We care about local journalism but not about anything it has to say
Do you read your local newspaper? I don’t. I no longer have one particular local newspaper which I am attached to due to being in London or as I currently am, in Manchester, eating chips and gravy and getting re-accustomed to strangers initiating random conversation with me. But whether I am being grumpy in London or slightly less grumpy in Manchester I am never reading my local newspaper.
Is this because I don’t rate the quality of local journalism? Not at all. Is it because of the mass of ads and regular wrap-around pages which often hide and overshadow the content? That doesn’t really bother me. No, the reason I don’t read any of the local newspapers at my disposal is that I don’t care about local news.
It’s terrible isn’t it? I really am quite disappointed in myself but if some of you are honest (and I’m sticking my neck out here) then I am sure that there are more of you like me.
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I don’t have any interest in the local community or even the local politics. I don’t want to know what plays or shows are on and despite being sport mad I have no interest in the trials and tribulations of the local football team. The reason I am confessing such terrible sins to you is to illustrate my point about what I think is the real problem with local journalism.
It’s not that the quality isn’t good enough. From work experience alone I know there are many fantastic journalists doing various wonderful things. It’s not even the fact that at local level they haven’t managed to work out how to optimise online journalism. There are many newspapers and hyperlocal sites doing some great work.
The real problem, the reason that in many cases local journalism is on its arse is that there are far too many ignorant and uninterested people who just don’t care. I wish I did care, but I don’t and that is the real challenge ahead of local journalism in my opinion.
I was discussing this with my friend a while back in relation to her Mum’s constant complaints about the bins in the area. An expose on council refuse collection would have my friends Mum riveted but when I asked my friend if she cared about the bins the answer was an unequivocal no.
So I guess my point is – what happens when people stop caring about the bins?
Local journalists don’t need to work out how to cram more ads into the pages, or how to edit videos (although that will help) what local journalism needs is to work out how to make people like me and my friend care what is going on in my community. They need to find out what we might want to read, what would engage us. They need to grab the attention of the disinterested people who would rather read about something in the Guardian about something very important in America and about sport on a national and even world scale.
Don’t get me wrong I really hope local journalism pulls through but the scary thing is I feel its fate is slightly out of its hands and that is what we should be worrying about.
I recognise I am merely playing the role of difficult grumpy youth today and I have no answers as to how to solve the problem I present. Incidentally if any of you do have a solution I think you might just land yourself a job. But don’t expect any interest in the local rag from me until someone or something draws me back to the local community because just in case you missed my point, I don’t really care.
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Your blog post has inspired me to reflect on how local newspapers could become more engaging to young readers and I have written this in response: http://madamedotty.blogspot.com/2011/05/pot-holes-and-dog-poo-is-this-future-of.html
I don't want to sound "arrogant", or "naive", or something “really bad” as some of you mentioned, but I absolutely agree with the author of this piece. It is not that I don't care, it is simply – I am not interested in local news. The reason is that many young people, just like me, travel, live in different areas, go abroad or move from city to city. They don't have time to get to know so well their community, to explore the area, to meet with their neighbours, etc. And they don't want to. They live in their houses, go to work, hang out with friends which are usually people that are not from their local area. As simple as that. They care about the stuff they are involved in. Which is not always the neighbourhood.
I don't know many young people who live in the area they are born in. To be honest, this is kind of old-fashioned model and it is not typical for younger generations. That's why not so many of them are interested in local news, they just don't have time to become part of the local community. They have their own communities which are not always geographical.
I'm not surprised you're taking a lot of flak for expressing the views you have. A lot of the criticism has a certain degree of validity.
But – at the core – your point is one the local journalism advocated have to take much, much, more seriously.
Circulation is falling at 83 of the 86 audited daily locals in the UK, and is falling far faster than at the nationals. 354 of 383 paid weeklies re doing the same. Experiments to make people pay for local news online have proven even more difficult than nationals. The Guardian's local blogging project – which no-one could argue was anything other than excellent quality – has proven unviable. Classified advertising online will not belong to local papers. Interest is falling, business models are failing.
Local news has problems. Local news has to change, has to experiment, and has to (probably) reinvent itself from the ground up.
Much of the same is of course true for national news – but this at least is transitioning perhaps slightly more smoothly into online.
There are some hugely talented people working in the local space – many of whom have commented below. Local will survive, in some form. But denying the gravity of the local news crisis won't help anything.
You might take exception to the 'personal perspective' used by WH above to make their point – but it doesn't mean it's not a valid one. Or that most of the people leaping to local's defence here have skin in the game as it were. I'm still optimistic solutions can be found, and will be found, and a lot of great people are trying stuff out – but let's admit the scale of the challenge.
jamesrbuk I agree with everything you say here, James. But it doesn't detract from the fact this is an astonishingly parochial piece - especially as it's written by an aspiring journalist.
Of course the model has problems. And as you rightly say, most local outlets are lightyears behind some of the nationals. But as far as I can see this is an argument essentially about content?
The author admits that a lot of the stories in local papers are of very high quality. Yet he still questions the worth and interest to the reader of an issue such as "the bins", as he blithely puts it.
But he isn't talking about the tens-of-thousands of people who do by the paper, who have families and mortgages and who care about crime levels on their street. He's talking about people in his letterbox demographic who don't care about any of the things which a good local paper can serve the community so well in reporting on.
The only coherent argument one could draw is that papers need to focus on the needs and wants of a demographic which in fact doesn't care. But to urge them to stop doing something because it might fall out of a narrow personal agenda just smacks of naive arrogance.
Yes, things need to change. But if that means local papers stop doing "the bins", as well as campaigning on other issues in the community, then the ends won't justify the means.
jamesrbuk "But denying the gravity of the local news crisis won't help anything."
Ermm...I don't think there's a single person in this thread that's done that. We're all taking it seriously, admitting the scale of the challenge, and all the other things you say we're not. We just think the author is wrong if he thinks the biggest challenge currently facing local newspapers is that 20-somethings don't read them. It's true that having a more mobile population than we did 50 or 100 years ago is part of the long-term change in local newspaper markets, but that's not something that's only just happened. The current acute decline in both sales and revenue is due to more recent changes, primarily the increase in free online content/classifieds and the resulting drop in advertising revenues, the latter accelerated by the recession.
I hear this view expressed quite a lot but at risk of sounding patronizing - and I don't mean to, honest!. When you have bins of your own that need emptying then you may care more about the bins.
That's how local news often works. At 20 your not wedded to a place. You've got your eyes on where you go next. When you do settle down etc then the local stuff starts to matter. Council tax, kids schools etc. The bread and butter stuff. When you're 35 then it might seem more important. Then again it might not.
Like i say, I don't mean that in the 'when you're older you'll understand' way. genuinely. I mean it in the your'e just not the target audience yet way.
But I'd keep the not interested bit a bit quite if you go for a job on a local paper. Readers and editors tend to like people who are so they don't have to be :)
I'm a 20-something and I love local news. Though I'm also on an NCTJ journalism course. Local newspapers are a great way to get to know an area. The letters page reveals so much and can offer some good ideas to follow up for potential stories - brilliant if you've just moved to an area (or 'patch').
Though I do agree - younger people don't feature much in the readership of local news. The fact I get my mother to stockpile my local paper so I can have a catch-up when I can afford to return home is probably more telling of my career choice, and less of my age. But as suegyford says - this isn't new.
It's cyclical. The way I see it - these younger people who ignore local news at this point in their lives will grow up to replace older readers who will eventually... die (without sounding morbid). My granny and all the other grannnies out there who buy their local paper to turn straight to the obituaries page will eventually be replaced by their younger neighbours.
I just wish more local newspapers followed some of the nationals and introduced student rates!
* that's 'grannies' with two 'n's obviously and not some hybrid alien group.
I have to agree with newsmary, what a ridiculous and lazy argument: "I don't care about local news, and nor do some other people like me, therefore it's doomed." Like newsmary, I agree that there are a lot of challenges facing local newspapers but I think you're navel-gazing rather than analysing what they are. I assume you're 20-something and fairly geographically mobile? (From your mention of both London and Manchester). Well then, of course you don't care about local news, because you don't have any particular tie to your locality. That's not new, it's always been the case. The people who buy local newspapers have always been people who are invested in their area - who have lived there for a while and/or expect to stay for some time. Just because you've just noticed a phenomenon exists (the fact that young, geographically-mobile people don't read local newspapers) doesn't mean it's new.
I always question the wisdom of someone defending the content of their article in the comments section. Seems to only undermine what you were saying in the first place. A risky business.
jtemperton Good point but I am of the opinion that it is pretty ignorant to not respond to people's comments especially when they are as opinionated as these.
chancer Call me old-fashioned, but I'd like to think that a comprehensive article is a more open and shut case. I suppose the idea of articles like this is to get people talking about the issue. So in that respect, the article never ends...
Dare I suggest, the better the quality of local journalism in any given area of the country, the more interest there will be in local news in that neighbourhood. Getting people engaged in what's going on around them is part of the role of the local newspaper. A poor paper doesn't achieve this. A good one still can.
For this to be a success, readers and residents have to feel they have some connection with their local paper. Journalists have to respond to concerns and be a campaigning force where necessary. They shouldn't just resort to dramatic crime headlines about 'caging' 'evil' 'monster' 'crooks' thinking that will sell papers to people in the street around them.
If local news is as dull as you make out, then surely the merits for doing work experience on local papers - which you've previously written about ( http://wannabehacks.co.uk/chancer/2011/04/07/work-experience-at-the-guardian-give-me-the-local-rag-any-day) - are completely undermined by the sheer tediousness of what you are writing about. Or does it only become interesting once you've written it?
lizzie056 Not at all, as I've said plenty of the local journalists I have worked with write brilliantly.
My point, as I have stated in comments below is that purely from the point of view of a reader, in the community, NOT having a career in journalism, these people aren't and won't be buying newspapers. The news can be dull and has a general perception that it is dull.
I don't then think that my opinion about local news undermines my views on how productive and useful work experience could be. I referenced my week at the forester, which, as an aspiring journalist I found incredibly productive and useful. I say no that purely as a reader, I was not engaged or particularly interested in much of the content of the paper AND had I been someone my age WITHOUT an interest in journalism I would have had no interest in the paper at all.
This is a lazy, "and I'm sticking my neck out here", rather uninformed argument, as mentioned above.
In my opinion, judging you as I must on what you've written above, you don't want to be a journalist, you want to be a celebrity columnist. Which is fine I suppose, if that's your thing.
Having no interest in "local" news and instead preferring to "read about something in the Guardian about something (sic) very important in America and about sport on a national and even world scale" simply shows the arrogant approach you take to journalism.
ALL of those things are local news for someone. Get interested in local news, as it could be worldwide news at any given point. Your naivety and ignorance as an aspiring journalist is shocking and appalling, but sadly, not surprising.
I agree you are the one of the reasons for the decline of local newspapers, but only because newsrooms are increasingly full of people with your attitude; that you belong on a national and you're far too good for this mere rag.
How wrong you are and will inevitably be shown to be.
hack I don't think I belong on a national or that I am too good for a local newspaper. I also have no interest in being a celebrity columnist.
I agree that every local area has it's moment in the spotlight but for those occasions do you not think that the news is covered in a bigger, better, brighter way by nationals and therefore the people in the area will see what The Times has to say about their village?
I stress again that I was trying, with difficulty it seems, to present the view from the reader, someone my age, who has no interest in being a journalist. These are the people who will be buying newspapers and reading online content in the future and I don't think that MANY of these people will be interested in local news...
Never mind whether local news is interesting, what a turnaround this is for The Chancer - is this the same bloke who said (only three weeks ago) "give me the local rag any day"...?
http://wannabehacks.co.uk/chancer/2011/04/07/work-experience-at-the-guardian-give-me-the-local-rag-any-day
benbryant I am presenting the argument from the point of view of a reader. Because I suggest that local news doesn't interest me and others doesn't mean I can't have an enjoyable and productive week of work experience at a local newspaper
I think this may have more to do with your personal situation than a wider trend. Local newspapers are tanking because of the loss in advertising and the increased tabloidisation of local news, which in my views does more to dissuade people from reading them by pursuing a negative news agenda.
"There are far too many ignorant or uninterested people who just don't care" - This is true, but the fact is that many people still rely on the local paper as a source for what's going on in their neighbourhood. I don't, and you don't, but people who've been born in the area, grown up in the area and raised children in the area will.
The reasons you cite for people not caring about local news (mundane things) are precisely the kind of things that people actually *are* interested in, and one that the hyperlocal movement is trying to correct. I don't particularly think there's a business model in it, but that's by the by. You might not care about local community events, football matches, school closures, business forums, housing developments and local theatre, but that doesn't mean no one else does. It isn't Woodward and Bernstein, but it *is* community focused news. That's what people want.
This strikes me as an exceptionally lazy argument. You don't care about local crime, business, politics, elections, schools, transport, services, culture and community events, therefore no one else does?
Also, you mean "refuse", not "refuge", I assume.
newsmary Thanks for the refuse spot.
I don't think my argument is a lazy one because it is my opinion. I am suggesting that there are many more people like me who don't have any attachment to their local community. How many teenagers, the next generation of people who will need to buy newspapers to keep them going, care what is happening in their area? I hate to take it away from journalism but I don't think there is any real sense of community, wherever I have lived, amongst people my age and that then translates into a growing apathy over all those issues that you list.
chancer In that case, with respect, I think your opinion is entirely wrong, and ignores several important factors that colour your view. Class, mobility, age, home ownership, whether or not you have children, whether or not you run a business or work for a small local outlet, the NHS services you and your family use, whether you need to rely on council services, and so on - these all affect your media consumption habits, and as your situation changes you will, I guarantee, discover that you suddenly start caring about things that meant nothing to you before.
If you've had to clean maggots off the bins yourself because the council hasn't collected them in four weeks, you care about the bins. If you haven't, you probably don't. This is so breathtakingly obvious that I find your argument - sorry, your opinion - above to be incredibly naive. You have not stepped outside your own head for long enough to realise that your own needs and priorities could change, let alone put yourself into the shoes of others; that's why this piece is lazy.
newsmary I am glad I came across as naive because I think that is what the people I was trying to represent are. They are naive and they always will be. I accept that there are very well-informed people like yourself who recognise how local issues affect us but please allow me to suggest that it is naive of people IN local journalism to think that because these issues may start to affect people in the future they will all of a sudden shake off the apathy they have had in the past. I accept that our situations and priorities change but that doesn't mean our opinion to local newspapers and whether we read them or not will.
chancer I am not saying that the people you are trying to represent are naive. I am saying that your argument is naive. You're suggesting local newspapers should re-invent their news agendas to suit you, the person who doesn't care about local news, without considering why their existing and core readers might - and do - actually care quite a lot.
I'm certain many people will remain apathetic throughout their lives - that has always been true. I'm also convinced that local newspapers need to become more relevant in order to survive. I disagree completely with your assertion that you, right now, are the person they should aim to be relevant to.
It's such a difficult issue, isn't it? I spent my Easter long weekend in regional NSW, Australia and bought the local paper in each town I drove through. Most were just like my local Sydney suburban paper - pages and pages of real estate advertisements (tough country papers had a few tourist supplements thrown in for good measure.) The best not only had a very high standard of reporting, but fostered a real sense of community -not only through editorial content, but also people sending in photos of the fish they caught, or their civic award they received. It might not be cutting-edge journalism, but the people involved (and their families and friends) want to see it and cut out a clipping and share the news. This is why hyperlocal news is such a force - it shows readers why it's relevant and then connects them to other people who also find it relevant. Too many local papers try to mimic the tone of major metros and wind up being anonymous.
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