happened to me.
To all the other folks that are leaving, my very best wishes. You really will be better off out there without working for these clowns.
Thanks JP, for making me see the light.
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Actually, it’s not a bad idea, provided the people’s panel are active enough. Snag is that unless they are properly paid to be committed – and I bet the situation here is that they are not – other things in their lives will get in the way, like holidays etc, or they can’t find anything to grumble about this week. Then, unlike proper journalists, they will simply fade away, leaving the few remaining journos to fill all the pages (back to normal, then). OK, the district news (from the pews, etc) will always be there, but it will as usual fill a couple of pages of boring dross about whist drives etc.
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What happens when the “panel of readers [who] will work alongside the editorial team to determine the content” objects to certain stories going in? I thought journalism wasn’t about giving people what they want to read but telling them things they didn’t know and maybe ought to know. Oh, and can my hubby be – what do they call them – a headline writer? He always watches Have I Got News For You and he’s very good at the Missing Words round. Oh, and can we have more local news? Oh, do we need to have that story in? Surely the poor man has suffered enough by actually having to appear in court? Why don’t you use this headline.? It made us laugh!
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Pocklington sounds like a made up name, like Wibblington.
This whole thing is an elaborate hoax.
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UGC is a great way to encourage a community to engage with their local paper. In the same way that taking lots of pictures at schools and fayres etc means more people buy the paper – because they want to see themselves/their children/their pet in it – having more contributors is a good way to let people see how a newspaper really can be a voice for the community and a force for good.
BUT.
Everyone who has worked in newspapers knows the whinge of the advertising staffer whose client threatens to pull their ads if a certain story goes in.
Good papers ignore those pleas, of course – but I have also worked at some which falter under such threats. This compromises the integrity of the news on offer and the paper as a whole – and having more people who believe they have the right to make such demands will only make this a more common occurrence.
“I know the landlord of that pub, he said the rats were only there for a couple of days – we shouldn’t put that in about him going to court.”
“I live in that street – I don’t want people to know about that, it might bring down the value of my house.”
“I think writing about that car crash is a bit insensitive when someone died, don’t do that.”
You get the idea.
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Two points:
1) Sales are the only measure of success. If in, say, a year these are up then the experiment has worked. HTFP must revisit this story in 2015 to see what the sales figures are.
2) More importantly: why, apart from a man in battle dress, are there no people on the front page? There’s a cat, horse’s head, a lorry and a line of cars but no people – let alone anyone representative of the kind of readers the paper is trying to attract.
News is about people but the editor has failed to find a single person to put on his front for its new dawn. The headlines scream the paper is ‘new and all about you’ but fails to put a single ‘you’ on the front.
Ed Asquith needs to put that right immediately. That’s one hell of a lazy front page pic. And as for the headline…
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It’s a great idea and the law should be more like this. I could knock up a wig from an old mop, watch Twelve Angry Men again, and dispense justice from a tea-chest stationed in front of the town hall. I know whose guilty just by looking at them (something shifty in their eyes), and just think of all the time and money saved on doing a pointless law degree. Just like those pointless journalism courses HFTP prominently advertises.
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Some rather Luddite views coming in here. Whilst I am as cynical as anyone about JP’s intentions on this (money! Money! Got to make more money!), to dismiss the copy as ‘boring dross about whist drives’ is doing our readerships a huge disservice. Often, what we dismiss as boring is the very copy the readers enjoy the most. When I worked on rural papers, the most complaints were about show results being wrong. You underestimate your readership at you peril!
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Or even your peril – whoops!
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Cheap, nasty and insulting to all those professionals whose jobs have been sacrificed to the gods of greed.
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You can wang any old rubbish through people’s letterboxes for free – but you can’t sell it.
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It will happen to all of us. What are we supposed to do to stop it?
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Suedehead says sales will determine whether this diabolical innovation is a success – but how will we find out? Where are the 2013 circulation figures for JP weeklies? I haven’t seen any.
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Bloodsuckers – they’re out on February 26th. They’re going to get a lot of attention I think.
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