Acquired from Northcliffe in 2012 by Local World, the newspaper had a 20 per cent drop in circulation over the four years preceding its sale. Despite its losses, it remains the biggest- selling newspaper in Wales. As I discussed above, staff numbers have been cut here as elsewhere. In September 2005 it closed its in-house printing press, making 60 staff members redundant (P. Smith, 2009) and moving its print operation to a “centre of excellence” in Gloucester ("Northcliffe considers Swansea press closure," 2007; "Northcliffe employees
warned of more cuts," 2009) and also for a time removing its in-house subediting team (Linford, 2009) in common with an industry trend towards centralising operations (Franklin, 2006a, pp. 10-11). Moving the press had the direct consequence of bringing forward editorial deadlines in order to meet longer lead-times for print. As Franklin notes, many journalists are now
producing “yesterday’s news tomorrow” as the time to produce news is diminished and the ability of the publisher to deliver it quickly is compromised (Franklin, 2006a, pp. 10-11).
Against this backdrop, the Post has continued to shed journalists. According to the NUJ, journalist numbers in 2014 are half what they were in 2009 (discussion with the author, NUJ Swansea Branch meeting, 2014). Meanwhile it maintains its daily newspaper in several geographical editions and invested in its website (formerly www.thisissouthwales.co.uk, now www.southwales-eveningpost.co.uk); it has also acquired a local lifestyle magazine, Swansea Life (Lambourne, 2012), and increased its online presence. This strategy is consistent with the findings of a study of national newspapers by a team at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism,
153 which researched employee numbers at the largest newspaper groups and found the workloads of journalists had as much as tripled in the same period (Justin Lewis, Williams, Franklin, Thomas, & Mosdell, 2008, pp. 6-7, 10-12).
Pressure on the remaining staff to produce enough content to fill an increasing number of pages has changed working practices and put a question mark over quality. For example, one high profile case in 2011 saw the Post libelling a local man by using his photograph next to a story about a convicted paedophile (not him) of the same name ("Facebook group aims to highlight sex case mix-up," 2010), an error that some insiders said was caused in part by a lack of safeguards and a lack of adequate staffing levels (discussion with author at NUJ meeting, 2010) – confirming what many commentators have feared. The announcement of the loss of subediting jobs from Northcliffe to a hub they called a “centre of excellence” prompted commenters on the Hold the Front Page website to note:
It will be interesting to see how many mistakes start creeping in now – especially with all those tricky Welsh names. I’m sure local readers will appreciate it when their towns and streets are misspelled because the journalists are not from the area and there are no local subs. (Linford, 2009)
These concerns from journalists support points raised in the wider literature – of cuts damaging quality and diminishing the capacity of newspapers to carry out public service journalism (J. Thomas & Williams, 2008; A. Williams & Franklin, 2007). The NUJ, in particular, has pointed to the danger of removing journalists from communities: “Without a vigorous press, based in the communities they serve, fulfilling its essential role of holding the powerful to account, the functioning of that democracy will be seriously compromised” (National Assembly for Wales, 2011, p. 7). This is also in line with the findings of research on the notion of “serving the good of the community” in the local press, which warned “the notion functions best at those titles which enjoy direct investment in their ability to act in a way which serves the good the community;
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conversely it is most under threat at those titles which are increasingly removed from their locale for reasons of profit” (Matthews, 2014, p. 5).
Aside from cutting staff and freelance budgets, the Post has made clear other ambitions to cut costs at the expense of quality journalism. In a leaked 2010 email written by a member of newsroom staff (see Figure 5.5), the newspaper’s management set out its intention to ensure that 30 per cent of its editorial would come from free-to-use sources, including photographs, poetry and articles generated by its readers (user generated content, or UGC) and a significant reliance on public relations and marketing material from local businesses and organisations.
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From: [Redacted]
Sent: XX XXXX 2010 XX:XX To: [Redacted]
Subject: Free Stuff
Hello all, there is a big drive to get more user generated (free) content in the paper. This will hopefully help to reduce the workload on the reps [reporters] and move us towards a target set of getting around 30 per cent of content as 'pro bono'. This will include:
- Insider columns – [Named journalist], guys from ILS will be doing regular columns that will appear in the paper.
- Patch News Features - patch reporters will be asked to do fortnightly news features on subject from their patch along the same lines that [named reporter] and [named reporter] have been doing. They will be responsible for coming up with the ideas and will need to feature around a dozen local people/businesses etc. This will be a good way to make sure that reps actually physically get out on their patch too.
- Obits page - When people phone up to book a death notice they will be asked if they would like to do anything editorially. This will be a two week trial to gauge opinion.
- More UGC - Spencer [Feeney, Editor] is keen to get more readers pics, art work, poems etc.
- Am Dram - we will be previewing as many productions as possible using a
submitted pic and details and will also ask the theatre groups to supply reviews that we have not been able to attend.
- Church News - we will be speaking with local churches and giving them the opportunity to subject extracts/articles etc for the paper.
- Duty Calls - a wrap column of what our Lord Mayors are doing the next day, for example Friday's paper will carry details of what they are doing on Saturday. It will feature Swansea and NPT Lord Mayors and the Chairman from Carmarthenshire. All three councils have been asked to submit their weekly list to desk and let us know if there are any changes.
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The journalist who leaked this email remarked “Here it is: the official death knell of local journalism”, making reference to the lack of traditional reporting methods – checking, balance, independence and involvement of trained staff – predicated in the new strategy. If local
newspapers: “should convey information about local government and local communities, and enable people to make informed choices on issues affecting their immediate environment” (G. Williams, 2006, pp. 83-84) then this kind of strategy, relying on readers, local businesses and council press officers to provide a target amount of free editorial without reference to its
quality, undermines much of what local journalism is understood to stand for, and clearly makes uncomfortable the journalists involved in the gathering of this kind of material. The South Wales Evening Post is not alone: other newspaper groups have gone on the record to confirm they have set targets for UGC, including Johnston Press, which hopes to get 75 per cent of its editorial from its readers in Bourne, in what it calls the “Bourne Experiment” (Burrell, 2014).
The situation is exacerbated by job losses. Between 2009 and 2011, the Post had lost a further 20 journalists to redundancy, including a Crown Court reporter with decades of experience, and according to insiders, entirely cut its budget for paying freelance journalists (National Assembly for Wales, 2011). The Post’s parent company (Northcliffe at the time of this example) was by no means alone in its attempts to cut editorial spending to preserve profit margins. For example, Meyer (2009, p. 14) notes the practice across the industry: “A stagnant industry’s market position is harvested by raising prices and lowering quality, trusting
customers will continue to be attracted by the brand name rather than the substance for which the brand once stood.” But, he warns, “if they continue to slash and burn their existing
businesses, all they will end up with is slashed, burned, obsolete businesses.”(2009, p. 2).