Gary Andrews

At Exeter St David’s train station last week, I picked up something I’ll never be able to buy again – a daily copy of the local paper, the Express and Echo. It was just under a month ago that the somewhat sad news that my hometown’s paper would become a weekly rather than daily publication.

I say sad for two reasons. Firstly because it’s never fun to see local journalism cut back, even if the economic climate is heading that way.

But it’s also sad because this has been coming for a while, largely due to continually bad decisions from the Echo’s owners, Northcliffe.

I’m not saying that the daily Echo’s demise was preventable – it may well have been inevitable no matter what – but the paper could have been given much more of a fighting chance.

Even when I moved away from Devon, I made a point of picking up the Echo whenever I returned to visit friends and family. The past few times have been painful to read.

The last few Echos I’ve purchased have been a shell of the brash, confident publication that was happy to cause trouble for local politicians and had an instinctive connection with the communities it served.

What was in front of me was like seeing a once-proud athlete towards the end of his life. The only surprise about the Echo going weekly is it didn’t happen sooner.

Let me declare my feelings. I am an unashamed fan of local media done well. That is, after all, my background.

Yes, I’m well aware of the foibles and failures of local newspapers. They can be unnecessarily hyperbolic and trivial, often in the same news story. They can sometimes become parodies of themselves.

They could, as I found out from speaking to various focuses of the subjects of their stories, occasionally play somewhat fast and loose. At my old office, we had an file of some of their worst hits, including one story several experienced journalists were amazed they didn’t get pulled up on contempt charges.

But despite all this, much of the Echo is recalled with fondness. They were terrier-like in holding local politicians to account. When a big story broke, their coverage was never less than impressive. And they knew how to serve the community and readership.

Yes, some stories may have seemed mundane but locals from outlying areas really appreciated the coverage given to these smaller stories.

Given the Echo’s patch took in the regional capital city, seaside towns, rural market towns and sleepy villages, their ability to strike a balance with these readers was impressive.

When I was much younger and dreamt of going into journalism, at that point I always considered the Echo the paper I wanted to work for. And 20 years ago, it had a well-liked reputation with its readership.

Even as recently as six years ago, the Echo was a pretty impressive regional paper. It had a confidence and swagger about it. Yes, that also brought out some of the worst aspects, as detailed above, but it also brought out the best.

Working in a competitor (of sorts) newsroom at the same time, I would frequently roll my eyes, but would frequently be impressed with their scoops and determination to reflect and be a heart of the community they served.

Those qualities have seriously declined in recent years. Journalists were cut back. Fewer reporters meant a restricted ability to embed with the community. It became easier to spot the press releases in the paper.

It made sense, financially, to re-use the same reports from the sister Devon-wide Western Morning News. But this paper served a different audience, and it became harder to find distinctive news in the Echo as a result.

And then there’s the web, something regional media companies never seemed to get or be prepared to get.

For a period, the Echo went big into video, posting clips of any and every story, plus doing a news in 60 seconds, featuring cutaways to the headline in the paper.

It wasn’t particularly well done or thought through. A couple of people I knew there said they were given very little training. But at least they tried something, although it didn’t seem hard to see how this could have been much more focused, and relevant to their audience. And it asked a lot of print journalists to learn a new skill and do it well, with a minimum of training.

But at least it was better than how the web is currently being treated. The pages are, astonishingly, updated from a central location in a different county on the other side of the country.

News is often not uploaded until 10am. Sports reports, one of the key selling points of a local paper, are often uploaded up to two days after the game. By this stage, anybody interested will have found the news elsewhere.

There is little incentive for readers to discover or return to their website on a daily, even weekly basis. It is as if this part of the paper has been deliberately left to die.

Perhaps a weekly Echo will see the paper regain some of its swagger. Perhaps I’m optimistic but I think a daily could work in Exeter. Just not a daily in the current form. And they may need to be more innovative elsewhere.

But, going offline, it’s the local communities who will be hit the most by this. The Office of National Statistics shows that 23% of the UK population have no internet at home. In Devon and Somerset, that accounts for around 750,000 households. In the most rural areas of these counties, the number is, I would wager, even higher.

For the outlying villages in Devon, this means they are even further cut off from the news. One of the strengths of the Echo was balancing the ultra local with the big stories, and knowing each of these communities. What’s more, these were read and appreciated. Will that continue? It’s not as if many rural, elderly households can log online for their information.

Local businesses may also feel the pinch, initially. These small-to-medium size businesses probably don’t have the PR budget to go all out on a campaign, can’t go beyond a certain level of advertising, and often rely on local papers to print their good news stories. Will there be space for these?

I say initially, though, because for businesses there’s generally an opportunity to be innovative and less reliant on the local press.

But the local events, such as fundraisers or community days, may seriously struggle to compete for attention. Granted, these aren’t exactly the hardest-hitting news stories, but they do serve the community.

Sports fans and clubs wanting local reporting will also be badly served. That’s not to say there’s not alternatives online, but local sport is a staple of a local paper, and a key reason for purchase.

How many of those will discontinue reading it because the results are a week late? And how will the clubs reach out to attract new fans or members? The Echo says the coverage will be even better. Many will be skeptical.

Time will tell what effect a weekly Echo will have on Exeter, and East and Mid Devon. It may revitalise the paper. Or it may be a large step towards the eventual collapse. In the immediate term, the main losers are the readers.

written by Gary \\ tags: Exeter, Express and Echo, local news, local newspapers

I’ve never wished to be particularly down on one paper, so apologies to the paper of my hometown, the Express and Echo, but because I probably visit their website more than most, they probably get a lot of criticism. And a couple of days ago they provided another example of why local newspapers are in all sorts of trouble.

On Tuesday, Exeter City met Plymouth Argyle in their first competitive meeting in eight years. Not the most significant fixture in a busy evening of football, but in local sport terms this was as big as it’s likely to get.

Exeter ended up defeating Argyle 2-1 with a dramatic late winner and, like any other exiled Grecian, I spent much of the immediate aftermath reading forums, Tweeting, on Facebook and even on the phone.

I’ve long since given up on expecting any kind of immediate update on the Echo’s website, so didn’t bother checking it after the game, but the next morning I checked. Nothing. The lead football story was how the club’s back-up goalkeeper was hoping to establish himself with a run in the team.

At 11am the next day, a full 13 and a half hours after the game had been played, the match report finally made it to the site. I only found out through an unofficial Exeter City Twitter feed that aggregates City content from all over the web that the report was up.

By that time, the story had moved on massively to the violence in the aftermath of the game, the reaction to the violence from both clubs, and the team looking ahead to the weekend’s game. Anybody with access to the internet could have already read match reports and reaction on the official site, the Western Morning News, the BBC, Facebook conversations and on the unofficial forum, Exeweb. There was no need to read a now out-of-date report at 11am.

The only people who, realistically, would have any cause to buy the paper would be people who didn’t have access to the internet, hadn’t been at the game, hadn’t listened to it on the radio, and hadn’t phoned a friend at the game for a match report. I can’t imagine this number being particularly high.

Sport is a fast-moving commodity that can deliver very good hits if the timing of publication and the SEO is any good. A report over twelve hours after the game had been played – when this was easily a huge sporting story – on a major media outlet fails in just about every sense.

Increasingly, sports fans, with their own community, don’t need their local papers for sport, if the effort put in doesn’t result in a compelling offering. The huge saturation in sports coverage coupled with advances in social media, and the good old-fashioned forums, mean local papers are increasingly becoming irrelevant on an area they should have sown up, given their exclusive access.

At the moment, it feels like the Echo’s site has regressed (and I’d imagine they’ve had budget cuts) and is an afterthought. They will bring in no new readers through the web, as internet savvy news junkies will already have the news from elsewhere. The readership of their print paper is declining. This does not bode well for their future.

(And I don’t say this with any pleasure at all. I would be genuinely sad if the area lost its paper. Even an out of date paper is better than no paper.)

written by Gary \\ tags: Exeter City, Express and Echo, local media, local newspapers

Well, not quite. But the last few days have made for even grimmer reading than normal. Newsquest are set to close 11 regional titles, mostly freesheets. Deloitte reckons there’ll be more to go. I don’t think any regional hack can consider themselves safe.

Never mind local newspapers getting more Web 2.0 savvy and improving their websites, many of them are just struggling to survive right now. And that’s going to seriously impact on local news both on and offline. Over to Jon Slattery:

“Before newspapers are cut to the bone, closed or merged could someone please tell us where the money is going to come from to produce worthwhile editorial on the web which comes anywhere close to that provided, up to now, by regional newspapers.”

The sad thing is that as local papers struggle to stay afloat and cut back – and as journalists increasingly get overburdened – there’ll be less time to put time, money and resources into producing great, unique content for the web and engaging across the internet.

And that really does leave a vaccuum, news-wise. There’s already a move towards ultra-local websites set up by people to serve the communities that local newspapers are unable to.  I can see these growing (possibly set up by ex-journalists). And who’s to say that the BBC won’t step back in with their ultra-local news idea, arguing that there’s a void that needs to be filled?

The irony could well be that by getting distracted by fire-fighting on the print front, local newspapers get caught out by the smoke starting to come from online.

Would any newspaper be brave enough to completely shut down in a physical format and move everything online, adopting a more Web 2.0 way of doing news? Would it work? And how on earth would they monetize it?

If I had any inkling or idea on how to answer those questions, they’d be in this paragraph. But I don’t. So they’re not.

But, even if it is a desperate last throw of the dice, what does a paper have to lose if it tries it? Not that I’d want to see papers disappear from their communities, but if it’s a choice between online-only news and no news at all… .

written by Gary Andrews \\ tags: local newspapers, redundancies

Hyperlocal news is a real buzzword around journalism right now, especially in relation to the web. In a way, it’s exactly the kind of thing that should be a match made in heaven for local newspapers and the web. Sadly, it’s not always the case.

The Grey Cardigan blog at the Press Gazette bemoans the lack of space given over the the planning notices and Martin Stabe adds his two pence worth.

“Why aren’t local papers providing clever online services like this? It’s certainly a medium more appropriate to reporting planning applications than a weekly digest in 6pt type.

Services mapping local information to readers’ location like this are a tiny part of a bigger trend to develop the geographic web and its ancillary, local search — where the relevance of information is measured by its proximity to readers’ current location or to places significant to them. The mobile phone operators understand the commercial significance of this, as does Google. Why do you think they are investing so much money in cartography?

They’re coming after the local papers that no longer offer the most efficient way of getting local information to their readers.”

Martin’s spot on. The closer something like this is to your home, the more likely you are to take an interest in it.

For newspapers with a wider, more general audience, it obviously doesn’t make sense to devote huge swathes of space in the paper to small planning issues (unles particularly contentious) but the web is ideal for this kind of thing, along with any other hyperlocal stories that perhaps are a bit too local to put into the paper itself, or perhaps a small extension of a hyperlocal NIB. That way the website becomes a useful brand extension of the paper itself rather than a repetition of what’s in the paper.

As I’ve said before, slowly but surely there are products creeping onto the web that will do these jobs for potential readers, especially the older and tech-savvy readers. And while these may not yet have widespread take up, as Paul Bradshaw rightly points out today, these users aren’t geeks, they’re early adopters:

“Five years ago people who downloaded mp3s were seen as geeky. Now it’s a mainstream activity, and expected to make up the majority of record sales within a further five years.

Twitter has only been going for two years; YouTube is 3 years old and Flickr 4. MySpace is 5. blogging services like Blogger.com are still not even a decade old.

Do I need to labour the point?

Distribution has always been about getting your content to where the reader is. Guess where they are now?

And if they’re not there already…”

There’s no guarantee that all these sites currently floating around will take off, but it’s still worth an editor’s time to get familiar with some of the tools out there.

Local newspapers’ web offerings aren’t just competing with other newspapers – they’re competing with the whole web.  Now, if a paper can nip some of these potential competitors in the bud – or even adopt them themselves – they’re going to be in much better stead.

The majority of web users are still inherently conservative and trust brands they know; for the current time being local newspapers are still a known brand. If they can offer a similar service to these unknown upstarts, then they’re giving readers more incentive to stick with them.

So whether this is a map mashup showing planning applications in your area, an invitation to upload livestreams of hyper-local events, setting up a Flickr stream or just getting in a few hyperlocal bloggers and encouraging them to be active online, you’re still enhancing the two-way relationship between you and your readers/users without affecting the content elsewhere – a win-win situation.

written by Gary Andrews \\ tags: geotagging, hyperlocal, local newspapers, online cartography, planning applications

1. Watch this wonderful effort from the Reading Evening Post.

2. Do the exact opposite.

Paul Bradshaw’s two posts on bad newspaper video content are much in keeping with my own thoughts and serve to show that, despite video online content now being the norm for newspaper websites, editors still aren’t thinking about what they post on there.

Having worked in both, I know there is a fair bit of difference between print and broadcast but the differences aren’t so huge that you can’t spot elementary mistakes. Look, both the BBC and ITV do local news bulletins every night. There’s no harm in taking notes and copying ideas from those who know what they’re doing.

I’m probably repeating some of Bradshaw’s criticisms here, but they can’t be stressed often enough.

1. If you’re doing a ‘groundbreaking’ 60 second news bulletin, video blog, or anything else with reporters talking to cameras then don’t leave it basic errors like crashing the title music over the reporter or leaving in a point where the reporter stumbles over their words. You’re pre-recording it, so if they get it wrong either go again or stick in a graphic or an OOV to cover the edit where your journalist stumbles. And shoot anybody in the background who talks while you’re filming. Leaving small, simple errors in is just amateur.

2. Do a basic screen and voice test for all your journalists. Find out which of them are keen to face the cameras and which have good speaking voices. If there’s only a couple to start off with, so be it. At least they’ll sound authoritative. There’s nothing worse than watching somebody who doesn’t like the lens and isn’t comfortable speaking in public being shoehorned into a role they never trained for.

3. On that note, for those that are keen to face the cameras, give them a bit of voice training. It’s not difficult to master.

4. Just because you can put something in video on your website, do you need to put something in video on your website? Stop. Think. Newspapers have editorial controls for the paper. Why do these suddenly go out the window the minute somebody brandishes a video camera. Sticking any old videoed tripe online is not only embarrassing, it devalues a newspaper’s brand as a whole. Newspapers are meant to be authoritative. They are not meant to look like they could be outdone by a 14-year-old in his bedroom with basic equipment.

5. Just because you have wonderful flashing special effects on an edit suite does not mean you need to use these either? You don’t use every flashy bit of Quark or InDesign, and you don’t make newspaper pages difficult to read for the sake of being able to use a really neat software feature. Think. How many news bulletins can you think of that employ sliding edits between newsreader and story? There is a good reason why broadcast journalists don’t do this, and it’s not because they have no sense of fun. It’s because they don’t want their viewers to get headaches. Or laugh at them.

6. While we’re on the subject of edit suites… As it’s become standard practice to get print reporters to video stories for their websites, why not include these in your bulletin. Moving pictures look sooooooooooooooooooo much better than static ones. It’s really not difficult to create a OOV (or Ulay). Hell, if you’re being really adventurous you could even do a link and clip. Neither of these are rocket science or mystical powers only available to those who enter TV newsrooms. They’re just the product of a combination of common sense and a basic understanding of how TV news works. And as journalists are supposedly intelligent people, the latter really shouldn’t be difficult to pick up.

All this neatly sidesteps the question of whether a 60 second bulletin is necessary for a newspaper website (I personally don’t think it’s a bad idea, especially if it’s embedded on YouTube – it gives the busy reader a chance to catch up and could drag in new readers from elsewhere if it’s tagged correctly) but it’s certainly got more point to it than a weather report.

If the Reading Evening Post genuinely believe they’re providing an exciting, groundbreaking, and professional video service here then whoever’s in charge of online video content needs to take a long, hard look at themselves. Newspaper readers are getting increasingly web savvy and it’s almost a tad insulting to dump unedited, error-ridden video online and then crow about it.

I’ve always been on the view that if you’re going to do something, then do it to the best of your abilities and I refuse to believe that’s the best of the abilities of staff on the Reading Evening Post. There’s so much potential here that could be utilised, but that can’t even be touched on until you get the basics right.

It’s been over 18 months since I touched any kind of video editing software, and I try to avoid the camera if possible, but I’m pretty sure that with the same tools I could produce something a little more polished. In the unlikely event anybody from the Post is actually reading this, the above advice is free. I’d be happy to show you how it works in practice for a very reasonable fee.

written by Gary Andrews \\ tags: local newspapers, newspapers and online video content, Paul Bradshaw, Reading Evening Post, video done badly

Breaking news stories are curious beasts. Not only do they often see the national media descend on somewhere most people would be hard pressed to find on a map, it also provides an excellent chance for local media to excel themselves, be it breaking news in hourly bulletins for the local radio station, or in-depth coverage and analysis by the local paper, often built on the strengths of intimate local knowledge and contacts.

As somebody who, on more than one occasion, has been part of that slightly smaller feral pack, I’ve never yet seen a paper or radio station disgrace themselves with their coverage in print or on air.

But, as we’re now in 2008 and on whatever version of Web 2.0.1.7.3 we’re on now, how do our local media shape up online?

Across the pond Rob Curley (via Martin Stabe) has a detailed account of how one local paper nailed their online coverage for a major event, including liveblogging, photos, video, and in-depth history, all before the event was anywhere near a close.

Curley also poses the question: how would have most local papers reacted? He then sets out five options, which are worth repeating here (although I’d recommend you click through and read the whole post):

“It seems to me that in 2008, there are probably about five ways a local newspaper might cover a breaking local news event like this:

• No. 1 — Throw some resources at it in real-time, becoming the definitive source online for the story as it is happening. Constant news updates. Great background info. Multimedia that is worth looking at — at the very least, some decent photo galleries if you’re not going to do video. I’m talking about web reports that combine speed, accuracy and compelling visuals with overwhelming comprehensive coverage in a way that creates something that shows your readers that your newspaper’s website is the only place to go for information on this story.
• No. 2 — At the very least, keep the web site updated. Even if in kind of a half-assed way.
• No. 3 — Run a big story in print with a big photo. The next day. After the story is over. Treat it like your print predecessors would have back in 1978, pretending that no one knows about the story until you tell them about it in print. The next day.
• No. 4 — Go apesh*t in print. The next day. But in the midst of the overkill print coverage, there are thoughtful analysis pieces that treat the story like a Day Two story. Which in 2008, it is.
• No. 5 — Do a mixture of No. 1 and No. 4. Treat the web and print like they’re both important, with print coverage that acknowledges that we live in a world where both CNN and the Internet have been around for at least a few years. Or maybe even a few decades.
  

So, the question is simple: How do you think your newspaper would cover a big-time, local breaking news story in 2008?

Would it be 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5?

If it’s 2 or 3 (and possibly even 4), I’d be thinking about getting that resume ready if I were you.”

Although Curley’s dealing with America and newspapers here, his points are equally valid for local British print and broadcast media.

If you’ve got a story of national interest, it’s reasonable to assume that a large number of people both inside and outside the audience area will go to the websites of local media as the first or second choice to get information. If the online coverage is poor (and for radio remember that not everybody can listen at work, but chances are they’ll be able to do a bit of surfing) then not only will potential readers go back to BBC and Sky, there’s also a good possibility they simply won’t bother next time something similar happens, be it of national interest or, as is more likely, a big story for the local patch but of limited or no interest to the national media.

I recognise I’m making a lot of assumptions here, as I’ve not had the chance to surf around every local media site during a breaking story, but even at this period of time the current prognosis falls short of Curley’s recommendations [1]

Firstly, print. I’ve seen some newspapers that will ‘break’ stories online. There are a couple that include the whole story, although they’re few and far between and most sites I’ve seen still say something along the lines of “for more on this story see tomorrow’s paper”. Others just reproduce the day’s content, while some barely even get that far. As for any potential to include liveblogs and photos… well, I’m not entirely sure how they’d fit in or on. Given that most local papers are only slowly waking up to the idea of blogging, and many hide their blogs away in different-to-find areas of the website, I’m not confident.

Still, at least the majority of them are streets ahead of many local radio station websites, some of whom don’t even bother sticking local news up online. For an interesting comparison, have a browse around the respective sites of Oxford’s local paper and radio station [2].

I’ll hold up my hands here and say that, as somebody with a background largely in local radio, I can come up with various mitigations. Many radio newsrooms just don’t have the staffing to be able to deal with both online and on-air during a breaking news story [3]. Also, there’s the argument that as they’re breaking immediate developments at least every hour they’ve covered that angle.

To a certain extent there is a point there. They’ll certainly have covered plenty of different angles before the local paper has even gone to press. But if you get an on-the-ball local paper who follows Curley’s suggestions, that suddenly becomes a very different matter indeed. Also, in this age where the boundaries between media types are ever thinner, to stubbornly stick to what you do best (and many radio stations produce excellent coverage) is storing trouble up for the long term. Neglect these at your peril.

Technology should make it easier for journalists from both mediums to send back pictures and video from the scene asap. Having a journalist liveblogging and tying together news strands keeps the story running and is definitely a valid form of journalist. Radio stations could upload extended interviews from clips that make it on-air. To be fair to radio, there are some stations who are very proactive to uploading audio and keeping their news sections updated. From a brief surf around, they don’t appear to be in the majority, sadly.

We’ve not even touched on photo and video submissions from the readers and listeners here, and if the journalist is being really proactive, they should hit Flickr, Technorati, Twitter, Facebook and Myspace and get searching for what those closest to the scene are saying. Of course there’s the ethical considerations about contacting the users, but the point here is the sites mentioned should be par for the course for any journalist these days.

I’m well aware I’ve over-generalised here, and have tarred all local media with the same brush. But from what I’ve seen, both in the past and current day, I don’t think there’s many traditional local news sites ready to do as good a job online as they do with their traditional media outlets. If you know of any really good examples of the local media embracing online, please do leave them in the comments as I’d be interested to see them.

[1] Note: for the purposes of this blog post, I’m not including BBC local radio for a variety of reasons, although some of the criticisms could be applied to these stations, albeit in a slightly different way.

[2] Yes, I know the latter has a ‘blog’ on the front page, but by my book, that barely qualifies as one. Where’s the interaction, the comment, the trackback, the separate pages? It’s a blog Jim, but not as we know it.

[3] Hopefully I’ll get round to writing a long piece hitherto only semi-formed in my head on online radio presence and staffing, among other things.

written by Gary Andrews \\ tags: breaking news, embracing web 2.0, local media, local newspapers, local radio, Martin Stabe, online news coverage, Rob Curley