Like turkeys voting for Christmas: the rise of user generated content and the fall of local newspapers

David Barnett ponders the continuing blurring of the lines between ‘user-generated content’, ‘community content’ and ‘professional journalism’

As readers become writers, a newsroom of journalists is becoming a thing of the past (Rex)

Last month, a local media group offered a cash incentive for whichever of its newspapers could demonstrate it had published the most “user-generated content”. The £9,000 on offer from Newsquest, to be split over the top three centres, is not to be sniffed at, given the generally woeful level of local newspaper editorial pay. But it’s a bit like offering a prize to the turkey who can fatten itself up the most in time for Christmas.

User-generated content, or UGC to give it the clunky initialism being batted with ferocious enthusiasm around media group boardrooms up and down the country, means simply getting your readers to write and illustrate your newspapers and associated websites for you.

The appeal to the owners is obvious; on one level it helps to engage what we used to call readers (and now must refer to as users) with the product. On another, it’s free. And if there’s one thing the bosses of our local papers like, it’s getting something they don’t have to pay for.

On yet another level, it’s another few jaunty steps down the road of not having to employ those troublesome journalists at all. Chris Morley, the Newsquest group co-ordinator at the National Union of Journalists, said that the latest scheme was “a perfect example of the company appearing to do all it can to undermine its journalists in the hope of putting them out of work”.

Newsquest, of course, denied the charge, saying in a rare statement to the trade website HoldTheFrontPage (Newsquest notoriously does not offer comments on trade press stories about the organisation) that “professional journalism rightly continues to be the bedrock of local newspapers, content from the local community complements this, and has done so for years. For the NUJ to say that community content doesn’t have a place in local newspapers is just plain wrong and shows how out of touch they are”.

Except that’s not what the union was saying at all. Why would it? “Community content” not only has a place in local newspapers, it is the very foundation of it, and has been since time immemorial. For Newsquest to offer a prize to the newspaper that publishes the most content provided by its readers betrays a singular and fundamental lack of understanding of its very own business. Everything in newspapers is “user-generated” in some way. The press release from the local company. The council committee agendas. The photographs sent in by a school proud of its sports day achievements. The telephone call from a resident about unemptied bins. The tweet from the local police about a burglary. The family album opened by a grieving mother who has lost her son in a car crash. All of this comes from the community in which the newspaper is embedded.

The crucial point is that it is all filtered through the journalists who have the skills and training to ask the right questions, find the angle, and present the information in a readable way.

And even published content written by local people is nothing new. When I started in local newspapers in 1989, it was an established procedure that photographs, amateur dramatics round-ups, and guest columns would be submitted by knowledgeable local people and used with just minor editorial tweaks.

Do we even need to mention the letters pages or, more recently, the ability to comment upon stories that are posted online? That’s your user-generated content, right there. The newspaper executives might have slapped a trendy buzzword on it, but all they’re really doing is re-inventing the wheel in a rather self-congratulatory manner. And it’s difficult to disagree with the NUJ’s assertion that this is all being done in a bid to scrap more journalists’ jobs.

There has been widespread cost-cutting in local newspapers over the past decade, with redundancies, departing journalists not being replaced, pay freezes, district offices closed down and even some titles themselves being scrapped… all in the pursuit of profit. It’s hard to believe that the latest drive for UGC is anything other than the latest phase of cost-cutting. But has anyone ever asked the “users” of local media products whether they want to generate all this content themselves?

Aside from the inveterate letter writers and online commenters, and those enthusiastic hobbyists who provide (generally most welcome) contributions in the shape of church columns, recipes from chefs, countryside walks and am-dram reviews, in my experience most people are happy to simply consume local news without having to do the leg-work themselves.

Yes, they might be more than prepared to send an email to their local newspaper complaining about parking in their local street. But do they want to go out themselves and interview their neighbours, and get a comment from the council, and take some photographs, and write it up in a way that is clear, concise, engaging and – most importantly – legally sound? And all for no money?

Perhaps there are a handful of people who aspire to being a reporter themselves, or who are involved in “citizen journalism” (remember when that was the big buzzword? ) but I’d hazard that the vast majority of readers are more than happy to flag up the problem and leave the nuts and bolts of getting the word out there to the professionals. I might be wrong, of course.

Three years ago Johnston Press made a big thing of relaunching its Yorkshire weekly paper the Pocklington Post, with a view to achieving “75 per cent user-generated content”. HoldTheFrontPage commentator Steve Dyson investigated one of its early issues in the new direction and hailed it a success. Has it continued to be one?

I can’t tell you; according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation, which records sales figures for UK newspapers, the Pocklington Post is no longer registered, and does not provide to them circulation statistics to be made public. If you do read your local newspaper, the chances are that this week you’ll have found it joining in a campaign entitled Fighting Fake News, a bid to re-establish in this post-truth world the professionalism and years of trustworthy tradition of newspapers in the hearts and minds of the local communities they serve.

It’s curiously jarring to see newspapers on the one hand trumpeting that they are the only news source you can truly trust, thanks to their highly-trained and dedicated staff, and on the other putting such an emphasis on filling their products with free copy provided by readers who, with the best will in the world, can rarely ever be described as impartial. If a member of the public is taking the time to submit a story for publication in their local newspaper, you can bet that whatever fight they’re writing about, they’re going to have a dog in it.

And the newspaper executives can reiterate until the cows come home that professional journalism is the bedrock of their business, but when it gets to a stage that 75 per cent or more of your local newspaper is filled by you… well, you do the maths. Local journalists might not be paid a fortune, but get rid of three or four here and there every year, and that’s making the shareholder dividends look all the more healthy. We opened with a poultry-based analogy, so let’s close with one. A workforce of skilled, trained journalists with local knowledge is the goose that has been laying the golden egg for local newspapers for centuries. For some inexplicable reason, the owners seem rabidly intent on wringing its neck once and for all.