The Barnet Press closes - if you can't adapt you die

It will come as no suprise to anyone who is familair with local press that The Barnet Press has been closed by Tindle newspapers. Six journalists will lose their job and the Times group will be the only borough wide local paper. Given that many people didn't receive the paper nd over the last few years it has got considerably thinner, some will say  "so what?". For me it is a tragedy and also a classic example of a missed opportunity. The received wisdom is that "the internet" has done for local press. I believe that it is poor management and the failure to sot opportunities. The question which the press fails to answer is "why would people bother reading a paper when they can see the information on line". The answer is that they haven't really thought it through. Think about it. Every day we get leaflets through the door advertising Pizza's, window cleaners, ironing services etc. People obviously still feel that it worth putting things through the door. With a large delivery network, you'd think that the press could have made this work. Websites generate money through click throughs. On this site the adword advertising raises enough to pay for my internet subscription. Perhaps a scant reward for my hours of work, but it all helps. I do this as a very part time job. The Press had six journalists working full time. Clearly their management lacked the direction to use the paper and electronic editions to work together to produce a compelling product.

On this website, we have several features that draw lots of people to read the blog. Many people tell me that because this blog is the most frequently updated, they always read it first then click through if they see one of the other listed blogs has a new story. I am bemused that the local papers have never bothered to link to the Barnet bloggers on their website. Surely as they have several updates a day, this could be a great source of traffic for them. I am also bemused that they don't syndicate stories from us. They do occasionally nick them without accreditation, but that is actually quite rare. Another popular feature is "The Tweets of The week". This allows me to cover all manner of things which are well outside my norml domain. I'd have thought such a feature would be a complte no brainer.

They have also become very tame and boring in their coverage, especially of the council. It is no wonder that people have switched off when they ignore major stories such as the council meeting to discuss the terrible OFSTED report for Barnet childrens services.

It is one of the main business strategies of the press to combat falling sales with cost cutting, few pages and lower editorial quality. The mainstream press has given up on trying to get younger readers. The tabloids have largely simply become sounding boards for rich and often foreign owners rather odd views. The sad truth is that unless the press adapt and realise that cost cutting is not the way to reverse the trend, they will die.

Here is their final article 

By the way, we are pleased to say that the Barnet Times took our hint and have printed an article about the OFSTED report council meeting in their paper edition today.

Whatever happened to the local papers?

Bill Montgomery - A local press giant

In the London Borough of Barnet, there are three main local papers. There is the Times Series, The Press and The Ham and High. By clicking on these links, you can see a digital copy of the paper edition (although the Times group seems to have given up on putting all but the Barnet edition on the website since last December). At one point all of these papers have won awards for the highest quality of local journalism. For many years, Bill Montgomery used to write an award winning column on the Times, where he'd report on the shenanigans at the meetings of Barnet Council.

I originally started blogging on the Times group, before the Barnet Eye existed. I used Bill's style and column as an inspiration. I believed that the local papers in the Borough of Barnet were neglecting the goings on at the Town Hall. The public agreed with me. To my amazement, my blogs were constantly in the "most read articles" list on the website. This was an online, realtime list of the stories receiving the most hits. As my blogs were not complimentary to Barnet Council, this attracted the ire of the Conservative Councillors running the council and they pressured the editor of the Times, Phil Crowther, to get rid of my services. Rather incredibly, the pretext they used was that I had written an inflammatory blog, detailing how Barnet Council had uploaded a youtube of a BNP sympathiser spouting anti semitic bile onto the Council website as the reason. Amazingly, the council objected to my requests that such an obnoxious piece could be given a slot on the Council website and demanding its removal.

As a result, two things happened. Firstly I set up the Barnet Eye and the Barnet blogging scene was well and truly established (although to be fair, David Miller, AKA Don't Call Me Dave, had set up his own right of centre blog in response to my column, and Dan Hope had also made various efforts to cover Barnet Politics, prior to this). The other Barnet Bloggers soon followed suit, Vicki Morris was first, and Mr Reasonable, Mrs Angry and Mr Mustard soon followed, and the Barnet Bloggers became the voice of the people of Barnet. Whilst that was the good thing, the bad thing was that it seemed to mark the end of the local papers attempt to cover Barnet Politics properly. A new low occurred last week for Barnet's old fashioned press. On Tuesday, there was a meeting of the committee responsible for childrens services at Barnet Town Hall. The committee was reviewing the most serious scandal in Barnet in living memory. OFSTED have issued a report that the councils childrens services were not fit for purpose. The council were debating this. The Barnet bloggers issued a joint statement last Monday to ensure that the issue was given a serious response. However not one of the three papers carried a report in the paper version. These go to hundreds of thousands of local households. The local Conservatives crow that local residents have given them a good rating in a recent survey. I believe that the local press have been complicit in ignoring the failures of the council and not covering council meetings properly. The argument is that "people are not interested in local politics". This is nonsense. I proved this when I had a blog on the Times website and I've proved it again, with the enormous number of hits I receive on this blog, as have the other Barnet bloggers.

Time and time again, we've had huge scoops. Some of the individual blogs on this site have gone viral and had tens of thousands of direct hits. I don't make any particular efforts to publicise the blog, other than to tweet them when I post them. Anyone who looks at the blog does so because they are interested. Over two million hits says  that there is a huge interest. I believe that if the local papers carried proper local news, they'd get more readers and sell more advertising, but there is nothing worth reading in them, whilst huge stories are ignored.  I was disgusted to read on the Barnet Times paper edition on Page 11 a virtual reprint of the press release about high satisfaction in last weeks edition, whilst no mention at all was made of the torrid meeting on Tuesday, where the council had to own up that they have failed vulnerable children. At the end of the cut and paste article it says "what do you think, call our reporter Jenny Desborough". Let me tell you what I think. I think Jenny Desborough should do what local reporters such as Bill Montgomery did. Get down the town hall, get out and  about, read the Barnet Blogs, as we have the stories before anyone else. Work with us and make the local papers of Barnet win awards again. Once again, I will repeat my offer. I'll happily write a guest column or regular blog for any of the local papers that are interested. I won't charge a penny for it. It's not as if I haven't proven two million times that people are interested in what I have to say!

The Barnet Eye responds to attack in Barnet Press

From Barnet Press 9/3/2013

In todays edition of the Barnet Press, there is a stinging rebuke of this blogs coverage of the Brian Coleman trial. The Barnet Press accuse this blog of being spiteful. We are accused of blurring the coverage between "criminal justice and our own sense of moral outrage over his political decisions and general character".

It will not surprise you to hear that wheover wrote the column did not bother to actually speak to the Barnet Eye before writing their comments. It will not surprise you to hear that they have not sought to give us the opportunity to present our side of the story to their readers.

Well as they clearly aren't interested in hearing our side of the story, all we can do is publish it here. Firstly lets clarify one thing. The Barnet Eye is the only Barnet blog which published its blog on the Friday, so this attack is fairly and squarely directed at us.

As far as the Barnet Eye is concerned, any sense of "crowing" which the Barnet Press may have felt was purely based on the fact that the person who subjected Helen Michael to a vicious assault had been brought to justice. Brian Colemans political career has long since been consigned to the dustbin. As author of this blog I consider Helen to be a good personal friend. Following the assault, Helen immediately called me and I was on the scene within ten minutes of the attack. I saw Helen in a state of considerable shock and distress. If it is beyond the wit of the Barnet Press to understand my repulsion and revulsion at what had happened, I think that maybe they are in the wrong job.

They may or may not be aware of the long history of antipathy felt between Brian Coleman and myself. When I took Brian Coleman to the Standards Committee in 2009, Mr Coleman told several well documented lies to the Standards investigator about my character and  my motivations. He also repeated some of these on BBC London 94.9 Vanessa Feltz show. I refuted these claims and Vanessa Feltz rapidly backtracked when the truth was pointed out to her. She immediately recognised that Brian Coleman had told porkies and mislead her. How would the author of the Press article feel if he had vicious slurs about his personal character made on London radio?

Following the 2009 standards hearing and its press coverage, several people contacted me and recounted incidents concerning the behaviour of Brian Coleman (all were female). I formed my own conclusions about his suitability for public life. These conclusions were not flattering. 

What the Press took to be "spiteful crowing" was simply relief that such a person had been exposed for what he really is. It seems likely that Brian Colemans political career is completely finished. As far as I am concerned, this is a good thing and not a moment too soon. I believe he should have been barred as a councillor following the standards complaint made by Mr Ron Cohen last year. This showed that Coleman had not learned from my case in 2009. In fact his behaviour deteriorated.

I really don't know what the Barnet Press would expect me to say in response to the conviction of Mr Coleman and the probable end of his career. Do they think I should say it is a tragedy that Coleman has got his just comeuppance for assaulting a good friend?

If the Barnet Press feel that "the level of crowing seemed petty" that is their business. Personally I think it is a well justified release of anger following six months where Coleman lied about the incident, lied about Helen Michael and sought to deceive his colleagues (with a degree of success at times) about the truth of the matter. Does the Press have no idea how stressful this period has been for Helen Michael. The Press may not be aware, but Helen has had to endure a whispering campaign against her, seemingly coordinated by friends of Mr Coleman. Other shopkeepers in North Finchley reported all manner of comments made by customers, some of whom had apparently spoken to certain Barnet Councillors.

The Press also seems to have not noticed that Mr Coleman has shown no remorse, has not apologised to his victim and not apologised to those he mislead. If he had ever shown the slightest remorse, the Press may have had a point. He hasn't and they dont. I daresay I won't get an apology from the Press either.

The failure of the Press in Barnet and why I bother doing this

I used to write a blog on the Hendon Times much like this. Following pressure from the ruling Tories on Barnet Council, this was stopped in October 2008. I was told that Brian Coleman crowed "We've seen the last of him". I started the Barnet Eye blog. Today I was reminded why I didn't "F*** off and die" as a certain councillor hoped. There is a massive scandal concerning the finances of the future shape program. This has been compounded by pressure from the executive to ignore a report by Grant Thornton auditors. I copied the local press, who have websites into the correspondence, so that they could broadcast what is clearly a matter of public importance. To date they haven't bothered to say a dickybird. If they do now, it is too late for the meeting of the audit committee which is going on as I write this. I could despair. I would despair but for two things. The magnificent support of the readers of this blog, growing all the time, here's the stats for the last three months. As you can see, with 10 days of the month to go, the stats just keep on rising month on month.

The other thing which makes it worthwhile is the fact that there are other blogs in Barnet who also care. I draw great support from this. They are on both the left and right of the argument, but most of all they care. Please take five minutes to have a look at the sidebar in the right hand column and check them all out.

Generally there is a decline in circulation and readership of the traditional local papers. As they are free, most of the people in Barnet still see them on a weekly basis, wheras you have to choose to look at this blog. I'm not having a go at the journalists on these papers. They do their best and I am not having a go at them, but it is time for the editors to get out of their comfort zones, start campaigning, start taking risks and start serving the people of Barnet. Three years ago, this blog didn't exist. Now look how many people read it. This isn't because I'm a genius or even a good writer. It's because their is a fierce interest in these issues.

Thanks for your support. I do this in my spare time, which is why I can't cover all of the things I'd like to. This is why I can't attend things like the audit committee tonight (had to attend a meeting for my sons school transfer). I apologise for the fact I can't. It is time that the people of Barnet started getting the service they'd like from the people who's job it is to provide it, rather than from people like me. I hope these stats might get the editors thinking about the fact that they are actually missing a huge opportunity to grow their readerships. What is undeniable is that in three years, this blog has grown from nothing to a very respectable figure, for something which mostly just covers the shenanigan of our local masters. Just imagine what the figures would be like if I could cover sport, arts, local news, restaurants. Anyway, must go, got a studio to run.

Lynne Hillans biggest Porkie

This article, on the front page of the press finishes with a statement from Lynne Hillan :- "This has no effect on council tax because it's nothing to do with the revenue budget"  - When the Tories took power in Barnet, they put Council tax up by 24%. The reason? Because they said there was a £10 hole in the reserves. Was a £10 million "hole in the reserves" anything to do with the revenue budget? Last time there was a supposed £10 Million hole in the reserves, the Tories put up council tax by 24%. They won't this year because it's an election year and Hillan would rather slash and burn than tell us the truth and plug the hole.  Victor Lyon was the Tory leader who enacted the 24% rise, he claimed at the time that it would be a one off. He claimed that the Tories would transform the Tories into a "low tax council". In 2008 the Hendon Times reported that 5 years of Tory rule had resulted in 44% rises.

However much Council Leader Lynne Hillan bleats, the truth is that in 2003 when the Tories took power the London Borough of Barnet had a lower Council tax than the London Borough of Brent.

Brent Council - Council Tax - Band D 2003/4 - £1075.05

Barnet Council - Council Tax - Band D 2003/4 - £796.89

Brent Council - Council Tax - Band D 2003/4 - £1368.76

Barnet Council - Council Tax - Band D 2003/4 - £1423.02

You may also be interested to know that Barnet Council Tax is now above the national average (£1414). Brent is lower. So you may ask. What is the difference between the administration in Brent and the administration in Barnet. Well as a Lib Dem, I'd like to point out that a Lib Dem Council has kept tax down in Brent. If Barnet had the same Council tax increase as Brent over the period (27%), we'd all be paying £1012.05 per annum - over £400 less.

Can I tell you why Brent has done so much better than Barnet? Because the Councillors running Brent Council do their job properly. Brent Council used to be so badly run that it was nicknamed "Bent Council" by Private Eye. Sadly now it's Barnet which has become a "Barmy Council". Who pays for this extravagance? You and me, my friend.

They ask questions when Council officers demand more money. They understand the fact that if you lose £9 million, it has to be paid for out of your tax. I daresay that a Barnet Conservatives will come up with all manner of excuses when asked about this, but at the end of the day you are paying over £400 a year more than you should. That is the bottom line. That is a difficult fact that the Tories running Barnet do not want you to know.

(Hat Tip to Not the Barnet Times for the picture of the Press)