Future of Fleet Street: Will Lewis versus Ray Snoddy

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 29 May 2007 at 11:28
Tags: Daily Telegraph, Journalism, Journalists, Newspaper Publishers Association, multimedia, newspapers

As ever, we journalists live in worrying times, with the internet currently sweeping away many of the old certainties upon which we base our pay cheques.

So it was interesting to hear Daily Telegraph editor Will Lewis offer a few survival tips at a speech marking 50 years since St Brides Church, Fleet Street, was rededicated after the Second World War.

Summing up with three key points he said: “One, an improved online presence will benefit newspaper circulation rather than harm it.

“Two, user generated content will become one of the most powerful forces in our industry.

“Three, localisation and personalisation of content will key to the future success of national media brands.”

He said: “I believe the future is bright for those newspapers that ‘get it’ – without wanting to sound too grim I think it’s brutal and bleak for those that do not. If we understand and embrace the challenge presented by the problems of the media landscape I am confident that Fleet Street can enjoy the next fifty years as it has enjoyed the last.”

A rather dystopian note was struck by veteran media commentator Ray Snoddy, who was on the panel at last Thursday’s event and suggested that multi-skilling, staff cutbacks and management exploitation were doing serious harm to journalism in the current new media age.

He said: “I’m really concerned about people of my children’s generation. I see them going into journalism, I see them coming out again two or three years later disillusioned, disheartened, over worked, poorly paid, badly treated by moronic management. And they walk and get other jobs, that word will spread back to the universities.

“‘You don’t want to go and work at a newspaper, they will just exploit you, there will be no sense of loyalty, you will work yourt but off for five years, and then some manager will decide that you are out.’

“I think that is a really serious long term crisis that has to be addressed. There is a possible downward spiral. More and more asked of editorial resources, less and less distinguished and distinctive journalism, apart from a few highly paid columnists. That game will not survive over a 20 year cycle, it just won’t.”

What do you think?

PS. If you want to find out more about how to survive the next journalism decade, read a special report in this week’s Press Gazette – available to subscribers on Thursday and in newsagents on Friday.

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Union and publishers must work together to shape the next century of news

Posted by Press Gazette on 11 April 2007 at 10:00
Tags: NUJ, Newspaper Publishers Association, Press Gazette Leaders

Two battling organisations have celebrated their centenaries in the last six months — the Newspaper Publishers Association and the National Union of Journalists.

The NPA marked its anniversary back in October with a service at St Bride’s on Fleet Street followed by canapés across the road at the former Telegraph building, now home to investment bank Goldman Sachs.

The NUJ will do so in rather more modest style this weekend at the Holiday Inn in Birmingham where it is holding its Annual Delegate Meeting.

Both organisations see their respective histories largely in terms of conflict with the other.

The newspaper owners see their great victory as being Wapping — won against the restrictive union practices which they felt were holding back progress.

And the NUJ’s history celebrates hard-won pay rises and condition improvements, achieved with the threat of collective action, against owners who enjoy the luxury of a labour market flooded with would-be journalists.

If anything is certain about the next 100 years, it is that the pace of change is likely to accelerate. And if journalism is to survive and prosper as it has done in the last century, it will be necessary for both sides to work a lot closer together.

There is a chance for this to happen next week when the NUJ launches its “national commission on media integration”.

It plans to study experience in the UK and abroad to find how “media integration” — the convergence of print, online and broadcast — can help both the business and practice of journalism.

This is an endeavour which surely owners, shareholders, managers and journalists all have the same vested interest in. Let’s hope that the second NUJ/NPA century starts with a more concerted approach between publisher and worker than the last one.

As Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger writes in this week’s issue of Press Gazette, this time we can’t afford to hang about.