news


Local news action week to highlight democracy


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UJ branches and chapels will be holding a week of action to


boost the union’s Local News Matters campaign and seek political recognition of the importance of the local press to democracy. The move comes as a


former local newspaper editor told a meeting in the House of Lords that some regional dailies have lost 80% of their editorial staff since 2006. Keith Perch, former


Derby Telegraph and Leicester Mercury editor, was addressing a meeting on the future of local journalism. A senior lecturer in journalism at the University of Derbyshire, he analysed staff lists to support his calculation. The event marked the


publication of a study, Monopolising Local News: Is There an Emerging Democratic Deficit in the UK due to the Decline of Local Newspapers?


© INCAMERASTOCK / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO


by Gordon Ramsay and Martin Moore, of King’s College London. This found: • Four publishers account


for 73 per cent of local papers in the UK (Trinity Mirror, Johnston Press, Newsquest and Tindle); • More than two-thirds of


local authority districts and over half of parliamentary constituencies do not have a daily local newspaper; • In 165 of 380 local


authority areas (43 per cent), a single publisher has a monopoly of print circulation and, in 69 per cent, a single publisher controls more than 70 per cent of circulation; • Three of the four main


local news groups have seen significant reductions in staff in the past five years. The NUJ wants an inquiry


into the future of local news and for papers to be classified as assets of community value.


“ ” VICE MAKES MOVE TO CREATE STAFF COUNCIL


they ran a week-long staff survey comprised of only three questions – Do you want a staff council? Rank your most important issues


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ice management are making moves to form a staff council after


(equality and diversity were not included in the list of issues), and any other feedback. The survey appears to have been sent to departments including management roles, HR, sales teams and finance.


Vice management walked away from talks on NUJ


Call for support for safety fund


UJ members are being encouraged to donate to the International Federation of Journalists’ safety fund. The fund, which was established in 1992, provides financial and practical assistance to


journalists and the families of journalists at risk. It depends on the donations of journalists. Jim Boumelha, IFJ president, said: “The IFJ is unwavering in its commitment to pursue by every means at our disposal all those who intimidate, threaten or attack our colleagues, our rights and our freedoms. Those of us who enjoy the freedoms denied to others, as journalists and as trade unionists, can assist in this work by supporting the IFJ Safety Fund.”


recognition across Vice and i-D magazine at the end of April and did not respond to contact from the independent conciliator, ACAS. Staff continue to campaign for


an independent union. Four


publishers account for 73 per cent of local newspaper titles across the UK


in brief...


ITN BOSS HARDIE GETS £1.2 MILLION John Hardie, ITN’s chief executive, received £1.2 million last year. Most staff at ITN, which makes news for ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 received a 1.4 per cent pay increase. Hardie benefited from the vesting of a long-term incentive scheme linked to ITN reporting its sixth consecutive year of profit growth.


BBC SEES A JUMP IN WORLD AUDIENCE The BBC has said that the audience for its international services has grown 12% year on year to 348 million. This figure is nearly all outside the UK, with the biggest audiences including the US, India, Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, Tanzania, Brazil, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.


ALAGIAH WINS WHEELER AWARD George Alagiah, a BBC correspondent and presenter, won the Charles Wheeler Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcast Journalism. The award is made in honour of one of the BBC’s most celebrated correspondents, the late Sir Charles Wheeler. Alagiah, who joined the BBC in 1989, has reported on events in India, Brazil, Rwanda, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, South Africa, and Kosovo and other countries.


HUNGARIAN STAFF QUIT VS WEBSITE Several journalists have resigned from a leading Hungarian news website after discovering that it was being funded by the country’s central bank. They left VS.hu because they feared that the £1.5 million funding could be seen as compromising their independence.


EX ABC DIRECTOR JOINS THE GUARDIAN A former director at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Paul Chadwick, has become The Guardian’s new global readers’ editor. The appointment of Chadwick, who has been a journalist and a lawyer, follows the departure of the previous readers’ editor Chris Elliott, who joined press regulator Impress as a consultant.


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