A retiring editor with over 40 years in the regional press has urged young journalists to rescue the industry from the “self destruct button.”
Anne Pickles, pictured left, says she has “every faith” that young people with “bright new ideas” will ensure local journalism survives into the future.
Anne left her role as associate editor of Carlisle daily the News & Star and weekly title The Cumberland News at the end of last month, after almost 43 years in newspapers.
She said she had always planned to retire when she turned 60, and told HTFP she had “had a ball.”
Said Anne: “I won’t say I’ve loved every minute, but even the minutes I’ve hated I’ve looked back on and laughed at.”
She said she had been very grateful to spend the final years of her career with News & Star publisher the CN Group, describing it as a “fabulous company.”
Looking ahead to the future she added: “This industry needs young blood with bright new ideas and who knows what’s going to happen in the future, but young people now coming through as trainees and young journalists are going to rescue this industry from the self-destruct button it keeps pressing.
“I have every faith in newspapers that they will pull themselves round.”
Anne began her career at her hometown paper the Dewsbury Reporter aged 18, spending four years there.
This was followed by a 30-year stint at the Yorkshire Evening Post during which time she served as district reporter, community editor, columnist and features editor, among other roles.
When editor Neil Hodgkinson left the YEP in 2006 to become editorial director at the CN Group, Anne followed suit to take on her current role.
“I’m grateful the end of my career has been with a company like CN, which contrasts hugely with others. It’s been really nice, more than nice,” she said.
“I’ve been very fortunate to work with CN for the last few years because the value placed on journalists and the ethos that I recognise of journalism and editorial is there.
“I’m more than grateful really that not every paper in the world is like the big corporate groups that cannibalise each other. This company is fabulous.”
Anne will continue to write columns for both the News & Star and The Cumberland News.
No permanent replacement has yet been announced, but the Carlisle newsroom is currently undergoing a restructure as a result of Anne’s departure.
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Well done Anne for throwing us older journos who still have ambition under the bus.
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The only way “young blood” will save the industry is if they somehow manage to kick out the stuffed suit, bean-counter senior managers who are deliberately and systematically destroying the industry. Any idea how 21-year-old trainees are supposed to do that? (Legally that is)
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Golam Murtaza is right. Young journalists still presumably imagine they have a lifetime career ahead of them – as Anne Pickles enjoyed -and wouldn’t bite the hands that (barely) feed them. However, there are endemic problems facing the industry unconnected with the age of its employees, though I agree the journalistically talentless bean-counters don’t help. MrI’s intimation of ageism also has justice in it.
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“‘Young blood’ will rescue regional press says retiring editor”…
…no it won’t Anne. No. It. Won’t.
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It’s naive to think that the problems and decline of the regional press is an age issue that youngsters can reverse, if only it were that simple.
The way people access all news, particularly hyper local news,has changed and cannot be ‘unchanged’ and nothing will change in that respect.
Adopting new ways of working to meet the needs of the modern consumer and actually putting a value on whatever it is that’s being produced,monetising it and diversifying are the ways forward but we know this already,no one yet has come up with a ‘cunning plan’ to develop these aspects in what’s left of the regional press.
Everyone lkows the theory but no ones putting it into practice.
There is an urgent need to start trimming the deadwood and off loading those commercial people who are a drain on the finances yet who produce little or no revenue to fund the business.
Too often we hear of yes men, suits, those in charge, managers managing managers yet still they remain in place , why?,
Offloading the dinosaurs, be they advertising or editorial, who live in the past and cling on to ‘t good old days would reduce costs yet have little effect on the business giving at least a fighting chance of a level of survival that at the moment is nigh on impossible to see.
Sorry but putting our hopes on a new wave of youngsters is ridiculous and may I say very out of touch with the issues affecting the regionals in the 21st century.
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We all share her optimism, but honestly, the new recruits are not being trained to the standard which the industry built itself on. Out the window goes door-knocking, investigations, features, human stories, and photographic spreads of events. In comes readers photos, quickly googled guides to the best pub gardens and food outlets, and national story links on the website. That’s the future it seems. I’m sure the new recruits can handle that. Can’t wait.
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Congrats on your retirement, Anne. Reading some of the miserable comments above, I bet you’re glad to be out if it. Enjoy!
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“……the Carlisle newsroom is currently undergoing a restructure as a result of Anne’s departure.”
Not a Newsroom of the Future, by any chance? This could be another “exciting development” as at least one major newspaper group is prone to saying.
Well done, Anne, on your lengthy career as a proper journo.
Maybe you’re right about the next generation, but somehow I doubt it. For a start, many of them won’t be around long enough to really make a difference.
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The ‘young blood’, if it has any sense will start up its own company based on its bright ideas and side step the regional press owners.
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Youthful enthusiasm takes you only so far. You need experienced management who know what they are doing. I rest my case.
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I think most here are being a bit hard on Anne.
Isn’t she looking back at her own career with some fondness and, seeing how things have changed over that time remembers when she, and I expect many of us, were optimistic, open-minded and idealistic.
For some of us that has been shaken in recent years but Anne is saying quite rightly that it is those coming into the business now, and their spirit which could save the industry
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Young journalists are usually burned out after two years and go into council or police PR, the ones who don’t are usually minted, called Pandora or Poppy, and end up as one of the legion of Guardian lifestyle editors.
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Steve White: Most of the correspondents here are pointing out that today’s starters will not enjoy a long career working for a big national company in newspapers because the product is dying and they will pull out. However, as others say, new approaches – especially small, entrepreneurially driven news outfits, using cutting edge technology and perhaps set up by the young people themselves – could deliver sustainable jobs for the future. But the kind of set-up where people did 40 years or more for a traditional employer (and I’ve known plenty who’ve retired in the last few years) has vanished into history. And that’s not “miserable”, just the plain truth.
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Ageism is alive and well in UK journalism. It’s the only part of the industry which is thriving.
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I’m simply delighted that I worked in happier times as a journo before cutbacks really started. The job is not to be recommended now to youngsters.
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I don’t think anyone’s being miserable Steve white.the media landscape and how people access news these days has changed beyond all recognition with fewer people choosing the regional press for local news or to buy and sell, it’s all done on line and instantly so unless we change tact and develop alternate ways of news reporting that is of value to the end user and just as importantly monetising it, the days of regional press are numbered and probably coming quicker than many of us thought , sad to say that no amount of young blood or juniors coming through will reverse things.
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What the bosses are asking young reporters to do is unsustainable. They’re working longer hours than most of us ever did, having to come in at silly o’clock to cut and paste dross off the police website to give their own the appearance of immediacy, stay late to do the same and barely setting foot outside the office. They don’t do court or council; they never get a crack at features. Of the reporters I’ve met since coming to this office, without exception all the most promising ones have left, bemoaning the hours, the exploitation, the ossified management culture and the lack of prospects, and most of those are no longer in journalism, and I don’t blame them in the least. Nor would I be if I had any viable alternative at my age (ageism isn’t restricted to the press). Quite what ‘young blood’ is supposed to contribute to an industry that more experienced, better-trained and, dare I say it, better-informed and more literate old hands such as myself couldn’t – because they were never given the chance, obstructed at every turn by cutbacks, timeserving yes-men promoted beyond their ability and the dead hand of the accountants on the tiller – is anyone’s guess. Anne wisely doesn’t venture anything more specific than the valedictory platitudes customary on such occasions.
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Steerpike sounds bitter, but with just cause. What galls me most about this “industry” is the number of suits with no experience in, or appreciation of editorial, usually ex-sales bods who made hay in the good times or business graduates with plausible patter who don’t care what sector they’re in as long as then bucks are big. I’m not saying senior managers with editorial backgrounds can save the local press – it’s beyond saving if it stays in the hands of big national companies – but the most directly involved people are having little or no input into new thinking, and the most qualified and experienced are being laid off for the exploited toilers Steerpike talks about. Imagine a car workshop where half the staff know nothing about cars – ludicrous. There’s a case for a meeting of editorial brains here somewhere. Could HTFP organise something?
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Congratulations to Anne on a distinguished career that younger journalists will find impossible to repeat. Regional newspapers lose another of their star performers.
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We don’t really need new ideas. We just need to do a proper job and make sure that what we publish aligns with what people want to read. It’s not rocket science, but it is hard work, and the rewards are lower now than they were in the 1990s.
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People motivated primarily by money bail out Jeff.
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It’s very Naieve to think young people are the answer, young thinking maybe, or not old thinking possibly but it’s really not as simple as believing new young incomers have or are the answer.
How people access news now is a world away from how they used to,so doing what we’ve always done and expecting to get positive results in a changed media environment is foolish.
Whether we like it or not the traditional print industry ( that I’ve been in for 30+ years) is all but defunct. The audience for printed daily and weekly papers is diminishing much quicker than many people believed as each successive ABC confirms and there’s nothing we can do to reverse the trend and bring them back,thinking that an influx of young people is the answer is quite frankly ridiculous.
It’s very much a case of managing decline as despite all the warning signs and indications that action needed to be taken, the level of complacency and believing that papers would continue to sell in the quantities they did 5-10 years ago shows just how out of touch many of those who sat back and watched it happen really are.
The worrying thing is that majority of those in charge then are still in positions of relative power now,and while they hang on in there with their dated views seemingly in denial of what’s happening around them nothing will change,
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Internet news sites and blogs plus hyper local and localised lifestyle magazines are the way ahead particularly for young people looking to get into journalism, not the regional press. Dead mans shoes comes to mind.
Daily and weekly newspapers are dead, let’s not fool ourselves that they have any kind of future, they are not places for people with ambition or looking to make a career in journalism ( or sales come to that) what amazes me is why so many on editorial and sales hang on in there despite all the warning signs, the way they are treated and the pressure fry ones under unless it’s a fear of not getting work elsewhere or a misguided belief in the top floor johnnies who try to tell them that there really is a future and that the good times are just around the corner.
The worrying thing particularly for young people is that as each day passes more and more people are leaving the regional press and taking what few jobs in the independent sector there are, it’s really a case of how long can these people afford to wait?
Worrying times.
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As a young journalist I find the state of the industry very depressing.
I had a meeting the other day with the head of a digital agency and he remarked that all the news people he speaks to complain about the state of their I.T departments.
Our main issue is we have failed to invest in our I.T infrastructure and we are paying for it. We have not responded well to the new digital platforms which have emerged neither are we changing our internal systems so we are nibble enough to react.
My company has outsourced the entire I.T department to a country outside the UK so instead of worrying about how to create content for the new digital platforms we are having to fight with systems that constantly crash, bang and wallop any enthusiasm we may have.
Companies such as BuzzFeed etc are backed by venture capitalists who throw millions of dollars at them because:
1. They create the content people want
2. They have the in-house I.T departments to execute that content
Young and old journalists will always have the ideas but if the regional press is not investing in the technology then what is the point?
Tech and digital companies are hiring journalists because they need our skills and they are also willing to give us the stable and cutting-edge platforms to execute our ideas.
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It’s great to have enthsiastic new talent but the industry doesn’t do what it should to encourage it – the industry won’t train youngsters so they demand they come with degrees and appropriate post graduate qualificiations which, given the massive costs involved, is likely to attract mainly middle and upper middle class people who are not terrified of debt. Then they pay terrible wages with little prospect of improvement given the diminishing number of senior roles and provide poor working conditions, leading to stress and frustration. Inevitably, anyone who wants to get on moves into more lucrative forms of media or other avenues like PR. All you’re left with is a constant churn of 22 to 26 year olds and increasingly irate older hands.
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The regional press is no longer a place where ambitious and enthusiastic young people can carve out a long career, those days have long gone unfortunately . Times have changed and the criteria to succeed have changed too and beyond all recognition to someone who has come from a different era and a time when the hopes of an industry could indeed be pinned on new blood.
Unrealistic expectations coupled with fewer staff ,stressful working conditions and lack of real infrastructure and investment are leading many talented youngsters away from RP and into PR,agency or magazine roles, all of whom pay much better salaries, have a modern approach to the job, have forward looking and proactive plans to develop the business and brands and who encourage input and ideas,all things totally alien in the dusty corridors of local papers which are still in the main,run by tired old editors who are just hanging on in there seeing their time out and not wishing to rock the boat thus fostering a yes man culture which itself is killing the industryand is again something young people struggle to relate to .
Those editors I work with all know the days of traditional newspapers are coming to an end yet aren’t able or willing to adapt to the modern ways of twenty first century news gathering and the vagaries of social media.
It’s funny and often painful to watch them try to bluff their way around the subject when modern methods and the latest trends and developments are discussed and sadly this is primarily what’s holding us back and making juniors, trainees or young people coming in to the job disillusioned.
The futures out there for young people who have a desire to succeed as writers, journalists,bloggers ( call them what you will) but not in the form that those of us who’ve been around the industry for any length of time wil be able to recognise .
Good wishes to all young people trying to make a career in journalism just don’t be fooled into thinking its within the local newspaper industry.
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Well said “our man and @ourchant ( very clever btw)
an influx of young blood will have no impact at all, if anything it would have a negative effect. experience and those unafraid to challenge the apathy of senior managers are what’s needed however to be realistic it’s all too little too late, too much damage has been done and too many readers have turned away to ever fool ourselves into thinking we can stem the tide and get things back to how they used to be, those days are long gone
Now it’s all about managing decline and thus is no place for juniors of young people with ambition and thoughts about making a difference. There are I’ll ortunities for good young writers with drive and ambition but the regional press is not that place.
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