The press, in general, is going through a difficult time. Newspapers were the only written source of news and gossip but now they are confused and I have to blame myself. Not that I'm single-handidly responsible: the 50 or so people that read what I write are no threat to the newspapers but there are bloggers, who seem to have an influence. I think of Guido Fawkes, whose political blog is often referred to in the 'proper' press. Twitter and Facebook are increasingly being used as 'sources' for genuine journalists.
I like all this online chat. I enjoy reading what people say about X-factor on Twitter (probably more than I enjoy actually watching the programme). My blog is personal therapy for me; I would be devastated if I had to stop writing it and Facebook is like an extension of the staff room gossip.
But the press have started to treat these conversations as though they are the news. It's all the wrong way round. A celebrity tweets something about a court case (usually wrong and often breaking the law) and there follows dozens of articles in the press discussing this. I love reading those articles, so again, I am to blame, but my logical brain tells me it's wrong. It just fuels that celebrity's ego and makes them defend themselves. They look at the number of hits, likes, retweets and favourites and feel even more important. They see there are hundreds of comments but aren't bothered that they are all critical. After all, in the world of celebrity, any publicity is good publicity!
I stopped buying our local paper when what people had tweeted about an X-factor contestant took up the first two pages and the news story on page three was, 'woman can't be bothered to go out and get another bottle of diet coke so decides to stop drinking it, as she thinks she might be addicted' (this isn't a direct quote). This story appeared because the woman in question is Facebook friends with the paper and when she put that she was proud of herself for kicking her diet coke addiction as her status, someone rang her up and got some quotes. Apart from being terrible lazy journalism it's not news. It could have been a feature in a woman's magazine if it were written differently but not news. Admittedly, we don't live in a town where anything really exciting happens. There aren't sirens ringing out day and night but it is the most beautiful and creative place, full of interesting characters who, one day, may go onto be the next big thing.
How much better would it have been if the local paper had covered every gig of the boy who went on to end up on X-factor or featured the girl with the YouTube channel's story for the last 5 years before it was picked up by the Daily Mail?
Yesterday, I went into the High Street and was amazed to see a new lane of unusual independent shops had opened up. Talking to the shop owners I discovered it was opened on the first of November by the man who runs the very popular independent coffee shop (he had nothing to fear from Costa), who was determined to bring back some of the character of the town as it used to be. Now, that's a story I would have expected to see on the front cover of the town's paper but I know I hadn't. I checked the paper's Twitter feed (you don't actually have to buy a paper to read it now) and couldn't find anything. I did find an article on the other paper's site (I don't normally read that one because it covers too big an area) about a 19 year old opening a sweet shop on the lane. To be fair, it was a big week for news. The x-factor contestant had a huge twitter following and Facebook was full of blown over bins, trees and fences from the storm.
Local papers are important and I do feel guilty for not buying ours anymore. If it folds, it could be all my fault!
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