Sunday, January 25, 2009

More on state funding for newspapers.

Regulars will know that AyeRight recently wrote an article on this subject. Well we all know that some newspapers are having a tough time of it but in France it seems Preisdent Sarkozy has deemed that they must be saved and has pumped untold euros into his scheme. Good money after bad? Are the French just a few steps ahead of us.

'The French president
Nicolas Sarkozy today announced €600m (£565m) in emergency aid for his country's troubled newspaper industry and declared that every 18-year-old in France would get a year's free subscription to the paper of their choice to boost reading habits.
The crisis-hit French press is among the least profitable in Europe, stifled by rigid communist print unions, a lack of kiosks selling papers and a declining readership far below that of the UK or Germany.' So reports the Guardian, the Gurnmeister
read this on their website not the paper lol.

Other interesting comment too on the state of play of Britains local newspapers:
'Maybe, at worst, 500 more ITV jobs will go as regional coverage declines (by kind permission of Ofcom). Britain's 1,300 regional and local
newspapers, by contrast, still have some 12,000 journalists. They leave broadcasting's legions standing. But they are in big trouble: Trinity Mirror reckons to have shut down 44 since recession began. Other chains reel constantly between layoffs and closure. The basis of news-gathering itself is under acute strain, with entire communities stripped of the means of communication that in many ways defines them. ' Guardian journalist Peter Preston also claims,'Take away really local news - about your village, your town, your city - and all the broadcasting deals on Earth won't fill the gap.' For the full article pop over to this article 'Digital Britain still needs its local papers'
Does the modern day digital society still need local papers? The Gurn reckons, that for the time being, yes. And perhaps before too long the Editor of the Nairnshire might be able to go round one of the Government's toxic banks on Nairn High Street and get some of Gordon Brown's crisp newly printed notes if the Primeminster decides to do a Sarko and dish out barrowloads of dosh to the newspaper industry here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I reckon everyone should get a free copy of the Gurn