A very long time ago, when I had just moved to London and was still rather excited by the fact that I was worldly, hip and liberal, I asked a gay friend (who was originally from Northern Ireland) what the “scene” was like in Belfast.
He gave me the withering look my question deserved, and shook his head.
“What do you f@*$ing think?”
Indeed. I had come to London to escape the narrow life opportunities of the “community” into which I was born. He had come to London to escape his family’s denial and disapproval, and the contempt and thuggery of his “community.”
And what has that little tale to do with the future of the news media? Well, it might serve as a reminder that locality is not community. My friend had to travel to London to find a community. Growing up, I read to find one.
US newspaper gloom
The Guardian‘s Charles Arthur has a gloomy post on the future of newspapers.
San Francisco may lose the Chronicle, Denver has lost it’s major paper. The United States will lose an awful lot of these newspapers and – I predict – end up with a stronger, but smaller legacy national news media.
Nick Carr argues that there is an oversupply of news. Certainly the perceived advantages of ownership (political, social etc.) can lead to uneconomic provision (cf. the subsidies that keep the New York Post or Al Jazeera in business). But given the amount of agency material clogging news aggregators it’s hard to argue that there’s an oversupply.
Take Great Yarmouth, where I grew up. Nearly 50,000 people live there. A Google News UK search brings up around 250+ stories for February 2008, mostly drawn from local weekly the Great Yarmouth Mercury.
When I checked, the site had 17 classified ads online. And the top story?
The Co-operative has become the first supermarket to stock Fairtrade Palestinian olive oil – the first Palestinian product to receive Fairtrade certification.
The Equal Exchange Fairtrade Palestinian Extra Virgin Olive Oil will be available in Anglia Co-operative’s larger stores, including the Rainbow Foodstore in Bradwell.
Hardly an “oversupply” of news, although that particular story is the news equivalent of a suicide note… It’s true that not enough people search for news about a place called Great Yarmouth.
I’ve argued before (despite the evidence immediately above) that news content suffers from a demand-side problem – that there’s little incentive for most people to be well-informed on public policy topics, beyond the social transaction value (and that dictates a lot of news-framing which uses fear or disgust to provoke interest and reaction).
Still, in the UK, political devolution has not proved a sufficiently demand-side incentive to sustain newspaper readership.
And politics remains committed to geography. Perhaps politicians need that message too: localities are NOT communities.
3 responses to “Message to dying newspapers: localities are NOT communities”
Your premise is wrong: your friend might not have found much of a gay community in Belfast, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t part of a sporting community or a music scene.
People can belong to many overlapping communities and that includes localities.
As the proud winner of a Great Yarmouth Mercury pen for writing pieces for its School Reporter page many years ago, I’ll agree that rehashing a press release on olive oil isn’t the title’s finest hour but other stories on the site include a bank raid and a piece on the borough council’s housing situation.
These are stories that affect a local community – as is its long-running campaign to improve the A47, the main road into the town. Gay or straight, you are affected if the place you live has poor transport links; your locality is a community because you have communal interests.
(On a side point, as I work for the Mercury’s publishers I can tell you that our current web system orders stories by date rather than importance, so the olive oil tale wasn’t really the ‘top’ story just the last one published. We know that’s not good enough, and we’re fixing it.)
Thanks for the comment James.
As someone Yarmouth born (well, Cobholm actually), I fear the A47 will be terrible from Acle long after the internet has come and gone…
I’m American; and in my worst moments I think maybe we’re reaching a deep trough in our representative democracy which might take a generation or two to climb out of.
Whatever the continent or paper, even the Greater Yarmouth Mercury or the Kotchford Knob Courier there is always plenty of cause for the local cub reporter to parse and transmit the impact of national legislation, policy, or economic problems locally.
Many of the papers in America are saddled with idle and reactive baby boomer managers who we can only pray will be forced to pasture before long.
But part of the problem is the indignant arrogance of much of the public towards local journalism, and a tendency criticize the papers for pushing an agenda or trying to sell copies. Part of journalism is “framing the news” and providing facts for people(in London and Yarmouth) who would otherwise have to imagine their own newspaper each morning.
More than anything, I hope the public hopes to keep some kind of current information besides the movie and bus timetables.
When it is done well, it can almost feel worth the effort of providing timely and important news when a discerning citizen.
“there’s little incentive for most people to be well-informed on public policy topics, beyond the social transaction value (and that dictates a lot of news-framing which uses fear or disgust to provoke interest and reaction).”
If I think I follow your point about “social transaction value” correctly (and I’m not sure I do), A) people only read about public policy to dine out on it or to look moderately intelligent? or B)News organizations choose news (crime, scandal, etc.) that invokes panic and catering to people’s more salacious tastes?
Sometimes it gets exhausting for journalists to look at all self-styled commentary about themselves and try to learn something from it.
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