The Stirrer

Word is that Thursday's strike is off - there were enough 'takers' for voluntary redundancies and the action has now been cancelled.

Confirmed.

tut tut not defending your fellow robbing Tory's in other part of the Midlands. Shame on you.

Yup, strike now called off on Thursday, on the promise of no compulsory redundancies, but the nine weekly titles including the Walsall Observer and Solihull Times have now ceased publcation.

NUJ Statement here

nine!?
i assume they are all freebies


maybe now's the time for the BBC to resurrect the local news idea

Just told Mother about the Walsall Observer ceasing publication.

She says it's disgusting, as it was the only one with the births, deaths & marriages in! (Is that right?)

Trinity Mirror confirm what had been feared, Post may go weekly and Mail become an overnighter.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/au ... -go-weekly

Hold The Front Page http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/news/ ... sult.shtml also reports that more job cuts are likely.

I have heard Post insiders making the business case for the paper going weekly, saying that their big advertising earners can be consolidated into a weekly edition and won't disappear, and a newspaper in Bath provides the model for what they have done. It might make sense to the number crunchers but will represent a major loss to journalism in the region.

As for the Mail going to overnight production, who will buy it other than an ageing, dying audience in the suburbs? I suppose it might take some of the Post's morning sales, but not enough to compensate for disenchanted readers in the city centre who won't want to buy day old news at tea time.

No one is to blame in this scenario, incidentally, because the forces at work are immense, but it's hard to avoid the conclusion that Trinity Mirror are taking the line of least resistance. Local newspapers and PLC's are a poor mix in times like these.

Absolutely right.

Huge newspaper groups (or rather media groups) did NOT invest in local news investigation and unearthing NEWS when the profits were strong.
They have NO CONCEPT of a 4000 year phenomenon: FAT YEARS followed BY THIN YEARS. Joseph could tell Pharoah more than these bean counters and MBA business consultants picked up at Business Schools. You always invest in fat years and also save some back in preparation to invest in future thin years. Thus you grow in fat years but grow more in thin years. You become Cadburys (well up to three generations when you forget the investment policy for thin years).
Those who expect continous fat years forever will eventually lose everything (Football take note).

Real news investigation takes time. It takes resources and often teams working on one story for several weeks or even months (especially viz miscarriages of justice and corruption). This grips readers and increases loyalty which lasts a lifetime. On the other hand thin staffs trying to get the volume of words to fill the pages to cover up lack of real substance just makes people erratic in whether they buy regularly or even read delivered freesheets, let alone read intensely cover to cover.

Criminals, the corrupt in power, tyrants, bullies, and conmen relish feeble or non-existent local news reporting.

Let us all pray that the vacuum is filled by some good people. People of integrity and capability , be it churches and faith groups who could jointly employ some journalists to produce a web service. Those who have paved the local beats for years .....or maybe something like a turbo-charged www.thestirrer.co.uk

It is a shame most hugely rich people now prefer to buy football clubs rather than newspapers (as used to be the case with Murdoch, Maxwell, Beaverbrook, Hurst). It is a real shame media groups bought up excellent local newspapers just to cut quality and cream off quick profits in the fat years.

Jonathan Stuart-Brown

Watching my late night dose of the Wire on TV (yes I've gotten to like it - though my 1st response was that it was "too bleak") the same sems to be happening to the Baltimore Sun.

Quality newspapers are going down the Swanee worldwide so it seems.

The present and the future lies with the likes of the Stirrer so it seems.

But there's no profit in this medium either.

Birmingham Post editor argues merits of going weekly http://www.thestirrer.co.uk/post-editor ... 08091.html

He predicts a modest circulation increase - given that full price sales per copy are around 8000 I think a substantial increase is the very minimum to expect, or does he envisage that it will sell more than the combined total of every day's issue?

Is it just me or are copies of the Birmingham Post and Birmingham Mail getting incredibly content thin? I picked up a Mail from the newspaper stand recently and was sure someone must have swiped a pull-out from it as it was so thin and flimsy. Inspection of copies underneath sadly confirmed that there basically is not much to the Mail at all. Much the same with the Post
A shadow of what they once were. Sad...

Totally agree, Tiger Tony. And then there's the issue of availability. To me, it seems that the Post has become non-existent in some newsagents. Is this a way of preparing readers for withdrawal of a daily, quality, local paper? Call me sad, maybe, but I do enjoy obtaining a copy of The Post each day and I'll be very sad to see it go and become a weekly paper (mag?).

If the Birmingham Mail is to suffer a similar fate by evening production only, then this means that Birmingham and the West Midlands will become extremely ill-served as far as local newspapers are concerned.

It's all very well to have access on-line, which I have because I'm quite computer-literate. But what about the older generation who haven't a clue about computers and enjoy their daily read of the local papers?

For me, this is yet again another example of short-sightedness in planning. Local newspapers will always be treasured, so it will be a great pity if the proposed changes are to go ahead.

B'ham Mail editor Steve Dyson has opened the issue of overnight production of his paper - eliminating the "on the day" edition http://www.thestirrer.co.uk/mail-reader ... 08091.html

I think we can assume he's against. Can there be any sensible argument in favour?

Marc Reeves appears to have been overwhelmed by the response to his last blogpost. He did promise to reply 2 weeks ago. Can somebody check he is OK?

Unconfirmed word is that the last daily edition of the Post due 30th of this month, starting weekly thereafter.

Not confirmed, I hasten to add.

End of October too early I think. I'm told the business case hasn't been signed off yet. The aim is to get it going weekly by the end of the year, and preferably earlier than that - but doubt it will be as soon as end of Oct. NoU has ben accurate in the past tho...