Prime Minister David Cameron and his entourage have received further criticism from regional press industry figures over the treatment of local journalists at election campaign events.
As reported by HTFP yesterday, the Huddersfield Daily Examiner splashed on its political reporter Joanne Douglas and photographer Andrew Catchpool being treated with “disdain” during a visit by the PM to its patch on Thursday.
Molly Lynch, a reporter at The Yorkshire Post who was also covering the same event for her newspaper, has described the visit as “blink-and-you-miss-it” in an editorial piece.
And the Nottingham Post has revealed it was prevented from asking Mr Cameron questions it had tabled for him 24 hours prior to his visit to Nottinghamshire on Thursday morning.
The Nottingham Post reported: “The Post was asked by Mr Cameron’s team to send three questions almost 24 hours in advance that we planned to ask him.
“But on the day, only one question was allowed, and one of the Prime Minister’s aides stopped us from discussing more local details.
“For example, we were stopped from asking about the target to see 95 per cent of patients in four-hours, which has not been met by Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust in months, and about the ‘internal incident’ that was called in January because of winter pressures.
“We were also stopped from asking about the £23m of the ‘Better Care Fund’ allocated to Nottinghamshire, as local experts say £100m more is needed for south Nottinghamshire alone.”
Last May Mr Cameron offered his support to Local Newspaper Week, praising the regional press for its “commitment to campaigning on local issues”.
The reports have prompted David Higgerson, digital publishing director for Trinity Mirror, to offer a warning to high-profile politicians who are generating “the wrong local headlines” in the run up to 7 May.
David, who earlier this month described the upcoming General Election as a “huge opportunity” for the regional press, wrote on his blog: “Cameron, it would seem, doesn’t seem to get it. I’ve heard similar stories about Chancellor George Osborne too.
“Local newspaper brands now reach far more local people than any other media, and more people than they have reached for probably the last 30 years,” he wrote.
“Treating local journalists with contempt seems an odd way to get your message across. For a man whose background is in PR, this Prime Minister seems to be very good at generating the wrong local headlines.”
The Conservative Party had previously come under fire from the Milton Keynes Citizen about its controversial ‘Big Brother-style’ media accreditation policy, implemented ahead of the campaign.
No one from the party has yet responded to HTFP’s request for a comment on the visits.
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Oh get over yourselves. Probably looked at your sales figures before deciding. All the best, Dave (not that one)
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@Dave (not that one) You don’t happen to work for the Conservative Party, do you?
I fully support the local press making a stand against this Tory arrogance. And it’s certainly helped confirm who I’m definitely NOT voting for.
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A Tory, particularly Dave, answering questions relating to the NHS? No chance.
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I am sure snooty Cameron would much rather not want to mix with the unclean, including local journalists. It is just a burden at campaign time.
But, given the sales of local papers are at an all time low and their web figures not huge, I don’t think he has much to fear from their wrath. And I think Tory central office knows it.
Wake up local paper boys and girls. We don’t count any more at that level, just organs for charity appeals, crashes and fun days.
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It’s a politician’s duty to speak to the electorate, his attitude is a disgrace – the local press are going about things the right way in drawing attention to it.
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Politicians want to get their message over to as many people as possible in the shortest possible time. Is talking to local papers an effective way of achieving this? No.
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Here we go again …. just stop trying to cover Camerons visits. He never answers any questions anyway so why bother.
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Come on, the regional press doesn’t matter now. Nobody reads the rags so get over it!
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The Northumberland Gazette actually let Cameron into their offices yesterday, cosying up to him and then giving his visit lots of exposure on their website and social media. No complaints about his treatment of them!
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localandproud is correct. Cameron and other politicians have bigger fish to fry at this hectic time. In previous campaigns they would have made a point of wooing voters through local papers but now they won’t. Face up to it – lhowever unpalatable it may seem, local papers are a fading sideshow.
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Lots of moronic comments here on local press – the reach has never been bigger – and it’s where people go to find LOCAL news and see the reaction of Cameron et al to local issues… The naysayers on here have a rather bizarre attitude.
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Well the Tories in our neck of the woods have been absolute sweeties.
The Home Secretary could not have been lovelier.
The Party Chairman was very friendly and helpful.
John Major was a darling too.
UKIP couldn’t be any more helpful either.
Labour and the Lib Dems have also been great.
And we’re just a rural provincial weekly owned by JP.
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Haha! Looks like the Tory press office have invaded this thread today, shouldn’t you all be off somewhere pushing disabled people down the stairs?
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Cbronson. The reach has never been bigger? Really. Presumably web hits. Some regionals are selling about 12000 a day across two counties . how’s that for reach?
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Hmm. It’s quite difficult to complain about this sort of thing without sounding feeble and pathetic, isn’t it?
Very unbecoming from “regional press industry figures.”
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A few years ago I worked in a press office at a local council. It was very big on analytics, wanting to ensure the message sent by the press office was seen by the residents.
They discovered that only a tiny fraction of locals bothered to read the local paper and an even smaller number actually remembered what was in it. Local television was a bigger draw.
The problem for local papers is that they have made themselves so irrelevant that politicians don’t – apart from some lip-service and a chance to bash the BBC – bother with them.
The risks are too great, the rewards too small. Cameron’s people would have calculated that in to their thinking. Stumble over an important local issue and it could get picked up by the nationals and seized on by social media. Get it right and you get a front page on a local paper that no one cares about.
The owners of the papers have only themselves to blame.
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HOW absolutely wonderful it is to observe the NASTY party staying true to form and being stupid enough to treat the regional press as ‘plebs’ – their old Etonian shotguns seem firmly aimed at their feet! Long may it continue!!!
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I’d be interested to see if anyone on here is a dab hand at tracking IP addresses as I suspect a good number of the above posters are based in Tory HQ, that’d be a story in itself.
I’ve seen defter sleights of hand from pick pockets wearing oven gloves.
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Well, I can assure you I’m not from Conservative HQ and no fan of the Tories…alas not much of a fan of Labour at the moment either (we really need to ensure no Leveson).
But you do have to face facts… There is very little in it for an incumbent. You will be pressed in excruciating detail over some local event that you will at best have only the dimmest of clues about and you will be expected to come up with some explanation. And if you get that wrong The Mirror and Guardian and Morning Star will be all over you. Plus some localised issue will be splurged all over social media as another example of Tory cuts/heartlessness/poshness.
On the plus side if you give a perfectly reasonable but boring explanation you will get a page in a local newspaper read by a dwindling number of people – most of whom will not be swayed by what you say.
It is alas a numbers game. It’s not a partisan issue. I’d say the same for Labour or Lib Dems.
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Yes localhack digital reach + print. It’s a really significant audience – saying only print matters is somewhat foolish when you consider most local paper web reach is local people too.
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You forgot to put a location cbronson, presumably you’re in la la land?
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Two lots of people don’t give a monkeys about the local press going on about being “snubbed”. The politicians and the readers.
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“Cameron hit by fresh criticism over treatment of regional press.”
Hit in the same way a lorry is hit by a hedgehog.
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Maybe it’s because they believe regional journalists are naturally biased against them? Given the nature of some comments on here, it does give succour to that argument.
And by the way, I’ve interviewed people from almost all parties over the years and like life in general, I’ve found them to be a fair mix of pleasant, unpleasant, helpful, dismissive and everything in between.
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Cbronson, I’m afraid localhack is right. This whole concept of local reach being ‘greater than ever’ is a myth.
Local newspapers have been unable to monetise their websites successfully you due to pitifully low numbers so, in desperation, they’ve resorted to click bait, shoddy SEO tricks, banal social media posts (with links) and endless national drivel about The X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent, the lottery numbers and the weather.
Yes, this has all lead to an increase in total visitors but the overall percentage of local users has plummeted. The publishers will tell you that although this percentage has fallen, the actual number of local visitors has increased. However, this increase is so smalll that when combined with the loss of readership due to flagging sales, overall local reach is actually lower than ever.
If the websites are full of national nonsense which you can get anywhere and local papers no longer wield the power they once did, what use are they to any of the political parties in their General Election campaigns?
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Hi Oliver – WRONG – you clearly don’t have access to site statistics. My paper reaches 7-10 per cent of the WHOLE local population each day (of all ages) based on where people’s isps are – in combination with print sales this is a very significant reach. Figures are going up very well. Admittedly there are issues surrounding monetising digital – but in terms of local unique users the growth is there. Local audience is what we want and what we try and sell – which is why international clickb8 is a waste of time – so all the ‘experts’ are barking up the wrong tree there. So editorial are somehow doing their job… we just need advertising to hit their targets too….
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Cbronson, I spent 14 years in local newspapers and five in digital, before broadening my digital knowledge within another profession. I know the stats and I know exactly what your head office tells you.
You need to look at the facts. Adjusted for inflation, around three-quarters of newspaper print ad revenue has disappeared over the last decade, a third of newsroom jobs have been lost and print circulation has fallen by around half.
Newspapers, local and national alike, have tried to reinvent themselves as digital news providers. Local publishers, such as your bosses, will repeatedly drum into you that the total newspaper audience, digital included, is larger than ever. They’ll even back it up with sloppy stats and talk about ‘unique visitors’ and ‘reach’ based upon things like weak ISP data which usually overstates the true audience by at least a factor of four. Your 7 to 10 per cent is not what you think it is.
You also need to look at better metrics from other data sources to get the real story about how people spend their time online.
As a journalist, do you really trust what your head office tells you about your web traffic and how it’s measured? I’ve heard sales reps being told to use figures like ‘page views’ when talking to potential clients because ‘the numbers are bigger and sound more impressive’. Such an approach is not at all in the best interests of either local business or your readers.
So, back to the real data. People spend a lot of time using Google, Facebook, pornographic sites, they shop and they read their email.
Against this very broad backdrop of web usage, news sites get only around three per cent of all web traffic. Even worse, the majority of that audience goes to national news outlets instead of local news organizations. According to comScore, a mere one-sixth of news traffic – half a per cent overall – goes to local news sources.
With local traffic split between newspaper sites, television stations and radio, local papers are left with just a quarter of a per cent of time spent online. The typical local newspaper gets about five minutes per capita per month in web user attention. That’s less than a local TV station gets in a single hour.
Local newspapers cannot monetise an audience they do not have and that is also the reason why political parties cannot be bothered to include them in their campaigns. It just not worth their time or effort!
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