The Decline Of Local Journalism (or “How To Be A Reach Journalist”)

The Decline Of Local Journalism (or “How To Be A Reach Journalist”)

This is intended to be a follow-on of sorts from this recent article I wrote, lamenting how much of the media is just the “bits inbetween the adverts”:

As I wrote there, as well as most ‘local’ radio stations being owned by one big advertising company (Global), much of the ‘local’ newspapers are owned now by the company Reach Plc, formerly the Trinity Mirror group, and arguably just another advertising platform passing itself off as a ‘news outlet’.

“With over 130 national and regional brands, across both print and online, Reach titles are trusted by communities throughout the UK and Ireland to deliver the latest news, entertainment and sport.”

Wherever you live in the UK, the chances are that your local news website is one of these Reach sites, and if so, you’re being bombarded with the same irrelevant click-bait junk as everyone else.

From here on, I will be focusing on my local newspaper, the Birmingham Mail, which was branded online as “Birmingham Live” a while back. But I can almost guarantee you’ll see the same crap on your own local site, whether it is Wales Online, Bristol Live or Teeside Live etc etc.

Now first of all, it is true that you do occasionally come across pieces of news that have actually happened in your region. But generally you’ll find a common pattern, that just gets repeated every day.

So this is basically how I see this works:

Disclaimer: while I will provide some links as examples, I recommend you make good-use of Ad-Blocker plugins for your browser!

How to be a Reach “journalist”

“Press releases”

A great place to start with ‘actual news’ is to look for official ‘press releases” or statements that have been put out, usually by the local police, fire or ambulance services on their websites. There you go, “some news”, and all you have to do is to just copy and paste what someone else has written, and huzzah you have a ‘news article’.

You’re not of course expected to ask questions, or offer any independent critical analysis, just repeat what you have been told!

Example: Serious crash closes Newport road as paramedics and police called to scene

‘Local’ Facebook groups on social media

Another skill that ‘journalists’ have is to join one of the numerous ‘local’ groups that appear on Facebook, and here you can pick up some local ‘tidbits’ of news and gossip. Maybe someone posts about a shooting or a stabbing, or someone’s gnome gets knocked over in their garden by a fox.

Hey, you could make a ‘story’ about this, and you don’t even need to leave your office! Others will pass comment, and post photos, and you can just use them for your ‘content’.

Get the ‘locals’ to do your dirty work for you, by asking them via private message to send you pictures or more details of ‘whats happened’. (This actually did happen to me, so I know this for a fact)

If you can’t get an actual photo ‘from the scene’, that’s no problem, just get a screenshot from Google Street View and that will do. Real “on the ground” reporting there!

Twitter

Everyone knows that everything that happens in the world has to be reported on Twitter, so this is also a great source of material if you’re stuck for something to write about.

Everything that gets posted on Twitter is also verifiably correct, so you don’t need to waste your time doing any detailed research, if its posted by someone with a blue check mark, its good to repeat – sorry, “report on”.

And of course, anything that is ‘trending’ on Twitter is exactly what the vast majority of the population is also thinking about, even those who don’t waste their time on Twitter.

Example: ‘How much?!’ – Commonwealth Games fans in disbelief at cost of ‘undercooked’ sausage and chips

TV Shows

Some people don’t like to watch trash TV shows like This Morning or Good Morning Britain, so do everyone a favour and write an article about something that was discussed on such shows. It’s probably in everyone’s best interests that you do so, otherwise it wouldn’t have been talked about on this show in the first place.

The same also applies to whatever trash reality TV show is currently ‘doing the rounds’, whether that be Love Island or I’m A Celebrity…, or perhaps you could write about something that happened on The Chase or Tipping Point, people need to know about this stuff don’t they?

WTF is this news?

TikTok

When you’re struggling to write click-bait, go direct to the source! Find something that is ‘trending’ or ‘going viral’, and you can bring it to the attention of those who don’t waste their time on TikTok. It must be ‘news’ right?

Example: Dog who looks ‘permanently surprised’ goes viral on TikTok

(Extra brownie points for ‘bigging’ up the headline by using words such as ‘brilliant’, ‘hilarious’, “devastating’ etc to make this more exciting/interesting than it actually is!)

TripAdvisor

Finding it hard to meet your daily quota of “content”? Never fear, you can always have a browse on TripAdvisor, and find some restaurant or other eaterie that has had some ‘bad review’, and then just ’embellish’ said review and the owner’s response, and hey presto, you have a fully informative news article! It doesn’t matter if you’ve never been there yourself, just “trust the reviews”!

Example: Drinker vows never to return to popular bar after four drinks cost over £100

RightMove

If you’re really scraping the barrel when it comes to ‘original content’ for your articles, you can always have a browse through property listing sites, find something that’s a bit ‘odd’ or ‘unique’ and then make an article about that.

Otherwise find a property that’s up for auction and then claim it is “on sale for just £xx”, you don’t need to understand how auctions work, it’s just a ‘bargain’ isn’t it?

Example: Kidderminster home on sale for just for £110k – but there’s a catch

So its all basically a load of ‘click-bait’ crap, and you’ll see much of the same shit on whatever your local Reach news website is.

Whatever happened to “quality over quantity”?

Attention-grabbing headlines that lead to non-news stories, designed purely to ‘deliver’ adverts in the ‘hope’ that someone will click on one and generate ‘revenue’ for the company.

You’ll also see aspects of the ‘social engineering’ and ‘perception manipulation’ that I have written about before on this site.

But basically, the media is just the bits hidden inbetween the adverts. You are not being ‘informed’, you’re being abused.

I can remember the days when local journalists would actually go out looking for stories to report on, they would actually investigate things that were happening (or had happened), they would talk to people at the scene, take photos, ask questions, get both sides of every story and present a balanced and informed view of events that had transpired.

Modern journalism is just lazy ‘copy-paste’ parroting.

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