‘The paper was dross. And it still is’
I WORKED ON a North East regional newspaper in the late 1960s when its circulation was 130,000 a night and people knew it was just about their only source of real local information.
I spent Friday afternoons sitting on the press bench at borough council planning committees, sipping tea and eating chocolate bourbons, and would have been disappointed if I didn’t send over a dozen pieces — six decent bits, six fillers.
Pity the poor reader, hey lads. Admit it, the bulk of the stuff we wrote from local councils was dross. Our old Councils Editor had the most immaculate shorthand and not only did he transcribe debates word for word, the paper printed it! Great tracts, when the broadsheets needed 20-odd stories a page!
So things have moved on a bit. Councils are boring, only decisions matter — and the majority of reporters don’t know the difference between a Cabinet and my sideboard.
You’ve guessed, haven’t you? I’m a poacher turned gamekeeper, now in my 13th year of local government PR. So your feature “Call of the town hall” (last issue) made me laugh a lot.
I’m an NUJ/Unison joint member, still working in the area where I devoured those bourbons, but everything’s changed.
The dilemma on your side of the fence is that the industry’s crumbling and I’m in a multi-million-pound organisation that isn’t.
Sure the paper laps up hundreds of my press releases a year, but it’s good, people-driven stuff, honest. And it’s the paper that would let me — if I wanted to — take a pic of Auntie Fanny’s 43rd birthday party and get a half page spread in its ghastly Saturday supplement. Now that I can spin!
Paul Daniel
Teesside