Credit crunch hacks media branches

With the credit crunch tightening its grip on the United Kingdom, many businesses are cutting costs, cutting jobs and wrapping up. As with most financial crises, the media sector has also been hit hard.

Not only have media sector jobs been cut, newspapers are merging, going online or closing down. As expected, the recession has hit the smaller, regional press harder — larger companies have bought out some more prominent titles while others have had no other choice but to merge, close or face folding.

Dominic Ponsford, editor of the media observer title Press Gazette, based in London, said: “I'm sure it's certainly the worst recession for the journalism industry since the Second World War.

“I think since last summer, around 2,000 journalists have lost their jobs in the UK — I'd say that's probably a fairly conservative estimate,'' he said.

Editorial jobs in media have also been lost due to “restructuring'' or “streamlining'' during this time of financial difficulty.

Some journalists, however, have not taken it lying down. After the Guardian Media Group announced it wanted to make significant job cuts (around 80 jobs and affecting 14 local papers) at the Manchester Evening News (MEN) and at the Surrey and Berkshire Media Group, the regional press rallied for support from the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), won it, and are still campaigning against the cuts.

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ deputy general secretary, said: “NUJ members will stand together to defend jobs and quality local journalism,'' as reported on HoldTheFrontPage.co.uk.

The situation became tougher on March 31, when NUJ reporters at the MEN took their campaign to the pages of the company's national newspaper, The Guardian.

In a stinging statement, the advert highlighted how the MEN profits have in the past helped its national counterpart stay afloat.

“The Manchester Evening News is Britain's biggest regional newspaper. It uncovers and reports the news with no agenda other than to serve the public interest. Our weekly papers do the same,'' the advert reads.

“Throughout our proud history, these papers always made a profit, providing tens of millions of pounds a year to enable our loss-making sister paper, The Guardian, to survive and flourish.''

The MEN's online petition has gathered more than 550 signatures from regional, national and international journalists.

“Management at the Manchester Evening News group, which is owned by the Guardian, wants to make nearly 80 journalists redundant — roughly a third of its editorial staff — and close all the offices of its Greater Manchester weekly newspapers, depriving Manchester's population of its local voice.

“These are savage cuts — the biggest of their type in the country — and an assault on local democracy that will tear apart the fabric of Manchester's community news,'' the petition reads.

“This will mean that the quality of Manchester's local papers will suffer; journalists will no longer be able to get a grasp on local issues and will rarely, if ever, be able to cover council meetings or court cases — a role which is an intrinsic part of local democracy.

"This is devastating not only for the staff involved, but for Greater Manchester as a whole, and must be fought.''

This is just one example of a situation that is permeating the UK. While some local reporters are fighting the job cuts, others are apathetic about the situation.

A local news reporter told Weekend Review from Southern England: “Falling advertising revenues are leading to massive changes, cutbacks and job-losses or ‘restructuring' as it is known in corporate talk.

"The district office where I work is set to be closed and we will all be moved off-patch. Although I have been told my job is safe, I no longer see any future in it — local journalism seems to be a sinking ship.''

The situation has affected not just local newspaper journalism but also trade titles.

J.O., a trade magazine reporter in England, said: “I was headhunted by a rival last year but stayed where I was because I was offered a deputy editor's role. Since then my magazine has become online and I can't move for love or money! My pay is frozen and there are no jobs at all.''

Fired or redundant journalists, Ponsford says, are more likely to try for public relations and communications jobs, move abroad or just go ahead and publish themselves online.

“I guess journalists often go into PR. Public sector PR, public sector journalism or titles that are actually funded by the private sector are not doing too badly. Quite a few are going to Dubai and the UAE where things perhaps aren't as bad. There's also Hong Kong, which is still reasonable.

“But I think a lot of journalists are going to have to think about using technology to publish themselves. All you need is a laptop and a phone line and you can publish to the rest of the world with your own blog or websites.

So I think a lot of journalists will have to do that. I think the hope is that out of the present crisis some good things are going to emerge,'' Ponsford said.

J.O. also said he was thinking of moving abroad, since his magazine went online. “I've thought of Dubai and I'm looking at a role in Hong Kong. It is bad here right now!'' he said.

The local news reporter said he was looking at the PR world in a bid to escape the “sinking ship'' that is local journalism.

“I have started applying for work in PR and communications but haven't had any luck. I think the problem is that there is a lot more competition for each job than a year ago and people with a lot more experience than me are applying for them,'' he told Weekend Review.

If this is the case for journalists who perhaps have a couple of years' experience, and even more experienced reporters, what would the situation be for journalists in training?

Stephen Ward, course director at noSWeat Journalism Training College in London and former Guardian contributor, said there would always be a demand for good journalists.

“There'll never be a dearth of need for good, highly qualified journalists,'' he told Weekend Review from Clerkenwell, central London.

“If you're a good journalist, you can still get a good job. It's just that there are fewer of them and it's more difficult to qualify for them and there's more competition for them.

"So if there's more competition, you have to be better than the competition — even more so now,'' he said.

The Journalism Training College teaches the NCTJ (National Council for the Training of Journalists) certificates — essential (and mostly mandatory) to work for a newspaper in the UK.

Modules for the NCTJ certificates include shorthand, media law, local government and central government studies and journalism techniques.

Ward said students focusing on passing all modules would do well in the increasingly competitive market.

“I think they [journalism students] need to have all the elements of the NCTJ course — and to the highest degree that they can possibly get.

“At the very top I would put finding a story and shorthand. They are the two things — they're the two most important things. If you can do that, no matter where you go, people will employ you,'' he said.

However, Ward said that cuts in the local press have always been made in times of crisis and that it certainly won't be forever.

“There have been huge cuts across the board in local papers but there's nothing new in that — it's very cyclical. It comes and goes with the economy. In a good economy you'll get more trainee reporters and a bad economy cuts back on that.

"That's only to be expected and it certainly won't be permanent,'' he said.

With ongoing protests — some journalists resorting to strikes and printed titles going under — the media sector in the UK is becoming increasingly competitive, with redundant journalists competing for a dramatically reduced number of jobs.

“It has always been competitive,'' Ponsford said, “but even more so now.''

And with no sign of the recession slowing down and the prospect of recovery not visible in the near future, Dubai and Hong Kong might need to brace themselves for an influx of jaded hacks jumping from the UK's sinking media ship.