It’s been a bad week for bad news.
Ninety editorial jobs going at the Daily Record and Sunday Mail is a body blow to one of Scotland’s greatest newspaper institutions and will have struck terror into the hearts of every journalist in the land.
The scale of the losses, almost halving the editorial team and diminishing the whole staff by over a third, is breathtaking: every single one represents a human tragedy for the families involved. No, they are not the first and won’t be the last people ever to lose their jobs but where are the alternatives? Finding work in a diminishing media pond in Scotland will be tough. Yet colleges and universities keep on churning out journalism and media studies graduates. Hmm.
The attempt by the Trinity Media Group to spin this as good news is contemptuous. Yes, there is an inevitability about the impact of advancing technology. Online content systems reduce the need for scribblers and editors but – and I realise I’m stating the bleedin’ obvious here – they don’t seek out the news, research a good story, create a splash. The more rationalisation in the Scottish press, the more ubiquitous and uniform copy we get as holes in pages are filled by agency releases.
I can’t help thinking – though of course I may be wide of the mark – that the Daily Record/Sunday Mail’s reduced circulation in recent years is more of an excuse rather than a cogent reason for these job losses. The problems at Trinity Media Group are much more profound. Bringing the largely standalone operation in Scotland under the Trinity wing and standardising it as a Trinity publication with shared content and features might make financial sense to the parent company but threatens to kill off Scotland’s national tabloid newspaper.
Charles McGhee opines eloquently about the impact of big proprietorial, often international businesses. His article, and indeed allmediascotland’s leader on the issue, are excellent. Others, of course, have used the bad news to have a pop, largely from their metropolitan boltholes, pointing out the many faultlines in the Scottish press environment and product.
I might even agree a little, believing firmly as I do, that the essential components of a flourishing press are to be free and fair, bold and imaginative, not thirled to the political preferences nor personal foibles of owners and editors.
But the reasons for the decline of the national newspaper in Scotland are multifarious and complex. For a whole host of reasons, people are buying fewer newspapers and that says as much about us, as a nation, as it does about the quality of the offering.
I will confess to reading the Daily Record/Sunday Mail only occasionally but I am a rare burd, being an avid newspapers and new magazine purchaser and reader.  I acknowledge and agree that there is a place in our world for tabloid newspapers and they have an existing and potential market and purpose. How dull we would be if we all had the same tastes and views: newspapers should reflect and meet all the needs and interests of a population and its society.
Moreover, bloggers co-exist with media outlets and practitioners. The media play a vital role at the heart of our communities and society, acting as the hub of a wheel that ensures information, news and comment reaches audiences. Bloggers may like to think they are the new kids on the block, bypassing the media through modern technology to reach audiences directly but frankly that is delusionary. The future might be social but our paltry viewing figures cannot hope to compete with the ability of mainstream media to reach mass audiences. In fact, those that have become celebrity bloggers owe thanks to MSM professionals for their stardom: many now have successful media careers as a result.
There is also a desperate irony behind the reason for my absence from these shores when the bad news broke. The European Parliament office in the UK has been trying for years to interest journalists to do the visit I was on and find out more about writing news stories on Parliament business. Few had the time or inclination to do so and often, the editorial line in the UK media, almost uniformly, is a negative one when it comes to European matters. The Directorate-General for Communications has turned to citizen bloggers as a way of trying to influence the news agenda, neatly pointing up some of the embedded weaknesses in our current media set-up.
Ultimately, we need a vibrant, healthy media if we want a vibrant, healthy democracy. To shine a light – as the Daily Record has done so effectively in years’ past – to expose, to praise, to promote and to defeat, to shame, to change. If anyone doubts the power and role of the media in a free society, go check out PEN and Amnesty International. Or just google *campaigns to free journalists*.
If ever there was a time to play a nationalist media card, this was it. Scotland needs a diverse media mix in rude health. It needs smaller ownership, not bigger, and more homegrown products to succeed. More powers over all media regulation – to create an enabling framework – and full fiscal powers to create a tax regime that allows the flourishing of talent and creativity, and protects the very good products that we still have. Two very recent examples include the Sunday Herald’s expose of the reach of organised crime gang culture into our lives and Scotland on Sunday’s partnership with Wikileaks. As a nation, we punch above our media weight in so many ways. But we can do more and better.
So, go on, cyber nats, do your worst. Enough gloating about the job losses – very unedifying and immature by the way. Don’t focus on the Daily Record’s current political slant as the source of all its ills – you’ll be wrong by the way – but put your invective to good use for once.
The thing about standing up for Scotland is that we stand up for all of it. And it’s time to stand up for Scotland’s press.