onionbagblog

In a speech that could have been written with our friends @SthLondonPress being used as the primary case study, no surprises to hear the ex-editor of Trinity Mirror’s Birmingham Post declaring:

“The regional press doesn’t get the modern interweb.”

Or something similar.

I share the same sentiments as Marc Reeves, who ahead of his keynote speech to the West Midlands’ CBI later this week, states:

“Don’t feel sorry for it [the regional press]“

It should be a marriage made in heaven – a dedicated team of #hyperlocal journos operating in a #hyperlocal news patch, coming together to work with the local community and helping to share information and resources online.

Instead we are stuck here in South London with the same dated, dinosaur model of top down publishing. Copy appears online as an after thought, with the self-inflated assumption that users readers will respect the restrictions of the old school press day.

The South London Press has been highly successful in recent years in breaking some truly significant local news stories. Staff clearly understand the regional press publishing model, as well at the local news patch inside out. The ability of the publication to provide decent news copy is not under question.

Sadly this hasn’t been transferred over to the modern interweb. Imagine how truly community focussed this approach could be online. Contacts could be made using social media tools, copy sourced, leading to genuine collaboration between users and staff.

It is a conversation that is just waiting to happen, and one that would benefit the local area immensely. Hiding away behind anonymous blog comments doesn’t help to aid the co-operation, or the sharing of local partnerships.

Reeves continues:

“…the regional newspaper industry in particular was structurally incapable of adopting the entrepreneurial approach that is the only option available when almost every aspect of your business model is rendered obsolete.”

I wouldn’t be quite as harsh as this here in South London. I believe that there is an entrepreneurial approach locally. For whatever reason, it doesn’t include the modern interweb.

For a change to happen, it has to come from the people at grass roots who actually know the news process, the news patch, and one would hope, even the modern interweb. You can’t rely upon the structured linear hierarchy of old style newspaper executives to make the changes. You just do it.

This has been the approach that allows budding young journos such as @ToddNash to be hired by the Express and Star, with an open remit to get the community involved online, and do it however he sees fit. @ToddNash’s enthusiasm and knowledge of the modern interweb will reap benefits to the West Midlands as a whole.

A similar South London Press online apathy is also replicated over in Croydon. @sdownes has made reference to the speech by Reeves in relation to the Croydon Advertiser. It is a theme that has been analysed previously by @sdownes, highlighting how a bland #hyperlocal approach to advertising has led to anything but #hyperlocal news stories.

Thankfully @SthLondonPress sticks to the well-defined local map. But with boroughs covering Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham, this footprint is simply too large to make sense locally online.

And so overlooking the red herring of the sex ads – which remain at best justification for the continuation of Lambeth Life, at worst a vile intrusion within the local community – and overlooking the online presence of @SthLondonPress as merely a means for regurgitating old news copy, and even overlooking the local personality squabbles that no one is really interested in (guilty as charged for being caught up in this,) I like to think that there is still hope for #hyperlocal news being provided by a traditional publishing house here in South London.

I don’t quite buy Reeves’ assertion that:

“Forward thinking, online-minded, digitally enabled newspaper groups are trying to fight with several limbs tied behind their backs.”

It needn’t be such a structural approach to making the online model work. Once again – just do it. See where the ride takes you. Hopefully you will be taking the local community along with you as well.

As ever, I welcome feedback, and hopefully co-operation and progression. Anonymous comments don’t really add much to the debate.