An editor has launched a weekly newspaper in direct competition with his former employer three months after his departure.
Jason Marshall’s venture The Hawick Paper hit the newsstands for the first time on Friday to rival Johnston Press-owned papers the Hawick News and the Southern Reporter.
Jason took voluntary redundancy from JP in May after 30 years of service with the two newspapers, which are based in the Scottish Borders, the last nine of which were spent as editor of the News.
The Paper, pictured below, has launched with the tagline ‘owned and edited locally’ at a cover price of 90p.
It also employs a full-time advertising executive, with several freelance reporters and photographers contributing.
Jason told HTFP newsagents had already sold out and were requesting extra copies on Friday morning.
He added: “We’ve had a phenomenal reaction to the paper from townsfolk and advertisers, all of whom have backed us to the hilt. We’re a hyper-local title, with reporters on the ground in Hawick, and very affordable advertising rates.
“For what it’s worth, re the current state of the industry, people haven’t fallen out of love with newspapers, they’ve fallen out of love with what’s in them. There’s not a word in our paper today that doesn’t concern our town and that’s the only way we will succeed.”
Jason, 46, began his career as an apprentice compositor at the News in 1986, moving to the editorial department as a page designer the following year.
He eventually became a sub-editor at the newspaper before joining sister title the Southern Reporter in 2002 in the same role, serving as chief sub-editor from 2005 to 2007.
In a front page piece welcoming new readers, Jason wrote: “It’s a bright new dawn for local news coverage, and one which we feel has been long overdue. The Hawick Paper will give you a voice like no other local newspaper does, while also giving you value for money and a top-quality paper.
“It’s your newspaper, though, and we need your help to make sure we publish the stories and features on the issues that matter most to you. We’re particularly determined to throw the spotlight on all the positive things happening in Hawick and the surrounding area, and we’ll also do our best ro raise a smile where we can.
“We also believe it is important to have a strong voice reporting the news in and around Hawick and we will always challenge those in power. But more than anything we’ll do our best to celebrate the many local success stories.
“Enjoy today’s first edition, it’s been an honour and a privilege for our team to put together. None of our competitors plough the same resources into bringing you all the local news, sport and features than we do – and we aim to start as we mean to go on by delivering a cracking read for you today.”
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Good luck Jason. JP has proven to be useless at running a newspaper business. They have no interest in local papers. Go and stuff them.
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Well done Jason. Small and local is the only way to go. I wish this would happen more often and fools like JP were left fat behind. They yell us tgst print id dying ….its not, its being murdered. Digital is an abject failure. A good well produced local focussed paper will wipe the floor with the other tubbish on offer. Best of luck.
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Good luck to all involved. Initial feedback from readers and advertisers appears to be overwhelmingly positive. Under Jason’s editorship the Hawick News was a brilliant example of an ultra-local weekly paper. It is now a sad shadow of its former self and has left a real gap in which Jason’s new paper can flourish.
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Good luck, Jason. Loving the competitions – £10 to spend at the butcher, £10 to spend at the pub. Proper prizes for proper people!
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What an absolute blessing to fall upon the good people of Hawick. Now, go out and support this brilliant enterprise by picking up a real newspaper.
Locally produced newspapers with local news and content — it could catch on. Well done to everyone involved!
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It’s all been said many, many times before (but those in their ivory towers choose to ignore it), but if you respect your community by giving it a newspaper of the the quality it deserves, it will support you. If you turn out the sort of drivel some of the bigger players in the business are turning out, it won’t. Best of luck to Jason and his team. Er, got any jobs?
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Well done to Jason and good luck to him and his team – that’s proper journalism, that is!
The fear for JP must be that this will be the start of a trend rather than just a one-off.
Their assumption was that all those good staff they were letting go of would just simply drift away, leaving them in charge of their crumbling monopolies.
As if JP wasn’t in enough trouble, the danger now is that many of the good journalists who have left and tried other things for a while might be thinking, like Jason has, “You know what, why don’t I do what I was always best at and look to start a hyper-local newspaper on my old patch?”
Many people I meet mourn the decline in quality of their local papers, so perhaps well-produced hyper-locals like Jason’s will find a ready-made market that many established papers have neglected too long.
If that’s the case, and these hyper-locals start gaining traction, JP will have a whole new set of problems to contend with.
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I’m heartened to see more and more stories like this appearing on HTFP. I think the more we hear of cutbacks and serious under-investment by the big corporate players, the more we’ll hear of operations such as these springing up. I certainly hope so, anyway – it’s so depressing to read endless tales of decline and, conversely, encouraging to see others filling the newly-created gap in the market with genuinely local products.
(Hint: if anyone’s thinking of starting a hyperlocal, I reckon there’s prime territory in Reading…)
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Another interesting development after the news of a sucessful similar venture was revealed in Yorkshire last week
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Let’s hope Jason’s quality control is better than mine! …successful…
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A great example of customer orientation, if he sticks to what he’s said then he can’t fail to succeed.
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Good luck to Jason and all involved. I remember all Jason’s hard work and effort redesigning the Hawick News a few years ago – all of us in the old Tweeddale Press group benefited as a result
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Every success to hm. Not every discarded editor will have a gap in the market to exploit but good luck to those that do. Sad thing is, JP have gone so far down the plughole there is no way back. They do not have the means, the wit, the will or the people to reintroduce standards. They are just trying to manage a spectacular decline. The execs and their yes men will cling on for as long as possible because they are the only people making big money out of this disaster. The ordinary workers, those who are left, have been driven into the ground and the shareholders left virtually penniless after the consolidation process that failed so completely.
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Good luck to Jason and all involved with this new launch, like many before him and I’m sure the many that will follow, he will succeed by doing the basics the bigger organisations used to do and no no longer bother with, notably good down to earth grass roots news,genuine local interest pieces and hopefully backed by sustainable revenues and good service.
We have some superb weekly and monthly news publications and incredible glossy lifestyle magazines thriving on those disciplines in the eastern counties in direct competition to the once big boys on the hill in Norwich, all respected all using ex Archant staffers and all making good livings, long may you thrive Jason and good luck to throes that follow his lead and open their own titles across the country.
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Jason may have the field to himself before too long. Another selling spree today of JP shares. Having slumped to 10p, still investors don’t want them. Almost 500,000 shares sold today. Second day in a week that’s happened.
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Hurrah for the Hawick Paper – watch out Johnston Press, us Border raiders are coming!
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A relatively quiet day on the JP share selling front. Only about 250,000 dumped today. Idea for a competition. Win 1,000 JP shares. Probably get them as a straight swap for the £10 meat voucher
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