Why Grey Cardigan should not die

Glad to see that the great Grey Cardigan, Press Gazette's columnist who views the world of journalism through the eyes of a curmudgeonly down table sub, is to set up a blog when he is made homeless by Wilmington's decision to close the monthly PG magazine and its website in its current form.
Grey Cardigan works for both. We need him at this time of turmoil in the newspaper industry. He often gets to the heart of the matter. For example, take this from Cardigan's latest column which shows what redundancy really means.

A FRIEND and former colleague of mine has just lost his job as an editor so, as you do, you keep in touch asking how the poor chap is doing – poor being the operative word since the big pay-offs went out of the window.
It turns out that he’d been down to his local JobCentre, suited and booted and carrying a briefcase, only to be confronted with the spectacle of two tramps in the queue fighting over a can of Special Brew. He tells me he stood there, just six weeks after being a man of some substance in society, and wondered where it had all gone wrong. We both agreed that it was all Johnston ‘35 per cent’ Press’s fault.
It got worse. “I’ll take anything,” he told the glassy-eyed woman behind the security screen, who was clearly already on the pop at 10.30am. “Even a driving job”.
The woman burped and laughed. “A driving job? You? You must be joking.”
“No,” he insisted. “I’ll do anything to tide me over.”
“Listen,” she said. “The last driving job we had in here was five months ago and we had over 100 applications for it. You’d have stood no chance.”
Much chastened, my man retreated to the nearest hostelry and joined the two tramps, now amicably sinking cheap cider. He’s 50 years old and has been in the trade since he left school. What on earth have we come to?

Grey Cardigan on Northcliffe: 'It's all about maintaining obscene profits'

Press Gazette's Grey Cardigan, the voice of the regional downtable sub, in a blog post gives his view of Northcliffe's plans to end local subbing.
Cardigan does not pull his punches when discussing the plans to transfer subbing from Northcliffe's dailies in the East Midlands, at the cost of around 50 jobs, to new subbing hubs in Nottingham and Hull so as "to meet the rapidly changing needs of the industry”.
Cardignan says: "That’s utter bollocks, of course. It’s got nothing to do with 'the rapidly changing needs of the industry' and everything to do with maintaining obscene and unsustainable profits - last year, a mere £68 million.
"Finally, we are assured that 'Editors will be fully responsible for their titles to preserve the local identity of newspapers and websites.'
"I wish them luck. They’re going to need it once local knowledge goes out of the window and stupid mistakes begin to litter their pages. Life is Local? Not any more."

Grey Cardigan accuses Greenslade: 'You're giving newspaper bosses ammo to shoot subs'

Press Gazette columnist and blogger Grey Cardigan , the voice of the downtable regional sub, has hit back at Roy Greenslade's assertion that "sub editors are a layer that can be eliminted" which has provoked more than 80 postings on the PG website.
Cardigan says: "The real danger of Professor Greenslade’s deranged, delusionary rantings, as identified by many of those who have left comments, is that he is simply passing the ammunition to know-nothing newspaper bosses who will take his misguided meanderings as legitimisation of their dividend-chasing agenda.
"Surely, they will ask, if a man as distinguished as the Prof thinks we can do without subs, why aren’t we embracing his Brave New World? And bang goes another desk of jobs in a small provincial office. And that’s very, very, sad."
Cardigan also admits that he wished his blog was subbed, stating: "This blog goes straight to screen; it is unchecked. And I hate it. I know that however hard I look, however many times I read and re-read, there is always a chance that a grammatical gremlin might creep in. But up with that I must put."
I wonder how many other bloggers agree with Cardigan and wish someone read their blog before they posted, or do they prefer the immediacy of seeing their blog published without the approval of a third party?
Monday update: Roy Greenslade has responded to his critics here.

Ruth Addicott's Best of 2008

Ruth Addicott, the former editor of the Woman section of The Argus, Brighton, who has just gone freelance, picks her Best of 2008.

Best old/trad media of the year: Grey Cardigan in Press Gazette because he's the only columnist not PR driven (even if he does repeat his jokes every few weeks), the Sunday Telegraph and Ian Hyland in the News of the World


Best new media of the year: Opus doing 'Life is Live' on You Tube - light relief from the 'crunch'.


Best story of the year: Obama, but my personal fave was Prescott being bullimic (followed up by footage of him tapping his foot and dancing on that doc).


Prediction for 2009: Prescott and his wife Pauline sky-diving out of a plane over the Australian outback in 'I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here', with Cherie queuing up behind. That will be front page, then p2 will have some mad man trying to see off Obama.

Tomorrow: Sue Curtis, news organiser at BBC Coventry and Warwickshire.

Rest of the Best of, so far:Paul Linford, Adrian Monck , Grey Cardigan , Jean Morgan, Steve Busfield, Neil Fowler, Ian Reeves, Dominic Ponsford, Michael Crozier, Judith Townend and Laura Oliver, Patrick Smith.

Grey Cardigan's Best of 2008

Press Gazette legend Grey Cardigan names his Best of 2008.

Best old/trad media of the year: Craven Herald

Best new media of the year: Gentlemen Ranters

Best story of the year: Shannon Matthews 'kidnap'.

Prediction for 2009: Government intervention to halt the carnage in our newsrooms.

Tomorrow: It's a World Exclusive as Jean Morgan MBE comes out of retirement to name her Newspaper of the Year. As for new media, Jean says "Bah, humbug!" Don't miss it.

Something Grey Cardigan and NUJ 'nut jobs' can agree on: local owners best for regionals

Press Gazette's columnist Grey Cardigan describes the NUJ leadership as 'nut jobs' in the magazine's latest issue. Grey was infuriated by NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear's comment that he was "slightly bemused" by regional publishers' objections to the BBC plans to expand its local websites with video reports.
But what's this? In an opinion piece on MediaGuardian, Dear argues:"The current failed model of local newspaper ownership by faceless, remote corporations is dead. We must seize the time to reshape the industry – encouraging real local ownership, community involvement and greater accountability. We owe it, not to our shareholders, but to our readers."
This seems to chime with Grey's views in Press Gazette: "Look at the history of our newspapers and you will find that many of them were founded by local men and funded by local businesses - printers, campaigners, shopkeepers and solicitors. These men did not seek to make a vast fortune from their great adventure...Why can't the big groups sell off their failing titles to people who would actually love and nurture them?"
At this rate Grey and Dear will be manning the barricades together against the faceless publishing corporations. Viva! la revolution.

Comic Cardigan gets serious and calls for local heroes to rescue regional newspapers

The author of Press Gazette's comic column Grey Cardigan, the curmudgeonly local daily paper down table sub-editor, knows the regional press inside out. When he writes in the December issue of the magazine: "I know for a fact, confirmed by colleagues elsewhere, that the financial crisis facing our industry is far worse than many people realise," then we know things are serious.
Grey continues: "There are evening newspapers out there actually running at a loss in bad weeks. Weeklies are faring marginally better, but only because of a lower cost-base propping up a diminishing cover-price revenue. The time is clearly coming when when we shall lose small dailies, either converted into weeklies like the Bath Chronicle or into complete extinction."
His answer to the crisis in the regional press is a return to local ownership. Grey asks:"Why can't the big groups sell off their failing titles to people who would actually love and nurture them?"

Grey Cardigan:"Newsquest should be ashamed"

Press Gazette's columnist Grey Cardigan points out that the move by Newsquest in York to amalgamate the job of daily editor, managing director and weekly editor into the new role of managing editor will mean an industry first - a daily regional newspaper without a dedicated editor. As reported in the post below, Hold The Front Page revealed today 'Editors and MD to compete for single job' that in York, Press editor Kevin Booth, weekly editor Chris Buxton and managing director Steve Hughes have been made redundant and must now apply for the new managing editor's post. Grey Cardigan describes the move as an "utter disgrace" and says Newsquest should be "deeply ashamed". You can read his broadside 'Welcome to the editorless daily newspaper' here.

Grey Cardigan rages at Johnston Press

Press Gazette's famed columnist Grey Cardigan, the embodiment of a curmudgeonly down table sub on a regional newspaper, has really lost it and gone for the jugular of Johnston Press. Grey in a posting on his Press Gazette blog blames Johnston's one time bumper profit margin of 35 per cent for wrecking the regional newspaper industry. He says acerbically: "When the time comes to record the demise of this great game, that will be identified as the point that it all went tits up." Grey's outburst was prompted by the news that Trinity Mirror is imposing a pay freeze on its staff. The move has gone down badly with the NUJ which claims it is an insult to staff. The union is not mollified by the £720,000 a year Trinity chief Sly Bailey saying she will not take a bonus. The NUJ announced today it will be holding a "jobs summit" on 24 January to discuss the growing employment crisis in the media. Daily Mail & General Trust revealed today that it is in the process of cutting 400 jobs across the company.