The timing is certainly apt; Enquirer, the new “rapid-response verbatum work” being put on by the National Theatre of Scotland, is a much-needed opportunity to explore the stark choices facing the UK’s newspaper industry at a time when it’s under innately hostile public scrutiny and the financial rug of its traditional economic model is being pulled from under its feet.
Enquirer, which will be initially performed, promenade style, in a pretend newsroom (located in an office block in Glasgow’s digital media quarter at Pacific Quay), is based on some 50 interviews — primarily with reporters — conducted by journalists Paul Flynn, Deborah Orr and Ruth Wishart. We are promised it will be very much reporting from the front line, filled with both the anger and resignation that’s rife across the industry. Nor will it be static; given the 24/7 world of news we now live in, it’s appropriate that it will be updated, as required, during both the rehearsal and performance period to reflect, Drop The Dead Donkey-style, any pertinent developments coming from the Leveson Enquiry and the industry as a whole.
It is particularly apposite that such a work, while subsequently transferring to London, begins its life north of the border. The simple fact is that, if the UK’s newspaper industry can be said to be in crisis, then the Scottish market — not that long ago fondly described as one of the most competitive in the world — is in an even worse state.
Sales across the board continue to fall, especially among the home-grown quality press: in January, year on year, The Scotsman and The Herald had lost 9.73% and 10% of sales respectively. You have to wonder how much longer The Scotsman, in particular, can continue to shoulder such one-in-ten falls when it now sells only around 37,700 copies a day.
It is somewhat ironic that, at a time when Scots will soon be expected to make a decision on their constitutional future, their indigenous print media is crumbling at local, regional and national levels. As a freelance journalist, I have an obvious interest in supporting a local industry (so I can continue to work in it), yet it’s much more important than that. I believe that a free, responsible, diverse and challenging press plays a vital role in the life of any democratic society. That Scotland could soon not have one is horrifying.
It’s hardly a front page exclusive to lay the spiraling collapse of our indigenous press at the door of the internet and the world wide web. The perfect storm of lost classified advertising revenue and lost readers to free online alternatives has been catastrophic, not least because most publishers have chosen to balance the resulting loss of income with an austerity programme of cuts that puts the current UK Coalition Government to shame. Newsrooms have been merged and pared back to the bone; staff and freelancers’ pay and working conditions have been unilaterally reduced; there’s been a notable increased reliance on unverified “churnalism” provided by PR companies and other unpaid sources, including government departments; and, of course, the increased use (and exploitation) of unpaid interns desperate to get a foothold in the industry.
All that this has achieved, of course, is increasingly stressed journalists forced to play brutal musical chairs on the deck as the ship slowly sinks beneath the icy waves. Sales continue to decline, not least because the resulting publications are already pale imitations of what they were just a decade ago. As a supposed “national newspaper”, The Scotsman now only really matters during August, when the world and its mother still desperately desires one of its five star reviews. As for the other 11 months, it’s at best a regional newspaper with ideas above its station. That it still somehow manages to hold on to some excellent journalists is remarkable but, when there are cheap and cheerful alternatives to hand, it’s surely basic business sense to provide a product that’s demonstrably better than the opposition.
It doesn’t help, of course, that Johnston Press — which owns Scotsman Publications and a host of local Scottish newspapers, ranging from the East Fife Mail to the Glenrothes Gazzette — still struggles under a mountain of debt built up during its massive expansion. It doesn’t help that Newsquest — which owns The Herald, Sunday Herald and (Glasgow) Evening Times — is ultimately controlled by accountants based across the Atlantic. Most of all, it doesn’t help that most of Scotland’s indigenous newspaper industry clearly doesn’t have a clue what to do.
There are exceptions, of course. A couple of years ago, small independent Glasgow Press took on two 16-page monthly titles — the Govan Press and Southside Press. Both titles now boast increased circulation, pagination, frequency and advertising income, suggesting that hard work and a genuine understanding of their marketplace can still lead to some modest profits in this so-called sunset industry, More importantly, at a time when even national media is becoming narrow-band, it shows that there’s still an audience out there for local news content. Yet the only company seemingly exploiting this is a television company — STV.
But it is in their half-arsed digital efforts that Scotland’s main newspaper groups show their lack of foresight. They may say they now think of themselves as news content providers, but they show little sign of understanding the practicalities this involves. Plenty of academic research already exists showing how people read web page quite differently compared to a physical newspaper — not least because online readers are decidedly more proactive in their search for information, and far less patient to find it. So why do most Scottish newspapers simply regurgitate their newsprint stories online — and in a frankly dull, rigid manner that’s unfriendly to not just readers but, importantly, the search engines they use?
The Guardian is one of the best examples of a serious newspaper publisher redefining themselves as a genuine news content provider, although even they still fail to properly re-shape their product to best match the differing requirements of website, print, tablet computer and smart phone. There is a reason that Mail Online is, supposedly, now the world’s most popular news site. The tabloid, reactionary nature of much of its content notwithstanding, the people putting it together clearly know how people use the web and what works when it comes to keeping surfers glued to their site.
Unfortunately, that sort of thing requires real investment, in both time and money, neither of which is particularly in big supply at the moment within an industry buckling under the commercial pressure to sell newspapers. Unless something is done soon, though, Scotland may well soon lose the newspaper tradition that it once held onto so proudly.
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Enquirer will be performed from 26 April to 12 May 2012 at The Hub at Pacific Quay, Glasgow. More: www.nationaltheatrescotland.com
