The future is bright, but the future is digital. And it’s proving to be a tricky transition for many of those involved.

Local paper newsrooms up and down the country are laying off staff. Respected titles which once boasted in-house subbing teams ready to berate cub reporters, on site IT support staff, a fleet of notebook-clutching news reporters, and staff photographers on call whenever they were needed -have now made way for subs who reporters never see, largely telephone-based IT support abroad, one reporter or two reporters staving off the day when all they do is content harvest and a freelance photographer as and when the budget will stretch to it.

Something has to give. Because some of the remaining staff that are keeping these papers going are working extraordinary hours to keep them afloat and put out a quality product – or at least one which doesn’t get anyone sued. They do it with skill, and passion, and dedication. They do it because they love what they do. But they won’t do it forever.

But then, they won’t need to. Many are leaving. And sooner or later, printed papers will, no pun whatsoever intended, fold.

It’s a shame but no profession has the right to exist and every business has to make money. And for the moment, they way that local papers are staying afloat is my minimising costs and maximising advertising revenue.

And they are turning to the web- because that’s where there readers are.

Does it matter? It depends how you like your news.

Sure, you can rely on social media, or look at a hyper-local website.

But in the case of the former, you can’t really trust what you’re reading. A few years ago now, as there were riots taking place in the capital, there were reports on Twitter that the violence had spread to sunny Redhill where at the time, I was senior reporter at the Surrey Mirror. As each and every report came in – McDonalds was on fire, there was fighting in the park – we dispatched our most junior member of staff to report back to us. And it was all utter nonsense.

And in the case of the latter – you want to be sure you know you’re not just reading advertising puff all the time with an endless procession of cut and paste press releases which are dutifully put up, and steadfastly unquestioned. I’m not keen to read well spun press releases from companies and councils (for they, at least, have money to spend on the people who write for them). There’s no point in having the potatoes if you never get the steak.

But what if you want proper news, brought to you by qualified journalists, not frightened to ask the difficult questions, shrewd enough to check the truth of what they are being told and – well – doing actual journalism.

Well, then someone will have to pay for it.

It could be advertising – more on that elsewhere on this blog. The more obtrusive the adverts, the more cash they generate, but the more the public protests and ultimately, goes elsewhere. Or you can put the site behind a paywall. Recent experiments with that have met with mixed success.

I’d love to finish this post with a clever answer. I’m afraid don’t have one.

 

“Pedo lolly pop man”.

 

That was the headline on the stick (sidebar) of one of the papers my old boss used to edit. The picture in question was accompanied by a photograph of the alleged criminal in question. Just another front page, you might think. But not that day.

 

There was two problems. The first? It was a headline that the facts didn’t support. It could have cost Trinity Mirror a lot of money, but more expensively, it could have cost someone their job – and an innocent man a lot more.

 

The page had been laid out by a sub editor working in another office. The phonecall that followed brought the office to a standstill:

 

“What the f*** are you doing? He hasn’t been convicted yet! This is a live court case! This could cost someone their job. Me!”

 

And the second problem? The editor raised his voice. “And furthermore. ..”

 

“And furthermore, LOLLIPOP IS ONE WORD!”