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Regional press claims about BBC are ‘complete cobblers’ says union boss

Michelle Stanistreet

The National Union of Journalists has labelled as “complete cobblers” claims by the regional press that the BBC has an adverse effect on local newspapers.

Last month BBC Director-General Tony Hall unveiled plans for a pool of 100 public service journalists who would provide coverage of councils and courts for both the corporation and commercial news outlets.

The project was given the “thumbs down” by the regional press, which accused the corporation of “back door expansionism”.

Now NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet, left,  has also condemned the plan, claiming regional publishers had “a vested interest in trying to grab a section of licence fee payers’ money.”

Appearing before the House of Lords Communications Commitee, which is examining the BBC’s charter renewal, Michalle said she saw the proposal as step towards “privatisation”.

She added if the plans went ahead, she believed the local press would bid to win the BBC’s contracts for the 100 local reporters and that would “undermine the BBC’s ability as a public service broadcaster to do what it does right.”

Michelle also insisted the BBC did not have a negative effect on local newspapers when asked whether the corporation had undermined the regional press.

She told the committee: “It’s complete cobblers. It’s perpetuated by those leading the local and regional newspaper industry who have a vested interest in trying to grab a section of licence fee payers’ money that rightly belongs within our public service broadcaster.”

Michelle added:  “The titans who run the local and regional newspaper groups in the UK…have encountered problems because of their own failures of business models.

“They have enjoyed lavish profits for many years and didn’t reinvest in journalism.  In their rush to get onto a multiplatform approach, they haven’t got a business model that sustains that necessarily.

“They have sought to cut and cut and cut costs to maintain very high profit levels and not cared in the process that they haven’t got enough local reporters to cover council meetings, that they don’t have people who can cover health and education, vital things of importance to local communities.

“They only cared about their bottom line and now they see that the BBC is ripe for the picking…and they have gone hell for leather to try to secure some money from the BBC. Any attempts to try and grab money from the BBC – to stick into the pockets of the shareholders who run the local press – has to be avoided.”

12 comments

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  • October 14, 2015 at 12:51 pm
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    Good on you Michelle. Our industry’s hopeless senior managers regularly do more damage to local/regional papers in a week than the BBC does in a decade.

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  • October 14, 2015 at 3:58 pm
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    Well said. A huge smokescreen put out by failing chief executives. The papers would stand a better chance if they were sold back to small scale local family-run enterprises

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  • October 14, 2015 at 4:51 pm
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    Why would people buy local newspapers these days ?
    All the classified adverts, the primary sales drivers in the past, on are the web for free.
    Its only journalistic arrogance and old school regional press editors who thought anything else.

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  • October 14, 2015 at 5:03 pm
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    She’s absolutely right. The revenue problems of the regional press stem from the collapse of the traditional sources of advertising, particularly property and motors.

    That advertising ain’t gone to the BBC for obvious reasons, but onto websites and publications set up by estate agents and motor dealers themselves, often because they became fed up of paying through the nose for newspaper adverts that became progressively less worthwhile as circulations shrank.

    The decline of the regional press is principally attributable to a failure of the groups that own it to invest in its future. This pointless BBC bashing is a smokescreen to appease the City, and like all smokescreens, it will blow away……

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  • October 14, 2015 at 6:12 pm
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    I work for a paper and Michelle is spot on. Local papers have nothing to fear but their owners.
    Frankly the BBC local coverage is weak, but local papers are so under staffed they cannot take advantage . To blame the BBC for the disaster of print is just dumb.

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  • October 15, 2015 at 10:32 am
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    Another huge swing and a miss from the NUJ – when will the likes of Michelle Stanistreet and her fellow theoretical journalists come crashing down to earth?
    The vast majority of reporters at the coalface resent free money being lavished on the lazy sods at the BBC, whose idea of local coverage is either repackaging what official communiques land in their inboxes or rifling through the dailies and weeklies for easy fills.
    If anyone in the provinces has regularly seen a local radio hack at court, or a council meeting or inquest, in the past few years, they are indeed privileged.
    To offer the regional press the crumbs off Auntie’s table, when they have such a p*ss-poor record on covering local affairs, is laughable.
    Yes, those of use who haven’t had a pay rise in six years are well aware that the newspaper barons aren’t exactly altruistic.
    But Stanistreet and her ilk clearly have a wide eye on the huge swathes of journos taking the Beeb’s shilling, rather than bothering with representing the old media sloggers any more.
    Maybe it’s time to split the NUJ into thirds, for the state employees, deadwood slaves and clickbaiters.

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  • October 15, 2015 at 12:50 pm
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    I’m not sure who is the most clueless: The NUJ, the BBC or the regional press owners. But my money’s on the BBC.

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  • October 15, 2015 at 12:59 pm
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    NO! The BBC was always benevolent to local reporters!
    Our regional station used to pay for submitted stories, so there!
    I remember selling them a decent story that led the regional bulletins and the next day got a slot on the national news.
    They sent me £2.60 (please include correct decimal point)

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  • October 15, 2015 at 1:02 pm
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    Spot on, North Country Boy. There is little of note about the delusional NUJ these days, other than its shameless opportunism and questionable morals. It abandoned thousands of regional hacks to their fate several years ago and watched with ambivalence as the hordes clambered into life rafts marked BBC or local council press offices. Now, like seagulls following the trawler, Ms Stanistreet and Co are now desperately nailing their colours to the HMS Beeb, or any passing mast, to see if anyone is daft enough to pay their fees all over again. It’s not even subtle. The industry may well have deserved better management in recent years, but it certainly deserved a better union than Ms Stanistreet’s discredited and disingenuous grubby little cabal.

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  • October 15, 2015 at 4:40 pm
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    Michelle ma belle.
    I have to agree with you. How the pathetically managed regional press can blame the BBC for its sad and rapid demise is beyond belief. Its pretty simple really. There were too many lushes over-promoted to editor and similar roles in the fat and easy times who did not have the wit or ability to change when the internet came along and left it all too late. God help us, some of them are still in senior jobs.
    If it is one thing the press doesn’t like, it is the truth about itself. I have worked for enough rags to know that.

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  • October 15, 2015 at 10:56 pm
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    “The titans who run the local and regional newspaper groups in the UK…have encountered problems because of their own failures of business models.

    “They have enjoyed lavish profits for many years and didn’t reinvest in journalism. In their rush to get onto a multiplatform approach, they haven’t got a business model that sustains that ….”
    Well said Michelle that’s exactly the problem with RP groups across the country and her whole piece could be written specifically with archant in mind
    Soon as the business began to be run by bean counters and sharks in suits the whole ethos of quality content driving sales which in turn drove ad revenues imploded upon itself as Michelle describes so well

    The greed of the media owners got them in the mess they’re in, why should we the licence payer bail them out? They’ve made their beds now lie on them

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