Regional newspapers are struggling: advertising and sponsorship revenues have taken a dive in the recession, while they all struggle to “monetise” their online offerings.
But regional newspaper publishers have bigger journalistic staffs than any regional PR firm.
So Neil Benson (Editorial Director at Trinity Mirror) suggested to the latest Society of Editors’ conference that regional newspaper publishers should be launching PR agency businesses to “save their flagging revenues”.
Benson pointed out that the best PR firms are run and staffed by former journalists: that’s certainly true of Sturgess Van Damme.
His idea? Newspaper publishers could provide an arms-length fee-earning PR business –
• Working with local authorities to provide hyperlocal websites;
• Extending the use of news-video to providing paid-for video services to PR clients and advertisers;
His idea has legs!
Local councils are now spending £millions of tax-payers’ money on newspapers to replace the lost coverage of council news, while regional businesses are struggling to find an outlet for their news as local newspaper shrink their coverage.
The Financial Times is offering subscription rates that provide access to FT journalists for the production of company PR material and attendance at company events. We can now expect to see the most visionary regional newspaper publishers adopting this move into PR.
Why not?
This could be a vital life-line to preserving our regional newspapers: but it must not compromise their editorial independence. I like to read a newspaper revelation on our Regional Development Agency, even though that RDA is the newspaper’s biggest sponsor!
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