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In tough economic times, it is more important than ever to support local businesses, so that when the good times come round again (which, although it doesn’t feel like it, they surely will), we are not left with High Streets and Yellow Pages full only of big national concerns.
It has therefore been good news that Norfolk’s own newspaper group, Archant, has been running a series of ‘Shop Local’ type campaigns in its main titles, encouraging its readers to do just that – spend their money with businesses which are locally-run and owned, and which therefore will plough that cash back into the local economy.
What a shame, therefore, that Archant is not practising what it preaches.
Last month’s announcement of the loss of as many as 54 journalist jobs – from a total of 179 – can only harm the local strength of ‘our’ newspapers. Now, I’m not naïve, I know that some difficult decisions have to be taken in difficult times. We can all see that advertising revenue is falling, not least in the vital areas of property, jobs and motors, and so some form of cost-cutting is inevitable.
But the scale of the cuts means that the EDP and the Evening News will simply not be able to provide a local service. We have seen over the past years the slow creep of cheap, syndicated national copy into the papers.
That means that, for example, a lifestyle piece on interiors will feature no local shops, just national chains which have a big enough geographical spread to make it into features written for newspapers right across the country. Hardly supporting local businesses, and in direct contradiction to the in-paper exhortations to Shop Local.
True, Archant is a business, there to make profits for its shareholders. But I would argue that too drastic a trimming of its lifeblood, the editorial staff, and a reliance on the cheap option, will damage the company in the long run. If the EDP no longer has a local flavour, then why would readers buy it instead of a national newspaper? And when that happens, circulation falls still further, more cuts become necessary, and the whole vicious spiral starts again.
Archant has an near monopoly on printed media in Norfolk. That gives us strong local titles, but it also brings with it a responsibility to its local communities, the people who keep it in business. Quite apart from the very real effect on the individuals who will be losing their jobs, these savage cuts will damage the entire local economy, especially locally-owned businesses.
So my message to Archant is: don’t cut so deep that you can no longer keep it local. In other words, follow your own editorial line.
Article published in Eco Echo April 2009 |
