Newspaper entrepreneur Sir Ray Tindle has claimed local newspapers still have a “long future” as he marked the 150th anniversary of one of his flagship titles.
A lunch was held yesterday on HMS Belfast to mark 150 years since the launch of the South London Press.
Sir Ray used the occasion to deliver an upbeat message about the industry’s future in the presence of culture secretary John Whittingdale and guest of honour the Countess of Wessex.
In his speech, Sir Ray highlighted advertising guru Sir Martin Sorrell’s recent comments about the high levels of engagement with printed newspapers as evidence that local newspapers “have a long future ahead.”
He told the luncbh: “Local communities want their own local newspaper. Local communities will always have their own local newspaper.
“Local democracy demands it. With journalists and newspaper men and newspaper women like these, be assured that local papers will survive.
“Only a few days ago the chief of the biggest advertising agency in the country, Sir Martin Sorrell, said recent research had shown that readers were more likely to retain information gained from newspapers than information conveyed in other forms.
“This is one more good reason to be sure newspapers have a long future ahead.”
Also speaking at the lunch, Mr Whittingdale sought to reassure the industry about the proposed partnership between the BBC and local newspapers.
The BBC has suggested setting up a pool of “public service journalists” who would share their content with local newspapers, but the culture secretary appeared to give this the thumbs down.
He said: “What I’ve been talking to the BBC about is the way in which, rather than taking journalistic content and not acknowledging it, instead they can commission it and buy it in.
“And I’m very clear that can help local newspapers and it can help support them but I’m also clear that it does need to be an initiative which is designed to support local newspapers, not undermine them, and that means it shouldn’t be done by the BBC, there should be a means by which they look to have local providers which will probably be local newspapers because you are so closely embedded in your local communities.”
Mr Whittingdale also paid tribute to the South London Press as a “shining example of all that is best about local newspapers”.
He added: “In my view, local newspapers are absolutely essential to the country and to the democracy of our life here. How else are local people able to make a judgement about the performance of their elected representatives and their local institutions, except through the local press?”
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So, everything is just dandy in this newspaper rose garden, according to these members of the Pull-my-Leg Mutual Admiration Society.
The fact that thousands of journalists have lost their jobs and that millions of people living in UK cities are without .a consistent source of newspaper information doesn’t seem to be of any consequence to those who are away with the fairies.
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A nauseating self-congratulatory event for a paper which is a shadow of its former self, run by a bunch of people who can’t be bothered to follow up tips.A sad example of a run down title with a coasting editorial team and individual journalists worked off their feet. Thank God we have free sheets and blogs to hold local authorities, etc to account because the SLP can’t or won’t.
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Tindle’s papers are living proof that print can & does work, properly managed. Shame about Whittingdale, tho’. He speak with forked tongue – he’s quite right about local democracy, about which his Government cares not a jot. And as for the Beeb…he hates it, so a potentially great idea which might see it supplying the sort of court & council coverage which the papers say they can’t afford to provide (in reality, they’re not interested ‘cos it’s not clickbait), is turned on its head to say the corporation should commission & buy in the coverage. But from whom? The local papers? See above…
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Wiseacre, SE5 – not sure that you can have ‘a costing editorial team and individual journalists worked off their feet?’
from what I understand, Tindle has never made a journalist redundant – thousands have been in other newspaper groups.
what’s wrong with celebrating it’s 150th year anyhow.
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Oldhack – true Tindle claims he’s never made a journalist redundant (that is stretching the word redundant actually) but what he does is run a non-replacement policy which means as people leave there is more work for those remaining and fewer jobs available generally (and in fact it is jobs that are made redundant not people).
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150 year old thinking by the sounds of this self congratulatory piece
“Local communities want their own local newspaper. Local communities will always have their own local newspaper”
err no they won’t if they don’t support and buy them as is evidenced by the state of copy sales in the regional press which as we all know are in complete free fall
Time to look outside the building and accept that in today’s modern environment people no longer buy local papers to get news, it’s all instant and free online-and as it happens or is hyper local via blogs and localised sites, people no longer consider paid for papers to be vfm and free sheets are purely ad grabbers filled with dreadful looking adverts with no ‘news’content st all .
So much old thinking in this article it beggars belief and sums up why regional press is in the state it’s in. Old thinking by people living in the past and clinging on to a belief that the collapsed copy sales figures across RP in the uk are only a temporary hiccup, the worrying thing is they actually believe this stuff and no ones brave enough to challenge their views.
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Notasitseems – that is true, as attested by the fact I went for a senior job at my local weekly, only to be told the person who is leaving (the editor!) is not being replaced.
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notasitseems
Seems to me that only last week the south london press was advertising for a senior journo’ position in this very website.
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Notasitseems and echo – I can vouch for that. I was a senior Tindle journalist not allowed to replace departing colleagues. The policy didn’t apply to the ad dept though!
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I’m a tad confused, echo, as to how/why you went for a job that was not being replaced.
If people want to leave a job, fine – not being replaced is tough on those left, I agree.
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Back in the 90s, the SLP was full of exciting stories about crime, gang warfare, and political scandal. Now it’s full of boring stories about cyclists, how great local Labour councils are and how Boris Johnson is awful. The rot really became apparent in early 2011. Any idea why that was?
Oldhack: Tindle does make journalists redundant. He made a swathe of journalists at the SLP redundant on a voluntary basis in (I think) 2012. I believe it was reported here. Plus that’s not including the rumours of people being forced out of their jobs on spurious grounds that you hear a lot of. So Tindle really is full of it.
I like Whittingdale, though…
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sorry ‘The only living boy’ but when you offer voluntary redundancy to staff that’s very different from compulsory redundancy.
there is no onus on management to accept everyone who goes for it either.
I agree the paper is very different from what it was – but when you have a skeleton staff, you get a very thin newspaper content-wise and pagination.
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The only living boy…. Voluntary, the clue is in the title.
We are not back in the day, we are not in the nineties, sounds to me like you are the one stuck in a time warp, not the Tindle machine.
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Old Hack – I went for a job I thought existed as I found out on the quiet that this particular person was leaving. The job was never advertised and I found out why when I rang up to say I was interested.
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