When live help on a website leaves you none the wiser

Live help on a website is a great idea: getting immediate answers is exactly what I want when I'm wondering about buying a new service or product.

But when it's done poorly, it is worse than useless.

Take this conversation I had with 'Andy' on the EE website today when considering switching my mobile from 'three' because I get such poor coverage where I live to EE's 'superfast' 4G service

I ask Andy if he can check EE's coverage at my postcode.  Here's what happened:

Andy: at 16:17:24
I'd be happy to help you on that
Andy: at 16:17:30
May i know your post code
keith: at 16:13:13
my postcode is DE...
Andy: at 16:18:39
you do have finer coverage of 4g but great 3 g
keith: at 16:14:34
Sorry, what does that mean?
Andy: at 16:19:39
you do have fine coverage for 4g only 3 bars and 3 g is great

Ok, that's not exactly clear, so I press on:

keith: at 16:15:37
What difference will 3 bars for 4g make?
Andy: at 16:20:35
It sis fine not great

Oh, now I understand.  Actually, I don't.

keith: at 16:16:53
I don't understand that. What is the difference between fine and great?
Andy: at 16:22:00
I will explain
Andy: at 16:22:21
you will get 4g but the network will not be storng
Andy: at 16:22:31
It may fall some time
Andy: at 16:22:48
And 3g it will be great

Right.  Go on:

keith: at 16:19:17
Will I always be able to browse on the internet?
Andy: at 16:23:55
yes you can\
keith: at 16:19:57
But it might be slow?
Andy: at 16:25:01
yes slow

Now I get technical.  I have no idea what it means, but I ask:

keith: at 16:20:58
can you tell me what speed I should expect for upload and download?
Andy: at 16:26:00
it will be 17 to 19 mpbs speed
keith: at 16:21:52
What would it be if it was great?
Andy: at 16:26:38
21 to 23 mpbs

Sounds impressive and there doesn't seem to be much difference between fine and great.  But Andy has got another idea:

Andy: at 16:30:31
you can go for 3 g plans
Andy: at 16:30:38
You have great fine
keith: at 16:27:02
what speed would 3g plans give
Andy: at 16:31:50
7.2 mpbs

I don't really know what I'm talking about, but that doesn't sound anywhere near as good! So I ask:

keith: at 16:28:02
And on my postcode I would definitely get 17 on 4g?
Andy: at 16:32:52
I cannot comment on  that

Eh?  Wait a minute - he just told me that I would get 17-19 on 4g.

keith: at 16:28:42
but that is what you said earlier?
Andy: at 16:33:32
yes but indoors it may be till 17 mpbs
keith: at 16:29:31
sorry, what does that mean? It may be till?
Andy: at 16:34:11
17 mpbs
keith: at 16:29:57
but what does may be till mean?
Andy: at 16:35:01
I will explain
Andy: at 16:35:10
As looking at your coverage
Andy: at 16:35:27
you may get till 17 mpbs speed
Andy: at 16:35:38
It may go higher and lower to

Now, I'm really confused.  And it's not just because 'Andy's' first language is obviously not English:

keith: at 16:31:24
I am sorry, I don't understand 'may be till' - it is not an English phrase
Andy: at 16:36:26
I will explain
Andy: at 16:36:36
As looking at your covarage
Andy: at 16:36:51
You may get speed till 17 mpbs speed

Oh, right.  Silly me.  Then nothing for 50 seconds until this:

Andy: at 16:37:04
May io know which plan you have selected

I press on:

keith: at 16:33:19
Earlier you said I would get 17-19 mbs
keith: at 16:33:30
Are you saying that is not true?
Andy: at 16:38:17
yes as looking at your covrage
Andy: at 16:38:33
Please click here
Andy: at 16:39:01
you can see
Andy: at 16:39:06
If you had fill bars
Andy: at 16:39:15
The speed will be 21 to 23 mpbs

And so it goes on for another 10 minutes until Andy asks me:

Andy: at 16:50:38
Did you selected any plan

The truth is that I am really unsure what he has told me.  He kept saying I would get 17-19mbs, which seems really fast, given that I can't even receive texts on 'Three's' network here.  But when I asked him if I would definitely get 17mbs he said: 'I can't comment on that!'

73 days and counting - the frustrations of the Freedom of Information Act

The law is quite clear: public bodies must respond within 20 working days to a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act.

Despite this, I've been waiting 73 working days for a response to a fairly straightforward request sent to the Crown Prosecution Service on May 10.

What makes me say my request was straightforward?  I asked for information that the CPS stated publicly it had been collating centrally.

I sent my request by email on Friday May 10.  

I heard nothing until July 5, 30 working days later, when I received the following note:

"I am writing to apologise that your request dated 10 May seems to have been overlooked in our mailbox.  Please can you confirm whether you are still interested in the information requested?  If you are I will aim to progress a response to your request as soon as possible."

Encouraged by the apology

I responded on the same day to say that I did indeed still want the information.  At that point, I took the view that the delay was due to a simple oversight.  Human error.  We all make them.  I was encouraged by the apology and the statement that if I still wanted the information the CPS would 'aim to progress a response to (my) request as soon as possible.'

Hmmm ...

Having heard nothing by July 31, I sent another email:

"You said you would aim to progress my request as 'soon as possible' - it is now 18 working days since this exchange - and more than 55 since my original request.  Please could you update me on your response?"

The response on August 5 was not encouraging:

"I am sorry that I have still been unable to provide you with a response to your request.  I have read your email today after returning from a short period of leave.  

I thought I should briefly confirm that my email of 5^th July was to inform you that unfortunately our Department had not actioned your request at all up until this date, because it had been missed.  

As soon as you confirmed, on the same date, that you were still interested in the information requested we started processing it.  

Within the last 20 days please be assured that this has been receiving our attention.  

Having made further enquiries today I am still unable to give you a precise date of when we will be able to respond but as soon as I have an update I will let you know.  

Thank you for your continued patience."

Formal complaint to the Information Commissioner 

 To be honest, my patience was running out.  My request related to something in the news and the delays simply meant that the news was moving on - this is perhaps the most frustrating thing for journalists using the FoIA: information often takes so long to arrive that its impact is lessened.

At this point (August 6), I also sent a complaint to the Information Commissioner: the public official charged with overseeing the FoIA.  I received an automated response ... and nothing since.

So today, I wrote again to the CPS and got an immediate response:

"Sorry for the continued delay.  We have scheduled a further meeting to discuss the request later today.  I would hope that we should be in a position to respond in the first week of September, or possibly by the latter part of next week."

A further meeting?  Clearly the CPS doesn't think my request is as straightforward as I do.

The first week of September? More than 80 days since my original request.

Should I hold my breath?  Any advice on next steps gratefully accepted.

HoldtheFrontPage article on my blogpost

Regional newspaper website HoldtheFrontPage picked up on my post about the interim statements of Johnston Press and Trinity Mirror today and my conclusion that, in the end, readers are going to have to pay for local news.

I did, of course, put a couple of caveats on that assertion, the most important of which was that local news companies would have to produce something which people valued highly enough to pay for - and I did point out that this would inevitably lead to smaller businesses.

The article brought a flurry of readers to my blog and some comment on Twitter, some of which can be seen here on Storify.

Local World's David Montgomery: Local papers are in a fight for survival

Above is a short clip from the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee hearing where Local World chairman David Montgomery spells out the issue facing local newspaper companies: it is a fight for survival.

What was clear from all of those who gave evidence to the committee was that they see more cuts coming.  Montgomery caused a furore over his suggestions that much of the 'human interface' will have disappeared within the next three or four years and that journalists currently work using a model from 'the middle ages, virtually', but the starting point for this comment was his statement that 'we can't keep taking costs out, but employing the same production techniques.'

Below is a clip in which he explains his vision for a future without human interface.  Sadly, when the chair of the committee, the Conservative John Whittingdale, presses him on exactly what he means, Montgomery gives a politician's answer and Whittingdale lets it go:

The general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, Michelle Stanistreet, described Montgomery's plan as 'a nightmare vision of journalism's future.'

Writing on the Guardian's Media Blog, Stanistreet said:

Amid the management-speak, Montgomery's vision is a chilling one. Does he really have so little inkling that it is high-quality journalism and top-quality writing that is the key to successful newspapers and websites? His thinking is sadly not unique; it is a pattern we are already seeing. Journalists are being reduced to pouring words – sorry content – into pre-determined grids, with the danger of turning newspapers into open sewers.

While many might not usually side with the NUJ, I doubt there are many journalists out there who would disagree with Stanistreet's comments.   She also repeats a gag I've heard from a few Local World journalists recently: 'We call him Rommel' Why? 'Because if we called him Monty it would mean he was on our side!'

It's all good knockabout fun, but, at the risk of upsetting the journalists out there, Montgomery is right.  Well, he's right to the extent that the newspaper companies cannot just keep taking costs out and continuing to do what they currently do .. which is to try to do what they've always done AND a whole lot more with fewer staff.

I've illustrated the catastrophic downturn in revenues faced by local newspaper companies over the past five years on this blog a number of times and pointed out that there was little they could do to prevent classified advertising - the hitherto funder of local journalism - from fleeing to the web where it works so much better.

The companies' response - to cut jobs and the quality of their product (fewer, smaller editions on cheaper paper and with less content) - has inevitably hastened many of their readers' decisions to flee likewise.

And, all the signs are that revenues are still falling (see the interim reports of two companies here) and that is going to lead to more cuts (a fact that was re-iterated by Montgomery in the clips above).  Given that, it is obvious that the newspapers cannot continue to operate the way they do today: people might not like the sound of Montgomery's plan, but nobody seems to have an alternative that makes any sense.

No sign of digital rescue as newspaper revenues continue to collapse

Two interim statements from newspaper companies last week further demonstrate how their digital strategies won't save their businesses.

Here was how Trinity Mirror (PDF) trumpeted its highlights of the first 17 weeks of this year:

• Improving revenue trends, in particular circulation revenues
• Good growth in digital audience with unique users up 25% year on year to 31 million and page views up 36% year on year to 163 million
• Continued strong cash generation with net debt falling by £25 million to £132 million
• On track to deliver targeted structural cost savings of £10 million in 2013
• We remain confident in the outlook for the Group's performance in 2013

Here's my version of the same figures:

• Advertising revenues fell by 13% - accelerating over last year's fall of 10%
• Digital revenues fell by 13% - despite all the focus on growing this area
• Circulation revenues fell by 8% despite significant cover price increases
• High debt levels continue to hamstring attempts to invest
• Cost cutting remains the only way of keeping the business going.

Three days earlier, Johnston Press delivered a slightly more up-front (if equally depressing) set of highlights for the first 18 weeks of its financial year:

• First increase in operating profit for almost 7 years - despite challenging economic environment
• Total revenues down 11.4% on a like-for-like basis - revenue declines slowing month-on-month
• Costs on track to reduce by over £20 million in 2013
• 183 titles now successfully relaunched
• New website rollout commenced for every title
• Continued digital audience and revenue growth in the period
• Focus on debt reduction maintained 

Put another way:

• Total revenues fell by 11.4% - fractionally better than last year's 12.1%
• Advertising revenues were down 15.1% - worse than last year's 12.7%
• Display advertising was down 12.7% - worse than last year's 11.9%
• Classified advertising was down 16.8% - worse than last year's 13.3%
• Digital revenues grew by 8.1% - which is a lot better than Trinity, but is less than the 20% gained last year
• Circulation revenues fell by 0.8% despite huge cover price increases
• Massive cost cutting remains the only way to grow profit and repay debt

There's not enough detail in either report to be too specific, but it is clear that revenues are still falling at an alarming rate.  At Johnston Press, the full year extrapolation of the first 18 weeks would suggest revenue falls in excess of £37 million.

Newspapers losing £21 of print advertising for every £1 of digital

Earlier this year, JP CEO Ashley Highfield stated clearly that he saw online display advertising as the future of the business, indeed he said that by 2015, online would account for £52 million of revenues - just how difficult that task is can be seen from extrapolating this week's figures out for the rest of this year.

Ashley Highfield:
photo by Ian Forrester

An increase in digital revenues of 8.1% across the whole year would bring in an extra £1.7 million, taking digital revenues for the full year to just £22 million.

As I've pointed out before, print revenues are draining away at a far faster rate: it looks as if £37 million will disappear this year - put another way, Johnston Press is gaining just £1 in digital sales for every £21 in print sales lost.

There can be little doubt that newspaper companies are shrinking in size.  Indeed, it is my belief that the only way local newspaper companies are going to survive is if they become small, low cost, digital and print businesses.

Readers will have to pay for journalism

That's not going to happen unless:

Firstly, readers value news enough to pay the cost of its production.  Journalism is expensive. Traditionally, news has been paid for by advertising, particularly classified advertising such as recruitment, property and motors.  That's not going to happen any more - classified advertising works better online than it does in print.

And, newspaper companies that think that they can build big online classified businesses are deluded.

The internet atomises information - someone looking for a job is not going to go to a news site to find it.  They will go to a specialist job site.  Therefore, businesses that want to make money out of jobs advertising do not need journalists to create an audience.  It follows that they can focus all their attention, and marketing, on producing a far better experience online for job seekers than any newspaper company ever will.

The same is true for every category of classified advertising.  Get used to it.

In fact, anything that you can wrap around news in the hope of subsidising journalism can probably be done better away from news.

So, the best way to pay for journalism is for the reader to pay for it.  In print, that means a much higher cover price.  That, in turn, will mean a much smaller readership as far fewer people will value news at the higher price.

Online, it means some form of paywall. But those who will not pay £1 (or £2 or whatever other price is needed) a day for a print package are not likely to pay £1 a day for a digital package either - news providers, particularly local news providers, are going to have to find a way to let people pay for what they want and nothing else.

That is going to mean a much smaller audience.  A much smaller business.  Which takes me on to my second point:

Secondly, local news companies will be owned by small local businesses.  There just won't be enough money in them to make it worthwhile for large national or international businesses, especially for those with big debts.

Warren Buffett: photo by Mark Hirschey
via  Wikimedia  Commons

The current owners look for 20-30% returns on turnover.  Renowned billionaire investor Warren Buffett, recently said he expects a 10% return on local newspapers he has bought, and that he expects that margin to reduce.

It works for him because he says he bought the papers cheaply, but, if he's right, and returns drop to below 10%, it is difficult to see any large business with debt and head office costs, wanting to be part of the local media scene.

If that happens, it seems to me that the most likely scenario is that more newspapers will close down, but will probably be replaced by much smaller, locally-owned businesses.

Newspapers' digital strategy amounts to clutching at straws

[Update: I wrote this post on Sunday and was going to publish it later in the week once I'd had a chance to add a few other points, but yesterday's announcement that another 30 editorial jobs were under threat at Johnston Press, has made me bring it forward]


Johnston Press clearly hasn't covered itself in glory over the past decade as it has cast about for a digital strategy, but has it now found the answer to the devastating disappearance of print advertising?

The company was far too slow off the blocks in the transition to digital and, in more recent years, growth has stuttered with revenue reaching £19.8 in 2008, before falling back to £18.4 million over the next three years.  Revenues finally got back above the 2008 figure last year when JP reported £20.6 million in its preliminary results.

However, what worries me most is that I cannot make the numbers add up.

Don't get me wrong.  I am not claiming to have any more foresight than anyone else and trying to read too much into annual accounts is a dangerous thing as they are complex, confusing and, of course, are there to try to persuade investors that the business is on the right track.

Nevertheless, this is the slide which Johnston Press was most excited about in the presentation it gave to investors last week.

CEO Ashley Highfield was pulling no punches.  This is what he said: "In our digital business, the most important number to focus on is that 39% - 39% growth in local online digital display.  This is the future of our business, advertising online and this, for me, is the most encouraging number in the entire deck."

And again, a few moments later in case you missed it the first time round, he said: "The most important number, the engine of our future growth, digital advertising, digital display, up 39%."

So there we have it - online display is the future of Johnston Press.

It might be the journalist in me, but I always worry when somebody gives me a percentage without giving me a base figure.  Digital display is up 39% - on the face of it, that's great news, but what does it mean in hard cash?

Well, luckily, last year, in the presentation of the 2011 accounts, Highfield gave a few more details around actual numbers.  In 2011, online display amounted to a nice round £5 million.  So, a 39% increase would add another 1.95 million, taking the total to just below £7 million.

It's clear from what Highfield said in the presentation that most of this increase has come from bundling digital advertising along with print advertising.  "When I joined [November 2011], just 10% of the time did we include a digital upsell when we sold a print advert. By the end of last year, 40% of the time we bundled print along with digital."

There's a sum in there somewhere which ought to give us an idea of the potential revenues that upselling might bring. 

In the worst case scenario, the extra upsells (ie 30%, as the upsells increased from 10% to 40%) equate to about £2 million, giving a maximum potential revenue from upsell of about £6.7 million.  

In the best case scenario, the extra upselling was all done in the last month of the year and only accounts for about 8.5% of what is available from the extra 30% - that means that the full 30% would be equal to something like £24 million and the total potential is nearer £80 million.

It seems likely that the upsell has been building through the year and the real potential is somewhere in the middle of these numbers.  And indeed, this is supported by the note in the preliminary results presentation below:

This says that the total increase in digital revenue will be £32 million over the next three years - which is the timespan given by Highfield for moving from 40% upsell to 100% - suggesting upsell of print ads might come in at, say, £20 million as Highfield also makes a big play about new national verticals around what's on (a 'sort of Time Out for the provinces') and a wannabe Groupon.

Whatever the exact figures, my concern is two-fold.  Firstly, even at the high end, digital display would not be the saviour of the business.  JP has lost more than £220 million of advertising revenue ... and the print numbers are still falling. £30 million might stabilise the situation momentarily, but it is not going to give the company the sort of money it needs to invest in the future.  And, according to Highfield, it will take three years to get to 100% upsell: in the past three years, print advertising revenues at JP have fallen more than £75 million.

Secondly, JP is too late to this particular bandwagon.  At least one wheel is probably already off.  Banner advertising is hated by consumers, is almost as unpopular with publishers and barely works for advertisers. Plenty of people who are far more qualified than me, believe the end is nigh for the unloved banner.  And as for Groupon ...

So, what's going to happen at JP?

I wish I knew.  Unless there is an extraordinary turnaround on print advertising (unlikely) or the massive hikes in newspaper cover prices (up to 50%) bring in pots of new money (equally unlikely), there are going to be more cuts.

Indeed, Highfield acknowledged as much.  He told investors: "We don't anticipate, or need, 2013 to be as strong a year in terms of cost or headcount reduction."

Cuts made last year will bring another £10 million of savings this year.  "We are probably going to be making something like another £15 million savings over and above that."

Will £15 million in cuts be enough?  Not if Highfield wants to keep his promise to investors that JP will move back into profit growth and print advertising remains on a downward trend.

Although about £7 million will be re-invested in the business (mostly on 'technology and infrastructure'), that £15 million of savings this year will be painful and will involve more job cuts - it's difficult to say how many, but with average FTE costs of about £25,000, it would take 600 to make up £15 million.

I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see how this can be the year that JP halts the profit slide without making far more than £15 million cuts if it is relying on its flawed digital strategy.

Let's hope Highfield has a different trick up his sleeve.

Newspapers lose £228 million in print advertising and replace it with just £20 million of digital revenue

The full brutality of the collapse of revenues at local newspapers was exposed in the announcement of preliminary results for 2012 by Johnston Press earlier this week.

The company publishes 13 daily papers including The Scotsman, The Yorkshire Post, The Star, in Sheffield, and The News, in Portsmouth.  It also has 230 weekly newspapers.

The most salient points for me were these:

• Advertising revenues at Johnston Press have fallen £228 million since 2006

• Recruitment revenues have fallen £120 million since their peak

• Every lost print pound is being replaced by just 9p of digital revenue

• Total revenue has fallen £280 million in just five years

As a result:

• The number of journalists employed by Johnston Press has been cut by 1,000 to 1,558 in four years

• Overall staffing has fallen by half in five years, from 8,823 to 4,392

• Total costs have been cut by £144 million

• Leaving an operating profit of £57 million compared to a peak of £186 million

Which is barely enough to allow the company to pay the interest on the loans it took out when it went on an acquisition spree in the early and middle part of the decade.

I've said before that the depth and speed of the falls in revenue have been such that the major regional newspaper companies in the UK have had little choice but to cut their costs if they were to survive.  I constantly read comments from journalists who blame senior management for the current state of our newspapers, but it is difficult to see what they could have done.

(See also why I believe newspaper digital strategies are doomed to failure).

Recruitment advertising has gone online because it works better on the internet than it does in a newspaper

Look at Johnston Press - according the company's annual accounts, recruitment advertising has dropped by £120 million in not much more than five years.  That money did not disappear because of decisions made by management: it disappeared because recruitment advertising works better online than it does in paper.

Waiting til next Wednesday to browse through a couple of hundred ads in the supplement of your local paper, just doesn't stack up against the always-there, searchable, thousands of vacancies on Jobsite or any of the other big jobs boards.  Add to that the ability to set up alerts or post your CV and, in truth, it's amazing that Johnston Press still has £14.6 million of recruitment advertising in print.

It's possible to argue that the company - or at least, its managers - have done a pretty poor job of building up the online recruitment business.  While £120 million jobs advertising has disappeared from print, the company has attracted barely £7 million from that category online.  And, while the company seems to take the somewhat quaint view that much of the fall in recruitment revenues is cyclical and will return when the economy recovers, evidence elsewhere suggests that much more could have been done.  Over at my former employer DMGT, for example, its preliminary results (PDF) for 2012 report that its recruitment business, Evenbase, brought in £11 million operating PROFIT.

As an aside, DMGT reported total digital revenues of £93 million as opposed to the £20 million reported by Johnston Press.  JP's business case would look very different if they had grown digital in the way that DMGT has.

However, don't be fooled into thinking this would have saved the journalists' jobs.

It appears that DMGT noted very early on that recruitment online was a standalone business and did not require the expensive baggage of a newspaper - and all its journalists - to succeed. It wasn't just chance that DMGT moved its big classified online businesses away from Northcliffe about 10 years ago. Nor was it just chance that when Northcliffe (DMGT's regional newspaper business) was sold off at Christmas, the digital classified money-makers were not included in the deal.

(I said at the time that I thought that this made it difficult to see how the new owners, Local World, could make the regional business work).

It's also worth noting that Northcliffe's slashing of journalists' jobs has been the equal of Johnston Press.

There was a time when recruitment advertising was the biggest advertising category in a regional newspaper and, combined with the rest of classified (property, motors and other), it made up well in excess of 50% of all revenues.  Back in 2004 (PDF), for example, Johnston's had £117 million of recruitment ads in a total of £281 million of classified ads.  Display ads took the total advertising revenues up to £370 million, with just £70 million coming from newspaper sales.

The perfect storm for regional newspapers arose because they had such a heavy reliance on classified advertising and classified advertising works so much better online than in paper.  Add the fact that without the need for expensive journalism, online classified operators could charge advertisers far less, and it is hardly surprising that almost 90% of JP's in print recruitment advertising has disappeared.

Some classified has fared slightly better, notably property advertising.  This is probably because not all property advertising is about listing properties for sale.  Estate agents have long argued that the main purpose of their advertising was not to sell houses, but to build their brand so that people would put their houses up for sale through them rather than their competitors.

Nevertheless, classified advertising in print has fallen by more than two-thirds at JP in the past six or seven years.

Last year, at just £14.6 million Johnston Press' in-print recruitment advertising had fallen from being the highest category of revenue for the business to the lowest.

Nobody asked cart makers to save carts when Henry Ford came along

I guess the point that I am trying to make is that the problem facing regional newspapers is largely not of their own making.  The disruptive force of the internet has destroyed the very foundations on which the business was built.

People like to compare what is happening to newspaper companies with what happened to cart makers when Henry Ford came along, but it is not the same.  Cart makers could become car makers, or even just service garages for the big manufacturers - nobody asked them to save the cart.  The problem for the hitherto newspaper publishers is that they are businesses, but they are being asked to save the newspaper or, at the very least, journalism.  However, we have to accept that it is simply not their job to save anything other than their own businesses.

Trinity Mirror move to digital focus means 40 fewer jobs

Trinity Mirror's move to a focus on a digital future will see 92 journalists losing their jobs in the company's regional newspaper business.

However, 52 jobs will be created  - 26 at the company's national operation and 26 in the regionals - meaning that the net loss will be 40.

The difference between the value of online advertising and that in the print medium is such that any newspaper company switching its focus from newspaper to digital must make huge cuts to its workforce.

In line with most companies, Trinity Mirror says that new, more efficient ways of working mean that cuts in the number of journalists does not necessarily mean a reduction in the quality of its journalism.

Can that be true? And does Trinity Mirror have any choice?

It is difficult to do direct comparisons with the past because of the number of acquisitions and disposals, but a measure of the collapse in revenues at regional newspaper companies can be found by looking at Trinity's annual accounts for 2000 and 2011 (the most recent available).

Total revenues in the regional business in 2000 grew by 3.7% to £424.7 million.  Last year, they fell by 8% to £139 million. In other words, two-thirds of the revenues have disappeared in the past 12 years.

Revenues have fallen by almost £286 million.  In the 'good old days', profit was £106 million - last year, it was just £16.9 million.

In lots of ways, £16.9 million profit is an amazing performance, but it shows the brutal depth of the cuts that have already been made.  I know the business has changed enormously over the past 12 years, but, if costs had remained at a similar level, the revenue fall of £286 million would have meant the company would have lost £180 million last year!

Add back the £16.9 million profit that the company made last year and you can see that the costs have come down by a staggering £197 million in just 12 years.

Of course, some of these costs will have fallen away naturally: if your circulation falls by 10%, you can print 10% fewer papers (in fact some Trinity titles, like the Newcastle Chronicle, have fallen by more than 50%); if you are selling far fewer advertisements, you can print far fewer pages.

But massive savings have come from reducing staff numbers in all areas of the newspaper.  According to the annual reports for the year 2000 and 2011, the number of people employed in 'production and editorial' has fallen from 6,898 to 3,001 - a fall of 57%.

Again, I have to stress that Trinity Mirror has made a number of acquisitions and disposals during that decade so we are not comparing like with like, but a fall of 57% does not feel out of step with my own experience in the newspaper industry over that period.

(For one view of what the drastic cut in the number of journalists has done to local (and, to a certain extent, national) newspapers, read Nick Davies book, Flat Earth News, which I have talked about on this blog previously)

And that brings me all the way back to Trinity Mirror's statement that changing the way staff work will mean that it can cut the number of journalists it employs without cutting the quality of its journalism.  More than that, while taking out another 40 editorial jobs, the company will launch a drive to increase and improve its digital offerings.

What are the changes that Trinity Mirror will make to create the spare resource to step up its digital work at the same time as further reducing its staff?    They are listed below.  For what it's worth, I think it will simply add to the downward spiral which sees falling revenues matched by cuts in the quality of the product, leading to further falls in revenue ... and further cuts in costs.

So, the changes:

• Closer working between the national and regional titles, with more content being shared across all of Trinity Mirror's newspapers and digital platforms. (ie fewer local stories)
• Greater emphasis on the production of digital content, including breaking news, pictures and video.
• A much enhanced focus in the regional titles on the curation of community content, which has already proved popular with readers. (Plenty of self-interest news)
• A shared content unit based in Liverpool, producing high-quality, non-local material for all of Trinity Mirror's regional newspapers and digital channels. (Non-local content for the local papers?  What could go wrong?)
• The creation of a number of new roles at the national titles for writers and photographer/videographers, plus a number of new digital roles. (92 jobs lost in the regional papers, some of the new jobs (26) going to the national titles, means that, in fact, the number of jobs lost in the regions is 66).  However, it does mean that there are 52 new 'digital' roles - jobs which Trinity Mirror thinks cannot be done by traditionally trained journalists - they want people with a wider skill set.

Does that make the decision to go 'digital first' wrong?  I don't necessarily think so - I don't believe that traditional print companies have much in the way of options.  They have to move more and more into digital: it's clearly where the future is.  From the point of view of journalists, those new offerings at a local level are always going to be a smaller business - we will never get back to the situation where cities like Leicester, or even Derby, can support 120+ journalists for a local news service.

The huge classified revenues that supported the cost of journalism have gone online and they don't require the expensive editorial costs to make them work (they sit on standalone sites like Jobsite or Rightmove).

That pretty much leaves the journalists on their own, trying to make a living out of news.  Perhaps people will pay, but not enough to support big numbers.  The newspaper companies will try to keep their papers going to bring in revenues, but without cuts, they would already be making a loss and, as Nick Davies points out, the big publicly quoted companies simply cannot stomach that.

Newspapers losing print revenue far faster than they can gain digital income

One of the biggest problems facing newspaper companies as they seek to move to a digital future is highlighted by a report published last year by the US Pew Research Centre.

In a study of 40 newspapers - based on data supplied and interviews with newspaper executives - Pew discovered that for every $1 gained in internet revenues, the newspapers were losing $7 in print revenue.

In an article published today, Pew says that the situation has got worse: "By the end of 2012, the numbers were considerably grimmer for the sector as a whole - $16 in print losses for every digital dollar gained."

"The case studies come from  "The Search for a New Business Model" released by Pew Research Center in March 2012," says today's article.

"Based on data provided by nearly 40 newspapers and interviews with executives at 13 newspaper companies, that study found that in general, the effort to replace losses in print ad revenue with new digital revenue was taking longer and proving more difficult than executives wanted."

Despite this fairly depressing outcome, the report did highlight what it thought was a few signs of hope with six 'outliers' either managing to offset print losses with digital gains, or at least coming very close to doing so.

However, even this glimmer of hope may have been extinguished.

"Pew Research tracked those outliers and found, as a reminder of the fragility of the business, that in the course of several months, two had suffered significant revenue declines and three others were part of a company undergoing a major organizational restructuring that made it difficult to draw conclusions about their economic health," says today's report.

Editor tells FT journalists he's cutting jobs to secure a 'world class, financially sustainable news organisation'

The Financial Times is cutting 35 journalists from its staff as it shifts to a strategy which puts the web ahead of its newspaper.

In an email to staff, editor Lionel Barber says that net reduction in editorial staff numbers would be about 25 people 'after the introduction of 10 more digital jobs.'

"We need to ensure that we are serving a digital platform first, and a newspaper second. This is a big cultural shift for the FT that is only likely to be achieved with further structural change," he said.

In an earlier message to staff, Barber had said that 2013 would test the newspaper's resolve to move further and faster to support top quality journalism in a rapidly changing media landscape.

"I now want to set out in detail how we propose to reshape the FT for the digital age. We need to do less in certain areas and more in others, we need to be much more nimble, and we need to reshape our teams.

"Today we have started consultations with the NUJ with the aim of opening up an initial voluntary redundancy scheme. The intention is is to reduce the cost of producing the newspaper and give us the flexibility to invest more online.

"Our common cause is to secure the FT's future in an increasingly competitive market, where old titles are being routinely disrupted by new entrants such as Google and LinkedIn and Twitter.

"The FT's brand of accurate, authoritative journalism can thrive, but only if it adapts to the demands of our readers in digital and in print, still a vital source of advertising revenues," he said in the email sent on January 21st 2013.

Barber revealed that a visit to Silicon Valley had convinced him of the speed of change, with competitors harnessing technology to revolutionise the news business through aggregation, personalisation and social media.  "It would be reckless for us to stand still."

"Of course, we must stick to the tested practices of good journalism: deep and original reporting based on multiple sources and a sharp eye for the scoop.

"But we must also recognise that the internet offers new avenues and platforms for the richer delivery and sharing of information. We are moving from a news business to a networked business," he continued.

The paper will now shift resource from night work and from print to digital.

"I am determined that we do everything we can to secure the FT's future as a world class, financially sustainable news organisation.

"Our earlier decisions to raise prices, charge for content, and build a subscription business have proven to be bold and wise.

"While many of our rivals have struggled to find a profitable business model, and have therefore announced heavy job losses, we have been industry pioneers. This is not the moment to falter," said Barber.

He is now seeking to introduce a number of changes aimed at reducing the resource needed to produce the newspaper so that, despite the reduction in staff numbers, more people can work on the web. Those changes include:

• Common ad shapes across editions to reduce the number of 'tweaks' made to pages
• A more common international edition with common fronts and second fronts (ie far fewer changes in editions)
• A restriction in the number of changes between two US editions
• A 'paring back' of the UK 3rd edition
• Tighter control of pagination (ie fewer pages)

"We must rethink how we publish our content, when and in what form, whether conventional news, blogs, video or social media," he said.

In common with all newspaper companies moving to a 'digital first' strategy - recognising that online revenues are almost always smaller than print revenues around news - the changes are designed to create savings, about £1.6m a year in the case of the FT.

"This will be an opportunity for all of us to think harder about a more dynamic and inter-active form of FT journalism beyond the printed word. This is vital to drive deeper engagement with readers and build our subscriptions business," he added.

Why does a digital-first strategy for newspaper companies always mean fewer staff?

This article is under construction!  I am trying to marshal my thoughts on the subject, but thought I'd put them out there in the hope of attracting constructive ideas and responses.  Please feel free to leave comments.

The FT is the latest in a number of newspaper companies to announce a digital-first strategy, shifting its focus from the traditional print product to 'a more dynamic and inter-active form of journalism.'

In an email to staff, FT editor Lionel Barber said the move would mean the loss of about 35 editorial jobs, although this would be offset by the employment of 10 more digital jobs. "We need to do less in certain areas and more in others, we need to be much more nimble, and we need to reshape our teams," he said.

This followed a trend that has been going on for some time now and comes fast on the heels of similar announcements by both Trinity Mirror and Local World, the new-formed company which recently bought Northcliffe from  DMGT and Iliffe from Yattendon, giving it control of titles such as the Leicester Mercury, Nottingham Post, Derby Telegraph and Bristol Post.

The issue facing regional and local newspapers has been more pressing than that faced by national newspapers because of the different make-up of their main revenue streams.

Most people tend to think the biggest issue facing local papers is the fall in readership.  That may be the case now, but it was not what plunged the industry into crisis in the first place.  Regional papers have been losing readers for several decades now and yet their most prosperous era was in the early 90s when advertising was plentiful and costs had come down through a combination of new technologies and smaller print runs because of the falling audience.

No, on the face of it, what threatened the very existence of local newspapers was not falling readership, but the sudden and complete migration of certain parts of their advertising revenues to the internet.

Traditionally, local papers have received a far greater proportion of their income from advertising than circulation revenue (perhaps as much as 60:40) as opposed to the situation in the national press where the position is reversed (possibly 40:60).

The threat to local papers has been exacerbated by the fact that the majority of their most-profitable advertising came from the main classified verticals: jobs, property and motors, the very advertising that works best online. As a result, this has been the advertising that has moved most quickly, and most completely, to the web, leaving the local papers with a massive hole in their budgets.  In the late 90s, some of the bigger regional titles were making anything up to £15m profit a year, but this was underpinned by recruitment advertising of a similar level.

Over the past decade, almost all of that recruitment advertising has disappeared.  I doubt now that any regional paper is attracting even £1m from jobs advertising.  Property and motors advertising has suffered in a similar way.

Not only has the advertising disappeared online - mostly to competitors - but that which the newspapers have managed to attract on to their own digital offerings, has been sold at a far lower rate than anything in the papers.  See my post on the Pew research into this.

With a limited appetite for pushing up the cover price of their newspapers, regional publishers have reacted by slashing costs to keep their newspapers in profit.

The most obvious place this has shown is in the number of redundancies in local papers.  These have come in all areas of the business, but the journalists have not been immune.  Newspapers like the Derby Telegraph would have had more than 110 journalists 15 years ago.  Larger papers - the Nottingham Post, the Leicester Mercury - would have had even more.  Now, they operate with perhaps half or even a third of that number.

Costs have also been cut by reducing the number of editions.  Almost all regional papers used to publish multiple editions, some based on geography (allowing greater coverage of each area), others based on time.  The first newspaper I worked on, the Grimsby Evening Telegraph, had a late edition that went to press at about 4pm.  Now, the geographic editions have (almost) all disappeared and most regional dailies print a single edition in the middle of the night so that it can be distributed with the national papers first thing in the morning.

With fewer journalists producing fewer pages in fewer editions, newspaper sales have collapsed.  According to HoldtheFrontPage, audited circulation figures for major regional papers looked like this in 1999: 

Wolverhampton Express and Star  183,759       
Manchester Evening News            173,179
Liverpool Echo                            155,920
Newcastle Chronicle                     107,511
Leicester Mercury                         102,640

By the middle of last year, those same titles were selling:


Wolverhampton Express and Star  100,244       
Manchester Evening News            78,984
Liverpool Echo                            80,762
Newcastle Chronicle                    49,199
Leicester Mercury                        45,465

That represents a fall of more than 50%.

The regional newspapers now find themselves caught in the perfect storm - key advertising streams have disappeared, they've responded by cutting the quality of their products and their readers have fled to the internet.

The affect on national newspapers has not been as pronounced simply because they did not have the same reliance on classified advertising as the regional papers.  But the latest circulation figures for national papers do not make good reading.

The Independent is down 34% in a single year - perhaps partly explained by the growth in its sister title, the i, which is up 20%.  Everything else is down: the FT by 13%, the Daily Star by 14%, the Sun 12%, the Guardian 11% and the Daily Mail by 7%.

So, although the nationals do not have the same reliance on classified advertising as the regionals, they are finding their key revenue stream - circulation income - under attack.

Which brings us to the FT announcement and why all newspapers are not only looking to digital for their future, but are having to do it with fewer staff.

Establishing the facts on animal experiment labs

I often hear people say that it is the job of a newspaper to be fair and balanced, but of course it's not except when it comes to matters of opinion. When it is a matter of fact, it is the job of a newspaper to ascertain the truth and report it.

Nick Davies in his book Flat Earth News illustrates it with this question: if a council sends two men to mow a meadow and they return with one of them saying they mowed it and the other saying they didn't, what should the newspaper report? If it was fair and balanced, the article might start like this: A row broke out today over whether or not two men had mowed a meadow ... But, of course, that's not how the story should go at all - the newspaper should seek out the truth and put it before its readers. In this case, it is fairly simple to go and check whether or not the meadow has been mowed.

It's not always that easy. Take the row going on over the work by Leicester University to replace the fairly dated facilities that it has for carrying out experiments on animals.

Vivisection is a controversial subject at any time and, unsurprisingly, there is a campaign to stop the building. You can see the website of Stop the Leicester Lab here.

It seems to me that the question of whether or not there should be animal experiments at the university is one of opinion and our coverage should be fair and balanced, allowing both sides of the argument to put their case.

However, within that argument there are some facts and part of what we should try to do is establish the truth about the various claims and counter-claims.

One of the key arguments going on is over the sort of experiments that are carried out in the labs. The campaigners say that the university experiments on dogs and primates. Indeed, their website shows pictures of beagles being operated on. The university, on the other hand, says this is simply not true.

It is often difficult to establish the truth in situations like this because the discussion around vivisection is always carried out with an underlying threat of violence. To be fair to the Stop the Leicester Lab, their website is clear in its call for non-violent protest: 'We ask that supporters hold demonstrations outside their local office and politely contact those listed in complaint of their involvement in increasing animal experimentation and abuse.' However, the history of violence in similar cases elsewhere in the country is enough to mean that the university and those who work there are nervous about publicity.

Despite this, the University of Leicester has allowed one of our reporters to see for himself exactly what goes on in the labs. There were no preconditions put on our visit and our reporter was told that he could choose where he wanted to go and could look wherever he chose.

You can see his report here.

The outcome is that we could find no evidence whatsoever of experiments being carried out on dogs or primates. This, combined with the licence conditions and the statements of the university, leads us to believe that no such experiments are carried out.

This is not a comment on whether or not vivisection is right - but the argument should be based on fact, not exaggeration and scare tactics.

How should I view the way Leicester Mercury journalists use social media sites?

The Leicester Mercury - in common with all good regional papers - commits itself to work within the guidelines set by the Press Complaints Commission. Our staff know this and we have written a requirement to abide by the code into any new contracts for some years now.

However, it's not quite clear how the PCC code relates to our online work and particularly to the use of social media sites by our journalists. Up until now, I have talked to individual reporters about their usage, but thought it might be useful to put my thoughts down in writing and ask the journalists what they thought.

I also thought it would be good to hear what other people think so here's what I sent to our staff:

This is how I view the way journalists at the Leicester Mercury use Twitter and other social media sites, including blogs.

I separate it into two categories:

1 Personal usage: where a member of staff uses any social media site in a personal capacity (ie where they do not mention the Leicester Mercury in their profile nor mention work in anything other than a passing reference) I do not believe that I have a part to play in overseeing that content. In the same way that I would expect them not to bring the company into disrepute in their personal lives, I would expect them to take that into consideration when writing in a personal capacity.

2 Professional usage: I believe that any use of social media sites (including Twitter) in a professional capacity (ie where the member of staff links their usage directly to their job) should be treated in the same way as a column of the newspaper. As a columnist, the journalist gets far more freedom and is able to express an opinion. However, as a columnist their work is subject to my editing. I reserve the right to edit their posts. In practice, I never see their posts until after they have been published, but staff know that I am reviewing them and, therefore, I believe, they take this into consideration before publication. I have not had to intervene in any posts so far. I regularly read all staff blogs and have a ‘list’ of Mercury journalists set up on Twitter and I review their posts every day.

It follows from this that I would be happy for the professional usage to fall within the PCC’s remit.

So, what do you think?

Accusation of bias is an insult to our integrity

As the dust finally settles on the General Election, there's something I'd really like to get off my chest.

This was the eighth General Election since I first became a journalist in 1978. The Conservatives won the first four, Labour the next three - I'll leave you to decide who's won this one. I've seen the majorities swing violently from the Thatcher years when the Tories had a majority of 144 to the emergence of New Labour and the 179 majority of the first Blair government in 1997.

However, the one thing that hasn't changed during all that time is the complaints by the activists of the major parties that we are biased against them and in favour of their opponents. Some journalists will say that the only way that they know they are doing a fair job is that they receive complaints from all parties that they are biased against them. I'm not sure that I buy that, but I can see where they are coming from.

We've said more than once in the Mercury that we do not support any particular party and seek to be impartial in our coverage, but there are clearly those who don't believe us. One particular Conservative constituency party accuses us of bias, suggesting it might be because their opponent apparently once bought some print off us. Give me strength! I have no idea whatsoever whether or not the opponent ever bought print off us, but I do know that it is totally irrelevant to our coverage.

Oddly, at the same time as our bias against the Tory party, some thought we were equally unfair towards Labour. Take this comment left for me online by Labour Councillor Colin Hall, the man who is about to be made Lord Mayor of Leicester:

"In Leicester, as in Nuremberg, obeying orders is no excuse. You've had a shocker this week, as election results will show."

He doesn't elaborate, but I assume he believes that I take my political orders from the Daily Mail, the national newspaper of our parent company.

He's wrong. In fact, we're fiercely proud of our editorial independence at the Leicester Mercury and only one person sets our editorial policies and that's me. Of course, I have a boss. In fact, I have two.

The first is Lord Rothermere, chairman of our ultimate holding company, DMGT, the other is Michael Pelosi, managing director of Northcliffe, the company which runs the Mercury, and the man who appointed me and who has the power to fire me. However, in the 32 years since I first joined Northcliffe, I have never heard of any occasion on which either of them has in any way tried to influence the editorial policy of any of our regional papers. I can state categorically that neither of them has even so much as mentioned editorial policy to me.

You might be surprised to hear that my contract says nothing at all about how I should edit the paper, it simply says that I am the editor. I also don't have a job description.

I haved searched around looking for some written basis for my belief that I alone have the authority - and responsibility - to set the editorial policies of the paper. There's not much, but every now and then our company gives evidence to parliamentary committees and that makes interesting reading.

Here, for example, is what the Monopolies and Mergers Commission reported that Northcliffe said in 1994 when it was seeking to buy the Nottingham Post:

Northcliffe said that for all of its titles the respective editor determined editorial policy

Northcliffe expected the following of its editors:

to report local events in the principal town and the surrounding area as comprehensively and impartially as possible, trying always to be fair to different points of view;

to cover differing political points of view as impartially as possible and certainly without commitment to any political party;

to adhere to the code of conduct of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), to publicise the newspaper's support for this body regularly and always to report any adverse findings against the title by the PCC;

to be ready to publish, where necessary, corrections and apologies without reluctance if such publication is appropriate;

to make the letter columns accessible to those who disagree with editorial comment which the newspaper may have published, again recognizing its importance in the life of a local community;

to produce a newspaper which, while meeting the requirements above, is stimulating and entertaining, avoids being merely bland and appeals to the majority of the local people, not just leaders within the community;

and to be prepared to campaign vigorously for what he or she identifies as the interest of the principal town and county which the title serves.

Although there is little written about the authority of the editor, in practice, the editor does make the decisions to such an extent that other parts of the company often think that we are a pain in the backside.

I guess that's just a very long winded way of saying that if you don't like what you see in the Mercury, don't bother looking for a conspiracy theory, just pick up the phone and tell me that I got it wrong!

Northcliffe update shows improving situation

The Leicester Mercury's ultimate parent company, Daily Mail and General Trust, today released a trading update covering the first five months of the current financial year (which runs from October to September).

You can read the full statement here, but the general situation does appear to be getting better and this is the summary of what it says about Northcliffe, the company which runs the regional newspapers, including the Mercury:

For Northcliffe Media, underlying UK revenues for the period were 9% lower than last year with advertising revenues down 10%. Advertising trends have continued to improve: for the quarter to March so far they were 5% lower, with recruitment revenues 14% lower, but property revenues 4% above last year. Circulation revenues fell by 7% compared to last year for the five month period.

Just in case you didn't know ...

You may have thought that the annual move to British summertime was a quaint little local tradition, but in fact the country has no choice over the matter ... it's the result of an EC directive.

The 9th EC Directive on Summer Time, to be precise.

Here's the press release that I received yesterday from the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills

Summertime begins

Summer time will start on Sunday 28 March at 1.00am GMT throughout European Union Member States. The clocks go forward an hour. This means that at 1.00am (GMT) the UK will move to 2.00am British Summer Time (BST).

Notes to Editors

1. The 9th EC Directive on summer time harmonised, for an indefinite period, the dates on which summer time begins and ends across member states as the last Sundays in March and October respectively. Under the Directive, summer time begins and ends at 1.00am GMT in each Member State. Amendments to the Summer Time Act to implement the Directive came into force on 11 March 2002.

2. Time zones are the responsibility of individual Member States and vary across the EU. The UK is not planning to move to Central European Time.

So now you know ...

Why on earth would council want to ban Twitter?

The Mercury has long campaigned for openness in council affairs and, in recent months, has had a number of very public spats with the city council in an effort to make its decisions more transparent. The Bowstring Bridge example springs to mind.

As such, I welcome the early comments of the new council leader, Coun Veejay Patel, who has vowed to make the authority less secretive.

Coun Patel has been in power for less than 48 hours and it is clearly going to take time to change a culture which is based on years of belief that the public only has a right to know that which the council wants it to know.

We wish Coun Patel well in his campaign.

The size of the task facing him is highlighted by our article in today's Mercury which details plans by Labour’s chief whip, Coun Barbara Potter, to ban the use of social media sites, Twitter in particular, during council meetings.

Twitter allows people to post short messages onto the internet almost instantaneously and is being used by councillors, journalists and members of the public to give an almost live feed of what is going on in council meetings.

It’s not clear how the council could legally ban its use, but more importantly, it is difficult to see why it would want to.

Live video streaming of Thursday night’s council meeting was watched by far more people than ever turn up to the council chamber and this was almost entirely due to the chatter on Twitter about the meeting.

More than 40 people clicked on the link I put on Twitter that evening and I know that many of them stayed to watch at least part of the meeting because I could see the discussion on Twitter. Even last night, people were still talking about the live stream.

One councillor told me that he thought there were about 15 people in the public gallery on the night and that that was more than usual.

So, why on earth would Coun Potter want to ban the use of something which increases public interest in council meetings? It doesn't make any noise or interupt the meeting. People will probably, wrongly, assume she has something to hide!

*This post is based on the opinion I wrote for today's Mercury.

PCC rules against Leicester Mercury

The Press Complaints Commission has ruled that the Leicester Mercury breached the code of conduct by publishing a picture of children without the permission of their parents.

It is the first time in 16 years of editing newspapers and websites that I have been found guilty of breaking the code. The ruling concerns a photograph of children being comforted in the street by a kneeling policeman after a bus crash in Leicester. We ran it on the front page under a headline which said: The tender arm of the law.

To be clear, the decision to run the picture was one that I took personally after discussing it with senior staff and considering the code of conduct carefully . The relevant clause of the code is aimed at protecting the welfare of children and I felt that the fact that the children concerned did not come from Leicester and would not be recognised by anybody meant that its publication would not adversely affect their welfare.

However, the Commission did not agree and I accept its ruling. We are running the adjudication in tomorrow's paper and I have apologised to the girl, her family and our readers for my error of judgement.

Here's the wording of the Commission's finding:

A woman complained to the Press Complaints Commission that an article headlined “Tender arm of the law”, published in the Leicester Mercury on 12 December 2009, contained a photograph of her daughter which was published without consent in breach of Clause 6 (Children) of the Editors’ Code of Practice.

The complaint was upheld.

The article reported that a bus full of primary school children on a day trip had crashed into a low railway bridge. The complainant objected to the inclusion in the coverage of a photograph of her daughter, together with numerous other children, being comforted by a policeman at the scene of the accident. Her daughter had been pictured in a clear state of distress and the complainant had not been asked for her consent for the photograph to appear. The child had been further upset by the publication of the image.

The newspaper said that this was a serious accident in which there was a legitimate public interest. The children depicted in the photograph had not been injured and were all safe from further harm. The decision to publish the photograph had not been taken lightly: its main concern was the possible impact any use of the picture would have had on the children. The photograph had been taken on the street and had been unaccompanied by any private details of the children involved. It would also not have had an impact on the welfare of the children as it had appeared only in Leicester, outside their local area. It said that they would not have been embarrassed or distressed by the coverage.

Adjudication

Newspapers are entitled to publish stories and pictures of serious road accidents, which take place in public and often have wide-reaching consequences. In this case, it was not in doubt that the bus crash – which involved more than fifty schoolchildren – was a serious incident which raised important questions in regard to public health and safety. The Commission did not wish to interfere unnecessarily with the newspaper’s right to report the matter, which it generally had done in a sensitive manner.

However, it was clear that the complainant had not given her consent for the newspaper to either take or publish the photograph which showed her daughter in a state of distress. The subject matter of the close-up photograph certainly related to her welfare.

There may be occasions where the scale and gravity of the circumstances can mean that pictures of children can be published in the public interest without consent. In the specific circumstances of this case, the Commission did not consider that there was a sufficient public interest to justify the publication of the image. It accepted that the newspaper had thought carefully about whether to use the photograph, but the Commission considered that it was just the wrong side of the line on this occasion. The complaint was therefore upheld.

Changes to Mercury website comments system

We have finally got round to changing the way we allow comments to be added to our main website, thisisleicestershire.co.uk.

It is something which I have previously proposed both on thisisleicestershire and here on my blog, but have backed away from for various reasons. Until now, we have allowed anybody to comment on stories without asking them to register or give us any details. To help us keep an eye on what people said, we have restricted the times at which comments could be left to normal office hours.

Now, however, we have introduced a system that forces people to register with the site before they can leave a comment. We hope that forcing people to register will encourage them to join in constructive conversation rather than the abusive slanging matches which so often seem to dominate the 'discussion.' In return, we will leave the commenting functionality enabled 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Following the advice given by our lawyers, Foot Anstey, we will no longer moderate the comments in any way, but have introduced an easy way for readers to report abuse which we will then check and act on if appropriate.

Unsurprisingly, the change was not met with universal approval and a number of users immediately set about proving that it was still possible to cheat the system by, for example, registering multiple accounts or changing their displayed user name to impersonate someone else. We know the system is not perfect, but I believe that the changes will help. We'll see.

At the same time as we introduced the changes, we highlighted our terms and conditions and the way in which we expected people to use the site.

One user, Daniel, wasn't happy.

Just looking at the house rules:-

You must not make or encourage comments which are:

• defamatory, false or misleading;
• insulting, threatening or abusive;
• obscene or of a sexual nature;
• offensive, racist, sexist, homophobic or discriminatory against any religions or other groups
  

If you enforced this then no-one would have an opinion on anything! and if they did it wouldnt stay on the comments page.

Freedom of speech!, i'm not so sure. It seems you can only post something if its politically correct but what if you dont actually believe in the ridiculous P.C world we live in are you less of a human who shouldn't be allowed to have your say. The L.M is clearly stating 'have an opinion as long as no one else disagrees with it, or happens to find it offensive' well I am sorry but so what if someone happens to find a post offensive thats their business, isn't the whole point of having your opinion known is that its YOUR opinion.

That seems a bit of an odd objection to me: if you look at the rules in reverse, how would people feel if we said it was ok to make comments that were any of the things listed - it's ok to be racist, defamatory or obscene, for example?

Of course, somebody always complains about a restriction of their freedom of speech whenever you have rules that prevent them writing whatever they want. I believe strongly in freedom of speech and would not seek to prevent you saying whatever you want ... but that doesn't mean that I think you should be allowed to do that on our website. We provide our website for the information and enjoyment of our readers, but it is our website and I think it is reasonable for us to set the rules.