Trinity Mirror be warned- nature abhors a vacuum!

TRINITY Mirror has wielded the axe on three of its regional press titles, reports Hold The Front Page today.

The publisher has announced that next week’s editions of the paid-for Whitchurch Herald and free Wrexham Chronicle and Mid-Cheshire Chronicle will be the last.

Amazingly, the paid- for  Whitchurch title has almost a 50 per cent penetration in its circulation area.

As I posted in the comment section: “If a paper with the enviable penetration that Whitchurch has is biting the dust, what chance the rest of us? Talking aside the considerable tragedy of the job losses and the impact on workers’ families, what about the readers of these places that are losing their local paper? Where do they get their news from? Where do local groups get the oxygen of publicity? Who will report court cases? How will councils be held publicly accountable? The only answer of businesses like Trinity, JP and the like to this crisis is that merger laws should be relaxed so even bigger companies can be created to allow even greater ‘efficiencies’ and centralisation and keep the shareholders happy. Great – create even bigger companies and move even further away from the communities which we used to be a part. There’s no concession to quality or even basic journalism, only money money money. Publishers should be prepared to accept only modest profits. These are sad times for a once proud regional press. It’s time for another business model.”

But I am cheered by the response of one poster:sebastianfaults says  ” Fearnot – it will come full circle and some hardy souls will set up a local paper and it will thrive. It will come full circle because there IS a demand and a thirst for local news which these clowns cannot and will not provide because they do not – and never will – understand newspapers. “

Perhaps that’s true, and I hope it happens.

What I’m more inclined to believe is, as I posted last time, nature abhors a vacuuum, and at least some of the deficit I commented on at HTFP will be picked up by local residents setting up their own hyperlocal sites.

Publishers really are playing into the hands of this emerging sector – and undermining their own business models at the same time – and where there’s community spirit there’s always hope a community site or blog or two will spring up.

As for the people who post that the ‘multi-media madness of publishers will come to an end’, I have to say you made me laugh. Climb down from your ivory towers and wake up – the media outlook is changing all around you! People’s reading patterns and the media they consume are changing too.

Perhaps setting up a mainstream newspaper and working in partnership with these new-fangled web-what-do-you-call-its which are being set up by the community – your old readers – is something journos and their paymasters ought to be considering…