Spotlight 10 Informed


says journalism lecturer, Rachel Sharp, founder of the Hillingdon Herald. While many local papers are produced by a single reporter, the Herald has a newsroom of 60 journalism postgraduates and undergraduates, overseen by Sharp, a former editor of Newsquest’s Hillingdon Times, and the university’s head of news, Steve Cohen, a former editor of the Bucks Free Press, another Newsquest title. “We cover what we used to call the


bread and buter of journalism; local schools, potholes, or the rubbish not being collected on time,” she says. “Tose things really mater to residents. I thought there was no reason why we couldn’t be not just a student paper but a proper newspaper in the community.” Te Hillingdon Herald was one of


“It’s a golden era”


Media expert Ian Birrell finds the outlook for journalism surprisingly good


While staff at the Financial Times celebrated new year with a four-figure bonus and free sushi, journalism students at Brunel University have litle need for work placements aſter launching the Hillingdon Herald, their own 15,000-circulation local newspaper. Te news agenda at the start of 2022


may be dominated by rising Covid infections, concerns about increased living costs and the ongoing threat


of climate change but the outlook for journalism itself is surprisingly good. An escalation of activity in the regional


news sector has seen a raſt of title launches and a consequent boom in the hiring of journalists. Aſter two decades of dire predictions about the future of news, some publishers are awash with profits and technology is driving a wave of digital news start-ups, inspired by encouraging signs that consumers will pay for quality information. All this builds on the resilient response of the news industry to the pandemic, which looked poised to deliver a coup de grâce to a struggling sector by further destroying print circulations. Instead, locked-down readers saw greater value in news they could trust. Suddenly it no longer seems an act


of recklessness to be embarking on a career in journalism. “Tis is a serious newspaper covering serious issues,”


many launches in 2021 as big regional publishers sought to widen their geographical reach to atract more regional and national advertisers. Tis was typically done through the low-cost strategy of digital-only production. JPIMedia, under the leadership of


David Montgomery, whose National World purchased the group in January 2021, has been rolling out its portfolio of World-branded websites, many of them in territories traditionally served by publishing rival, Reach. World sites have launched in Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Manchester and Newcastle, as well as London. Tis “cuckoo” tactic is largely a


response to Reach’s own colonisation of turf previously linked to JPIMedia and other publishers. Reach’s digital franchise “Live”, which began in 2015 when Leeds Live was dropped on the toes of JPIMedia’s Yorkshire Evening Post, has been greatly extended during 2021 to include Wiltshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Dorset, Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire. Tese turf wars have been good for jobs – following the redundancies during the height of the pandemic. JPIMedia created 45 posts for its World launches, while Reach hired


Mat Kenyon


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