Call for authorities to back local press with ads

A call has been made for local authorities to demonstrate their commitment to local newspapers by guaranteeing to place more public notices and council adverts in the titles.
The call came at a meeting of more than sixty councillors, MPs and NUJ members from the Manchester Evening News and other Guardian Media Group weeklies who attended a Stand Up for Journalism meeting at Manchester Town Hall.
The MEN and other titles are facing almost eighty redundancies among journalists and the closure of weekly newspaper offices.
The meeting heard claims that some local newspapers were being penalised by councils such as Salford who had retaliated to what they regard as unfavourable coverage of council stories by withholding advertising from some titles.
Deputy leader of Manchester City Council Jim Battle told the audience he wants all ten local authorities to put their money where their mouth is to help save local newspapers and journalists threatened with redundancy.
Said NUJ Vice President, Peter Murray, who also spoke at the meeting on Friday, “There’s now widespread agreement that defending jobs in print, in broadcasting, or in new media is part of a fight to retain strong public services, under attack from executives who are more concerned about their balance sheets, shareholders or government targets than they are about our role as journalists to scrutinise and question those who hold public office.”
Staff on the GMG titles in Manchester are being balloted over taking industrial action in response to the job cuts.

'Manchester Evening News should be owned and managed in Manchester'

This is part of one of the best posts on MediaGuardian's blog on the future of regional journalism. It suggests that the best option for the Manchester Evening News would be to stand alone from Guardian Media Group and be owned and managed in Manchester.
Sensi posts: "Newspapers may be in decline, but a lot of them are still profitable. Their owners have creamed off massive profits in the good times, but their expectations must change now and they must be willing to acept lower margins if the industry is to survive.
Either that, or the paradigm of consolidation and mergers should be turned on its head and local papers and regional publishers should be allowed to go it alone outside these super-group structures, operating within a more realistic framework of expecation.
People have said on this site a number of times that the MEN has propped up the Guardian for years, and are particularly angry that GMG is not now returning the favour, if you could call it that. Maybe if the MEN can stand on its own, the best thing would be to let it do so; a Manchester paper, 100% owned and controlled here. That doesn't sound too radical, does it? It would be welcomed by so many.
Journalists and the Union have a role to play in this too and they should meet management half way. In return for a more honest, realistic approach to profitabilty from management, journalists must agree to be (even) more flexible, innovative and embrace the many different communication platforms used by their readers. They should help the paper thrive in other areas away from print and draw new readers to their activity. Too many journalists don't do this, in my view. Yes, I accept that there are time pressures (God knows I understand that), but some regional journalists are making a great job of integrating social media with old media activities. It can be done. It has to be done.
If some of this was to happen, the regional press may have a future."

Bectu blast for Guardian and BBC Trust

Mark Scrimshaw, chair of broadcasting union Bectu's BBC Division, gives the BBC Trust and The Guardian both barrels today over the Trust's decision to block BBC plans to beef up its local websites with video reports.
Scimshaw, in a letter published in MediaGuardian, claims the Trust "has shown itself to be craven and pusillanimous, more beholden to commercial interests than any idea of public service broadcasting." He doesn't spare The Guardian, arguing it should have declared an interest in its coverage of the story because it is part of Guardian Media Group which owns a string of local papers, including the Manchester Evening News. Scrimshaw adds: "It (The Guardian) represents one of the main players to gain from the lack of competition thus created, and will be able to continue to get away with lamentable quality and exploitative wages and conditions...The losers from all this are staff in English Regions particularly, who will now face swathes of redundancies; and viewers, who will have to put up with the pitiful offerings of local newspapers' online video rather than a BBC alternative."