More strikes as crisis deepens

I've been away - not on holiday but holed up in various rooms across the BBC trying to resolve the dispute over threatened compulsory redundancies at the South Asia Service. Negotiations often go quite close to the wire - but these almost went beyond. 10 hours before national strike action was due to begin across the BBC we reached a deal. The night before we'd reached a stalemate and talks broke down at 1am. It looked like the strike was on. But an 11th hour meeting set out a process for avoiding compulsory redundancies. Now we have to make sure it delivers - otherwise we have reserved our right to take strike action in the future.

The talks dragging on in to Thursday meant I had to pull out of the delegation to Colombia. At this very moment I'm meant to be doing a press conference in Bogota - instead i'm in London looking forward to a management meeting. No comment.

Apart from the BBC I've met with Johnston Press reps - where our members at Burnley have now also voted for strike action - who have drawn up plans for a couple of activities to highlight the cuts in local media in the coming weeks, sent a message of support to strikers at the Daily Record/Sunday Mail, appointed Sue Harris to be the union's new broadcasting organiser to replace Paul McLaughlin who leaves the NUJ after 10 years on 24 April, attended part of the NUJ Commission on Local Media, been to Brussels to meet with the International Federation of Journalists and answered endless emails. I've even figured out how to work my new mobile phone.

Everything at the moment is dominated by the crisis engulfing local media - from MPs and Lords saying the licence fee should be used to fund Channel 4 (an idea that simply robs Peter to pay Paul and does nothing to improve the media) to the debate about media ownership to the daily job losses hitting all parts of the industry. Every day is a mixture of providing support to members facing cuts and lobbying for changes which will help sustain and build new media in the future.

It's clear the major publishers simply have no answer but to make journalists pay for the crisis they have created through their greed and failure. Gannett, parent company of Newsquest, whilst dishing out $2m in bonuses to executives asked staff in the US to work unpaid for a week last month as a one-off. Now they have come back demanding the same this month, next month and the month after.

Here Newsquest have asked staff to follow suit. We've written to them saying we believe such a solution is unaffordable for low paid journalists - but have offered a dialogue about ways we can work with the company to tackle its debt and financial problems. The response. Nothing. Same is true of Trinity Mirror. Only a foolish government would hand money to these modern-day robber barons.

The NUJ has had its rows and its good times with Press Gazette over the years but through it all it has served our industry brilliantly. I'm very sad to hear of its demise. Yes I know Wilmington say it will continue online to be a valuable resource for journalists. How, when it is getting rid of all its journalists remains to be seen. I'm with Roy Greenslade and Jon Slattery on this one...

Standing room only..no, really.

It's an old trick of campaigners to say there was standing room only to give an indication of just how popular the meeting you organised was. But this time it really was as we lobbied the UK Parliament over the future of local media.

pic: (c) Pete Jenkins

The debate over how to tackle job cuts and build a sustainable local media has been hotting up over recent months - in the past week it has been a very hot topic.

First the Newspaper Society, Society of Editors lobbied Andy Burnham. Then we did. Then he agreed to an industry-wide conference which we had urged him to do. Then we all trundled off to the Office of Fair Trading to give evidence on media mergers. The following day Parliament debated the cuts in local journalism. Then the NS and SoE rushed out their plan to save the media. We staged our lobby and have now secured the support of 94 MPs for our Early Day Motion.

Today the Tories have launched their media plans and on Monday our Commission on Local Media meets - with Roy Greenslade, John Lloyd, Barbara Gunnell, the Community Media Association, Keith Sutton, Nick Davies and others coming together to discuss the future of local media. That work will feed in to the union's own submission to government on how to build a plural, accountable and sustainable local media.

Some key issues are emerging - consolidation or deregulation is not the answer. More of the same failed policies does not address the problem.

Levies on the parasitic companies who aggregate news but don't produce any original content themselves (hello, Google - are you listening?) could secure widespread support amongst media workers and companies.

A debate will rage about whether councils produce 'newspapers' because of the failure of local newspapers to cover their patch or the failure of local newspapers to be able to cover their patch is down to local council papers. The Local Government Association should be brought in to the discussion.

Better use of government advertising to support local media is supported by most - the real question is how do you ensure that the revenues are used to bolster local journalism not just carry on rewarding shareholders.

But any look at local media shouldn't just look at how to protect existing companies but how to help journalists, local communities and businesses develop alternatives that may be specialist, small-scale, may be trusts, co-operatively run or simply locally-owned companies. They may be in print, online or broadcasters. Are there ways subsidised newsprint or grants for technology, training or business advice can be provided.

Whilst not much is clear in the debate at this stage, it is clear there is a strong support for quality journalism across the political spectrum and in local communities. And no-one must forget that quality journalism can only be delivered if you have enough journalists and editorial resources.

Apart from the lobby I have been pursuing discussions with the BBC over outstanding threats of compulsory redundancy at BBC World Service South Asia Service, meeting with all the union's officials for our 6-monthly strategy discussion, meeting our staff union reps, writing my column for Tribune on the abuse of work experience and meeting with reps from the BBC. I also did 4 radio interviews around the lobby.

An (un) fair cop

The Joint Committee on Human Rights has called for steps to be taken against police officers who fail to follow the nationally agreed police/media guidelines. This was one of the calls we made when giving evidence to the Committee and we're pleased to see it has been taken up. On the back of the apology from Kent Police over their treatment of journalists at the Climate Camp protests and the call from the Met Police Federation to stop mpoliticians using thye police for political purposes and the recent expose in The Guardian of police surveillance of journalists it adds to the pressure on police and politicians to lay off media personnel trying to do their job in the face of a clampdown on dissent.

Let's hope it starts to change the behaviour towards journalists covering protests (and towards peaceful protestors!). It couldn't come at a better time with the wave of G20 protests coming up. See you at the Put People First march on Saturday...

Devastating news...

It’s Monday morning, I’ve been back from Laos for two weeks and this is the first chance I’ve had to catch up on the blog. I promise I’ll try and do better in future!

The past two weeks have been devastating for the industry – amongst the worst of the recent cuts announced were those at GMG – but have also witnessed yet more of the fighting spirit amongst our members, whether at Leeds and the BBC South Asia Service or at the Morning Star where a welcome new deal on pay was agreed to end the dispute.

So what have I been up to. Here’s a snapshot…
l Gave evidence to the Office of Fair Trading investigation in to proposals to relax the media merger regime. In other words, should we allow greater consolidation in the local and regional newspaper industry. Er, no. Debt, brought about by excessive borrowing in order to fund recent consolidation, is one of the principal reasons driving cost-cutting at the moment. I simply don’t believe the companies who say further consolidation would save jobs. Further consolidation would mean more cuts and journalism becoming even more remote from the communities it seeks to serve. Centralised subbing, photographic pools, general reporters without patches, closed district offices…it’s a recipe for driving the final nail in the industry’s coffin. Instead of allowing the same greedy owners to fleece our industry more we should be finding ways to break up their existing monopolies.

l Met Secretary of State Andy Burnham to discuss the future of regional and local media. We made the call for him to convene an industry conference to consider how the government, Regional Development Agencies, media companies, local businesses, journalists and editors can come together to sustain quality local media – that means both supporting existing media prepared to invest in quality content and helping to support new local initiatives – in print and online.

l Lobbied Johnston Press over cuts at the Yorkshire Post/YEP. We took our campaign to the financial analysts – part of our argument that continuing cuts are a false economy, leading to lower sales and fewer advertisers in a cycle of decline. I joined striking journalists handing out leaflets as the company announced their latest results - £128m profit. Later that day I went to the Waldorf Hotel to meet Johnston’s HR head Malcolm Vickers to press for a resolution of the dispute.

l Met with BBC M/FoCs to discuss the threat of compulsory redundancies at the South Asia Service. Reps named two days for national strike action following a 77% yes vote in the ballot. Since then I’ve met with chapel members at the South Asia Service and had informal talks with BBC management to try to resolve the dispute. More talks are expected this week.

l Submitted our response to the panel on fair access to the professions. The union has campaigned for a number of years to open up journalism to people from all backgrounds. 98% of new entrants have degrees, just 3% come from families headed by semi-skilled or unskilled workers and far too many people are expected to work for free for months at a time before they can get a job in the industry. No wonder access is so restricted. We have lobbied HMRC, the Low Pay Commission and now welcome the chance to push our case with government. We’ve called for an industry training levy, better enforcement of the national minimum wage and support for union initiatives like the George Viner Memorial Fund and Move on Up project which provide assistance to Black and Asian journalism students.

l Attended our Policy and our Finance committees – discussing the union’s financial situation, plans to rent out part of Headland House, our work with the TUC, our international work and much more.

l Had meetings with reps from Johnston Press, Newsquest (subsequently wrote to Chief Executive Paul Davidson setting out our concerns about the company’s request for staff to work unpaid for a week), Guardian Media Group and this week went to Manchester for a meeting of Trinity Mirror reps to try to co-ordinate our response to cuts and pay freezes.
l Run from meeting to meeting – the TUC Executive, internal management meetings, Central London Branch AGM, the Colombian embassy and many more…

Oh, and I won the football World Cup. Well, the mini World Cup. Actually the Berkeley Nomads AFC Mini World Cup – a 6-a-side tournament featuring five teams. But still, the NUJ team won.

Must rush, got a column to write for Tribune.

God, that holidays feels a long time ago!