New Journal Editor tells House of Lords: ‘media bank’ would help local press survive
Thursday, 3rd November 2011
Published: 03 November 2011
CAMDEN New Journal editor Eric Gordon has told a House of Lords select committee investigating the future of journalism that local newspapers can survive if they do not allow themselves to be dominated by “monopolistic” ownership.
Appearing before peers on Tuesday, he said newspapers such as the New Journal could defy pessimistic predictions if they continued to “appeal to a specialist audience” – meaning the local community.
Mr Gordon added that local newspapers had to maintain a campaigning spirit. “It is the blood and juice of our paper,” he said.
Looking to meet profit targets for shareholders, the companies have cut back on editorial staff to reduce overheads.
“It’s when you get the intrusion of distant, monopolistic companies, you lose a local touch,” he said. “Where you still have little villages as you do in Camden, where you have settled populations, you have people who are still interested.”
The New Journal was invited to give evidence to the panel because of its ownership structure.
Mr Gordon, who helped found the newspaper in 1982 with a £50,000 government-backed bank loan and initial help from Camden Council, was giving evidence alongside Martin Trepte, from the Maidenhead Advertiser, run by a charitable trust.
Mr Gordon said the government could help newspapers by setting up a “media bank”.
“There should be some sort of government assistance, preferably, in one form or another, a media bank to help newspapers.
I know this might be an unpopular viewpoint and I don’t believe in government ownership.
But there should be some sort of government intervention.
Without it, I do fear for the future of local papers.”
Earlier in the day Dame Liz Forgan, a former reporter on the Hampstead and Highgate Express who became chairwoman of the Scott Trust – the body that runs The Guardian newspaper – told the committee of her gloomy predictions for print journalism.
Asked about her views, Mr Gordon told the committee he had known Dame Liz from her years at the Ham and High, “which is owned by a large group and has, almost tragically in my opinion – I love newspapers – declined from a circulation of 21,000 when we started in 1982”.
He added: “It is now down to five [thousand] or so. It may be that Liz is thinking of the demise of the Ham and High.
That’s because of the nature of its ownership and the difficulty of selling a local paper when you have the emergence of good-quality – I’m bound to say it of our paper – free papers.
I believe newspapers still have a future but I can only speak for the part of London in which we circulate.”
