Wordblog

Thank goodness Andy Burnham, the secretary of state for culture, media and sport, has ruled out a subsidy for newspapers. It is an idea which has always worried me deeply, a cure that was worse than the disease.

But in his interview with the Scarborough Evening News he does say that he will look at other measures with concern about county councils producing their own papers at public expense high on his list.

It is not just county councils. Even the parish council here at Debenham, Suffolk, is at it running avillage news web site that sells advertising. A relatively tiny sum is involved in this issue but it is a dangerous trend.

The sound of crashing newspapers and journalists loosing their jobs has been so depressing I have not had much heart to blog on the media. Until I retired last year, it was the industry which had sustained me for nearly 50 years.

I have written here about the the decline of the regional and local press, blaming the business model and too much borrowing — suggesting that groups were milking the industry for short term profits as print declined in the face of the web.

A letter to the Guardian from Austin Mithchell, other MPs and Jeremy Dear of the NUJ, last week pointed out: “The latest profit margin of the “indebted” Johnston Press, to which Toynbee refers [in her Tuesday column], was 24% - higher than most industries would dream of.”

Toynbee suggests that the solution my be some form of locally run independent trusts. That probably is the way forward with social enterprises or community interest companies being formed to run local publishing houses.

The banks coming tumbling down is clearly hastening the the end of many local newspapers. Others may survive but what state will they be in.

Archent which most of owns the daily papers in Suffolk has been making steady cuts, with the loss of another 20 jobs announced in January.

A few weeks ago a serious fire in a street in the small town of Eye resulted in one of the main streets having to be closed because of the scaffolding needed to hold up the house. It was nearly a week later that the East Anglian Daily Times got around to reporting it.

The recession is so severe that even the best managers are not exempt. Sir Ray Tindle who has built his group of 230 newspapers without borrowing told a group of managers that the local newspaper industry would “survive and flourish once again”. He said Tindle newspapers had cash reserves to see it through.

I believe that after what has been a long period of gradual and now rapidly accelerating decline local journalism will recover. But in what form it is impossible to guess although I am sure than any subsidy from government would be a mistake. And it has to be better local journalism than much of that which has been offered in recent years.