Is the Scottish press in terminal decline? Certainly, the sales figures indicate a bleak future for the country’s newspaper industry. The latest ABC data shows, unsurprisingly enough, a continuation of the downward trend that has thrown the industry into crisis and editors into despair.
However, just as a reminder that it can always get worse and usually does Andrew Neil popped up in The Guardian this week with words of cold comfort for The Scotsman and Herald’s respective editors, Mike Gilson and Charles McGhee,.
With sales at The Scotsman having dropped by 8% while The Herald suffered a 6% fall based on the corresponding figures last year, Neil, a Thatcherite unionist and former Scotsman executive editor, mused:
On current trends, if Scotland ever did divorce from the UK, it could end up the only independent country in the world without vibrant independent newspapers of its own; its citizens preferring instead the tartan editions of the newspapers of another country.
None of this would be a problem, of course, had Neil’s grand plan for the future of Scotland’s two major quality titles been implemented – merger.
The titles would remain distinctive but the back-office functions would join up, giving us the scale and resources to take on the English invaders.
It can be difficult to know what to make of such pronouncements from Neil, who if nothing else has made his mark on Britain’s newspaper and television industries. He has intelligence and talent in spades, integrity by the spoonful and enough personal charm to fill a tilted thimble.
As ever, managing the media presentation of his own professional exploits, he omits to mention that “pooling resources” was an admission of his failure to shore up sales at The Scotsman, a defeat signalled by his assertion that Glaswegians ought to buy The Herald while people in Edinburgh should remain loyal to his paper.
The Scottish political establishment was universally opposed - and behind the scenes Gordon Brown made it clear that SMG (then owners of the Herald, and looking for a quick sale) was on no account to sell to the Barclays. In doing so, he probably condemned the Scottish newspaper industry to extinction.
He skims over the fact that his plan would inevitably have meant a blunt knife being taken to staffing and a once-great Herald brand being reduced to the Glasgow edition of the right-wing Scotsman, a prospect that horrified staff, unions and readers alike. In effect, The Herald was to pay the price for his failure.
It is not clear then whether his assessment of the current state of affairs is a call for action, historical revisionism or merely gloating at the expectation that the titles will surely get what’s coming to ‘em.
However, Neil does flag up the prospect of a seemingly inescapable scenario in which his prophecy of doom is destined to be fulfilled.
The Herald full-rate sales for the period 31 December 2007 to 27 Jan 2008 averaged 66,275 while The Scotsman fared even worse at 50,430.
At such levels – comfortably exceeded by the Press and Journal (July figures), two national titles stand on the brink of irrelevance, particularly, as Neil points out, with tartan editions such as The Times performing relatively strongly.
It must be abundantly clear that the Scottish quality market will soon only accommodate one of the titles, perhaps offering only temporary respite for the victor in a winner-take-all battle for which neither yet has the stomach.
Unfortunately, as Neil observes, they are in the hands of companies whose main tactic is to crudely cut costs, rather than undertake the inevitable exercise of rationalisation in staffing. It seems that only external intervention could offer any hope - and there is the rub.
In the years of panic, savings have been made at the expense of quality when journalistic excellence has been most needed to demonstrate a level of credibility that would allow the Scottish parliament to bring the public along with any bid to prop up the titles.
Integrity and diligence have been filtered away as a generation has left the industry to be replaced by dull young things lacking drive or determination, talent or ideas and scornful of the work ethic of the past. They expect the job to be glamorous, quickly experience disappointment and then plan their next move into PR.
Real hard news is scarce, political commentary simplistic and unashamedly biased and, but for a few noble exceptions, the quality of writing so poor that there is little incentive for a reader to donate the cover price.
In allowing this state of affairs to come to pass, Newsquest, Johnston Press and, yes even Neil’s cherished Barclays have, presumably unwittingly, participated in a process not of decline but of obsolescence.
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