I was clearing out some old files this morning when I came across a photocopied page from JB Priestley’s English Journey with the following passage:
“It is good that there should be a real independent provincial press. People ought to read national newspapers, but they also ought to read local newspapers too for England, even now, is still the country of local government, local politics, strong local interests, and only the newspaper written and published in the immediate neighbourhood can deal adequately with such government, politics, and interests.
It is important that people should read that Alderman Smith said this and Councillor Robinson did that. It is important that they should realise what is happening in their own district.
Gossip and chatter from Fleet Street is a poor substitute for such information about and criticism of local affairs. Any decent provincial newspaper ought to be able to give its reader a much saner picture of the world than the popular national papers, with their hysteria and stunts and comic antics.”
Priestley wrote that in 1934 and, although most people now consume their news, local and national, through a screen, his opinion remains valid.
At the time of his travels, most cities had competing daily papers and most towns had competing weeklies, a situation that existed well into the 1960s.
That changed when local titles were merged as newspaper publishing companies also merged. Even so, another clipping from that old file, a Sunday Telegraph piece by Damian Reece in September 2002, was revealing in two ways.
Firstly, the four largest regional press owners at the time remain the four largest today: Trinity Mirror, Newsquest/Gannett, Northcliffe (the bulk of Local World) and Johnston Press.
Secondly, and this is a sobering fact, the publishers were revelling in what Reece called “the best times in 50 years.” He wrote:
“Newspapers from the Aberdeen Independent to the Yorkshire Post are enjoying rising revenues from advertising and increasing circulation.”
There were upbeat quotes from publishing company chiefs, such as Johnston Press’s Tim Bowdler and Trinity Mirror’s Phil Graf, plus Sir Ray Tindle (although I readily concede that Ray only ever does upbeat).
They all spoke of rising profits. Up by 25% to £44.2m, said Ray. Yields up 2.2%, said Tim. Local economies are robust, said Phil. They were on the crest of a pre-internet, pre-recession wave.
You might ask whether they used those profits wisely. You might wonder whether they should have paid less to investors. Inside the bubble, however, it is rare to see outside it. It must have looked as though the boom would go on for ever.
One other interesting feature to note in that article was the concern of competition authorities about the supposed “cosy carve-up” by those big four publishers. Nothing was done, of course. Now, it wouldn’t be in the least surprising to see the big four soon become the Big Two.
Trinity Mirror and Local World look to be on the verge of merging. And Johnston Press’s chief executive, Ashley Highfield, believes consolidation is “long overdue” and told me last week he could see the logic in linking up with Newsquest.
But, to return to Priestley, do we think the local papers of 2015 are doing the job of informing the public as well as he seemed to think they did in 1934?
Or do we live in an England so different from the one he witnessed that it is no longer relevant to see it in the terms of that grand old man?
