Welcome to the weekly Wrap from How-Do - media news for the North West.
The Wrap's guest editor this week is Maggie Henfield.
When a free copy of the MEN was first thrust into my hands a couple of years ago by a news donor – we can’t call them vendors any more since they don’t take our cash – I worried that the grande dame of regional evening titles was heading for life-support.
The thought grieved me after spending seven years there as Features Editor. My dismal mood was also deepened by a rather precious notion that when print journalism was given away it was somehow being devalued.
But any intimations of the MEN’s mortality were decidedly premature.
And an historic move this week has boosted the old girl’s metabolism by agreeing that free and paid for copies can, for the first time, be counted together in one circulation figure.
Setting aside the commercial rationale, it’s a reminder that journalism and its delivery methods will forever be in a state of flux, moving from paper to screen to mobile phone….. to potentially a Natasha Kaplinsky-style genie in a bottle, popping out to flash a smile and a headline before disappearing in a puff of smoke.
But, rationally, does giving away a previously paid-for publication dilute either the reader or writer’s experience? Recent research claimed that seven out of 10 readers of the MEN’s free edition were ABC1 and read the paper for as long as those who paid for a copy.
And on the other side of the coin (that’s the one that paid for the paper in the old days) the new generation of journalists don’t give two hoots how their words reach their adoring public, just as long as they get there.
The key, of course, is the retention of integrity and quality. But if new methods of distribution strengthen North West newspapers and magazines, these talented young writers and subs will be in the front row applauding because increasingly they want to stick around and use their talents in the region.
Maggie Henfield is a Senior Lecturer in Journalism at the University of Central Lancashirewww.ukjournalism.org
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The Wrap's guest editor this week is Maggie Henfield.
