I went to a meeting last night to discuss plans by Guardian Media Group to halve the number of journalists working at the Manchester Evening News, which it owns, and close all the weekly paper offices in the region.
MEN Media’s owners say their plans to force through 39 redundancies (there are 82 staff) on the daily and the same number on the weekies are non-negotiable and in response to difficult trading conditions – namely the ongoing shrinkage of the print media, exacerbated by the recession.
They claim this is an essential move if they are to safeguard the survival of the Guardian, the UK’s supposed liberal newspaper.
Now I am a big fan of the Guardian. I write for it on occasions and would like to do so more. I read it and its Sunday sister-paper The Observer more than any other title and always dreamed of working on their staff. I believe there’s a need for a liberal voice in our media, which is dominated by hysterical right-wing rags.
But I’m with my former colleagues at the Manchester Evening News in their fight against the plundering of this city’s media, of which the newspaper section is run pretty much as a GMG monopoly.
For years the MEN has propped up the Guardian, making large profits for the company and still being subjected to job cuts…whatever happens the regionals division will end this year in profit.
This latest round, if allowed to go ahead, would in my view be the death knell for a regional paper which – like most others – is already struggling to cover enough serious local news.
There is too much reliance on press releases and agency copy and frustration among reporters that they don’t have the time to cover things that require more digging, and that important stories often don’t get the showing they deserve. It was partly this which led me to stop working there part-time last year.
To me, there is a deeper crisis is all this, one that dwarfs even the loss of 80-odd jobs. Many would doubtless disagree with me about the value of the regional media – and given the slide over recent years it’s perhaps hardly surprising – but I am profoundly worried by what this represents for local democracy, the fight against corruption, justice and community life.
I have a big ideological problem with the idea that big companies should be making profit out of news because cutting costs to maintain the bottom line will only ever result in poorer quality…you just get the vicious cycle of falling sales, drops in advertising and job cuts that we are experiencing now.
Tesco apparently looks to make 8p profit out of every £1 spent in store. Johnston Press, which owns many regional papers including the Yorkshire Post – currently going through a similar crisis to the MEN – aims to make 40p in the £1, and I expect other media owners are similar. It just isn’t sustainable.
On a personal level I wonder whether there is a real future working in the media. My income has dropped by more than a quarter in the past year, from quite a low base. It’s insecure enough being freelance in any industry but the media is a disaster at the moment.
But on the other hand, I believe in what I do and enjoy it 90% of the time. It gives me huge satisfaction when communities or individuals I have written about get in touch to say I’ve got it right. When the powers that be complain, it can be a pleasing sign that we’ve hit a nerve.
People will always want news and journalism, I hope, but it’s an unsettling time at the moment.