Johnston Press is under attack for having merged two weekly newspapers in Yorkshire - the Todmorden News and the Hebden Bridge Times.
The local members of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) have issued a statement registering their opposition to the move. It said:
“The end of a dedicated local paper for each town breaks a tradition which goes back a century, and is another sign of the way that the local media in Britain is being starved of resources and professional skills.
Within the memory of members of our branch both the Todmorden and Hebden Bridge papers each had a team of four journalists pro-actively seeking stories, monitoring local authority decisions and reporting from the courts.
These journalists had pride in the newspaper which they produced each week, and several went on to significant national careers. Sadly the combined local paper now has material put together in an ad-hoc way by Courier staff based in Halifax. The local connection has been broken.”
And the Todmorden Civic Society is none too pleased either, arguing that its own town’s news will be subsumed by that of neighbouring Hebden Bridge.
But I think we have to get real here. The merger itself is not the problem because there comes a point at which publishing in newsprint is no longer viable.
In the first six months of 2010, the Todmorden News sold a weekly average of 3,547 copies and the Hebden Bridges Times sold 2,971.
In their last ABC audit, in the second half of 2012, the News sold 2,814 while the Times sold 2,613 copies. It is surely significant that Johnston Press withdrew both titles from the audit after that.
Circulation has inevitably declined still further over the past three years, so I can well understand the urge to merge in order to cut costs.
What counts now is whether Johnston Press is going to ensure that both towns get an adequate editorial service in newsprint and online.
The NUJ statement is sceptical about that, stating that the publisher had been “happy to take the profits but felt no obligation to maintain high standards of reporting in our communities despite the valiant efforts of many local journalists... who have struggled against the odds to maintain integrity and professional standards.”
There is the valid question. Will the publisher provide the necessary resources to enable journalists to report comprehensively in Todmorden and Hebden Bridge?
Sources: Calder Valley Plain Speaker/HoldTheFrontPage/Press Gazette
