I am not alone in viewing Trinity Mirror’s decision to set audience targets for journalists working in its Midlands division, as misguided because of its likelihood in encouraging clickbait journalism.
Ashley Highfield, chief executive of one of TM’s rival regional publishers, Johnston Press, told the Independent’s Adam Sherwin:
“My worry would be that judging an individual journalist by page views would tend to produce the creation of ‘clickbait’ stories and listicles. I’ve no problem with what BuzzFeed does, but that’s not us.
If a deeply important piece of investigative journalism doesn’t generate the same number of hits as our biggest viral story of the year – the opening of a cat café in Edinburgh – that’s fine by me”.
For the opposite point of view, see this blogpost by David Higgerson, Trinity Mirror’s digital publishing director (and my take on his post is here).
Highfield: why the regional press should collaborate
Ironically, Highfield’s criticism of the Trinity Mirror initiative came on the day he called for regional press groups to bury their traditional rivalries and collaborate.
In addressing a Society of Editors’ seminar in Manchester, he said publishers should consider sharing content. Rather than compete with each other, they need to fight together against the “real enemy”, such as Google, Facebook and BuzzFeed.
He suggested that the industry could launch new niche websites based around themed content pooled from all their local sites. For example, “why not pool all regional press football coverage into one endevaour?”
Titles in his own group that had once competed against each other for scoops, such as the Yorkshire Post and Sheffield Star, were now working together.
“Many journalists tied to their desks, sometimes unknowingly working on the same press releases as their colleagues in nearby offices, is neither productive nor fulfilling”, he said.
As for scoop journalism, that’s history. “We can break a story online”, he said, “but our real value comes in the insight we add, and the way we amplify the story...
“Being best at what we do, but doing it together, is the only way to succeed”.
Building on his theme, Highfield continued: “Together we can capture significant economies of scale. We can innovate and transform. We can build an infrastructure which reaches every corner of the UK.
“We are not rivals. We are not competitors. Most of our titles operate in non-competitive markets. Our competition is Google, Facebook, RightMove, Gumtree et al”.
