A former sub-editor who was made redundant last year with the creation of a new production hub has bounced back with the launch of a news website on his former paper’s patch.
David Wood left his role as chief sub-editor of the Evesham Journal and Cotswold Journal in January last year as one of 15 Worcester-based staff who lost their jobs at Newsquest when production shifted to a central hub in Newport.
But he has now made a comeback with the launch of Loving the Cotswolds, a local news site with a focus on ‘good news’ which aims to rival existing websites in the area, including the Cotswold Journal.
David, 49, first started out at Newsquest as a trainee reporter on the Evesham Journal in 1989, where he worked until 1995, apart from a year at the Gloucestershire Echo, before working for the Redditch Advertiser as a reporter and a sub.
In 1997, he became a sub-editor for Newsquest Worcester, working on a number of the company’s titles, before later becoming chief sub for the Journal series.
David Wood is pictured with his new website.
He said he had spent the last year planning his new website, which launched last month, after being made redundant.
Said David: “It was a devastating time for many of us to lose jobs we loved doing.
“Literally hundreds of years of combined experience and local knowledge was thrown on the scrapheap in an instant and it didn’t matter how good you were at your job or how long you had served the company.”
Loving the Cotswolds contains a section called ‘101 Reasons to Love the Cotswolds’, which comprises 101 editorial features which David spent a year researching and writing.
Other sections include Cotswolds Claims to Fame, Cotswolds Trivia, the Seven Wonders of the Cotswolds and the Wacky Side of the Cotswolds.
There are also sections on Cotswold Gardens, Walking in the Cotswolds and a What’s On events diary.
David said: “The initial response to Loving the Cotswolds has been brilliant. Just about everyone who’s commented on the site has been highly complimentary.
“In the three weeks since we launched, nearly 1,500 users have looked at almost 9,000 pages and we already have more than 700 followers on Twitter and 350 Facebook likes.”
He is hoping to make the website pay by writing ‘advertorial’ features on local businesses, who can take out a monthly membership.
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I wish him all the very best. A good example of a journalist taking his future into his own hands, a decision I know he will never regret. Local, original content, produced by someone who knows what he is doing – cottage industry journalism that will knock spots off the one-size-fits-all phase poisoning the work of the big established newspaper companies.
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Good luck David.
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Splendid effort, sir. It’s a shame the above article was slightly spoilt by use of the words “Newsquest” and “hub”, but that’s life. Best of luck with the site, David, and if you really want to keep it local you could relocate yourself to Milford Haven, Caithness, or somewhere. Only kidding…
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Good on you, Mr Wood.
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Admire the effort, but this is just another ‘former journo learns how to use create a website’ story.
Why would any local business pay for an ‘advertorial’ on a new site with so few visitors, especially when most will already have their own established websites, blogs and social media profiles? That ship has sailed!
In order to realistically rival the Cotswolds Journal, he’ll require a lot more than a little website and a bit of luck.
Despite my doubts, I really hope he does well with it though!
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Nice idea, wish him well, but it won’t work.
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This former Evesham Journal reporter wishes him all the best. Since the paper moved staff to Worcester I’ve noticed that the Journal website carries lots of news, much of it from places way, way outside the Journal circulation area, to the extent that I rarely bother with anything other than the announcements section these days.
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An inspiration to all of us who were treated disgracefully by the conglomerate suits who have ruined local news.
Readers will always appreciate a local and fresh approach to their news from someone who really knows their patch, not some rehashed hogwash from some-place-sort-of-nearby.
This is the future for ‘local’ news. Good luck to you, and well done.
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I wish him well…but how many launch attempts on a “good news only” basis succeed? He’ll have to let real news, bad as well as good, onto the site or no-one will bother with it. Readers are just plain prurient.
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Deserves to succeed, but it can’t. Shows real guts, but the slightest hint of criticism in any advertorial and the advertiser won’t want to see you ever again. The business world is unfair, bigoted, greedy, selfish etc etc etc. You cannot match high ideals with making money.
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David, I wish you luck with your venture although I fear that it cannot succeed. My only (tenuous) connection with journalism is that I publish a small ‘community’ website but from what I have learned you will struggle to make it pay. However, I sincerely wish you all the very best.
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Look at how Youtube bloggers and their channels (PewDiePie – millions of subs) make a living and make lots of money – something to think about for all who wish to start a website…
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help is correct. Look, journalists should do a couple of things. Subscribe to some good magazines (easily digestible) such as PC Pro, Web User, Computeractive and .net. Read them properly. Get a grasp on what people are doing online and understand that these kinds of websites don’t work well these days and that you can make lots of money and promote journalism through the likes of YouTube. Then grab hold of the Periscope app and do some live, on-the-spot video reporting. It’s time for us journalists to get with the digital age and knock everyone else out of the water with it.
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As another EJ veteran and ex colleague of David’s I wish him all the very best! Whether it succeeds or fails – and of course I very much hope it does the former – at least he cares about his patch and he’s trying. Which is a lot more than the Newsquest bigwigs do.
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My local misses so many stories because its staff have no knowledge of the area. Good luck to this truly local scheme. I am considering one myself because my weekly is so sterile. Life is local. Sorry, someone else did that!
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Nottingham Post had pic feature this week on…famous road names that are found in area eg Albert Square. Things are worse than we thought. Time for my website!
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Needs to make it pay
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Like so many others, I wish him well, But he should pay heed to the cardinal rule: Good news is bad news.
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Andy Richardson, first of all, making money out of YouTube requires a lot more than just being a journalist and ‘grabbing an app’.
To make money on YouTube, you first need good content. You also need regular, good content and to be able to cross promote it among other regularly update social media platforms, blogs, websites etc. Then, over time and if you attract a large enough audience, you might be able to become a YouTube partner and monetise your videos properly.
Periscope is live streaming via Twitter. No use to YouTube unless you select the option to store your recordings, then edit and upload them later.
What you are completely correct about is how journalists should already be using these tools to build on what they already have. If not, more and more will lose out to self-starting, freelancing graduates!
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Good luck mate
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