Britain’s National Union of Journalists commissioned a study into the Trinity Mirror newspaper group. Here’s how the NUJ followed through:

The NUJ is calling for the National Assembly for Wales to summon Trinity Mirror boss Sly Bailey to answer tough questions after an in-depth academic study exposed the serious threat to the future of quality journalism in Wales from the company’s ongoing failure to properly invest in print and online news.

Well…you can read the J-School’s study and make up your own mind. On my reading this is not a call for investment and returns, it’s just an old-fashioned call for pay hikes.

It talks up an “investing in journalism” model, but where is the model? What page is it hiding on? I wonder if there’s a single, actionable idea for senior media managers in the whole thing. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love it if there was. It reminds me of a great review of work by Philip Meyer on quality:

This just in:

Knight Ridder (NYSE: KRI) is up two points today following the release of the Total News Quality scores this morning. The company beat analysts’ predictions with a TNQ of 84, six points higher than expected. Knight Ridder representatives say their performance is the result of strategic newsroom investments made three years ago.

Wake up, Prof. Philip Meyer — you’re dreaming.

Meyer imagines a world where what’s written above — now just a fantasy — could be real news; a world where meaningful metrics of news quality would replace quarterly profits as the indicator of a news organization’s long-term health.

The NUJ should read Tim Porter:

The State of the News Media 2007 report characterized traditional journalists as moving from defensiveness to fear about the digital future of news. Good. Fear is a great motivator. Nobody moves faster than someone fighting for their life.

All the negatives cited in the report are true, especially the eroding print business model and lack of a viable digital replacement. But, as simplistic as this assertion sounds, there will be a future for news. Some of it will resemble the past, much of it won’t. How it is shaped, what influence it has, who will work in it, how credible it is, what its principles are and how much money it can make are all still open questions.

Only one certainty exists: That future will belong to those who build it. Walking away isn’t the answer. Staying, working the problem, finding solutions, making hard choices, learning to think differently – those are the answers. And the people who do that are the real heroes of journalism.