A flagship daily newspaper is offering public bodies cheaper subscriptions in return for supplying content to the paper.
In a ground-breaking initiative, The Scotsman plans to publish up to four pages of content each day generated by professional bodies, trade associations, interest groups, charities and others.
Organisations will be offered the chance to become ‘Friends of The Scotsman,’ giving them the right to publish content in the paper as well as reduced-rate subscriptions of less than £300 a year.
Their articles will appear in a new section of the Johnston Press owned paper and a corresponding section on its website.
Announcing the initiative in an article in Saturday’s paper, editor Ian Stewart said he wanted to continue The Scotsman’s tradition of being at the centre of debate.
“I believe that over a period of years we have seen an ever-narrowing news agenda and as a result I believe there are innovations, debates, research and informative views across broad spectrums of Scotland and beyond that are not getting the airing they need and deserve because they fall outwith the news agenda of the day,” he wrote.
“I want to tackle that and put the debates and issues that face industry, academia, law, charities, the arts, sports, science, medicine – to name but a few sectors – in front of the tens of thousands of people who read The Scotsman every day.
“To do that I am going to add a new editorial section to the newspaper and create a group called Friends of The Scotsman.”
Ian said the new pages will appear every day of the week and will get a daily front-page signpost.
He added: “The articles on those pages will be written and submitted by the organisations that become Friends of The Scotsman. They can decide the topics and set the agendas and of course use their own words. The articles and pages will also appear the Friends of The Scotsman website which will be part of The Scotsman’s website.”
The paper hopes that each friend will write at least six articles a year of around 750 words each.
Membership will be open to institutions, trade associations, professional bodies, societies, interest groups, charities and others – but not individual members of the public, companies or political parties.
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Interesting idea but is this not just free advertising for said groups ? If their articles are newsworthy then run the story . If not, then make them pay. Surely they ought to be paying more than a £300 subscription.
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And what happens if the paper has to publish an article critical of one of these “friends”? Will it see the light of day?
Is this the future of newspapers? Paid-for propaganda while the paper lays off quality journalists?
Desperation, if you ask me.
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Only people who’ll read the Friends of The Scotsman pages will be the, er, Friends of The Scotsman.
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It sounds like the kind of section that heads – unread – straight into the nearest waste bin.
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Who will be “tasked” to sub this content ?
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It’s just a matter of getting free copy – a prelude to sacking
even more journalists perhaps.
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This is so clearly all about covering for a lack of bodies in the newsroom, but dressed up to sound innovative, groundbreaking, etc etc. As other posters have said, the ‘Friends’ will be laughing at the small cost to them of putting out propaganda, and will leverage their new found ‘friendship’ to pressure the editor when bad news is in the air. If I was a Scotsman subscriber, I’d be asking whatever happened to the paper reporting and analysing, rather than re-printing releases word for word, because that’s what it will be…
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Is this a joke? Local papers are already heaving with cut and pasted press releases from these kind of bodies. Do we really need more scaremongering from pressure groups and cash-hungry charities?
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Once upon a time, I was interviewed for a position where the bloke interviewed me said he wanted to ‘cross-pollinate with some Huffpo-style contributors’ and ‘create mobile platform enhancement’.
Needless to say, I did not get the job.
The point is – too much crap, too much not done by hacks but – hey! – it’s free. And if it’s digital, megabonus points.
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