ABSTRACT
The reporter’s nose for news has been downgraded. Once the premier journalistic skill of identifying robust news content, it now plays second fiddle to trawling the net and social media for content likely to drive readers online to newspapers’ websites and Facebook pages. There are pockets of independent media resistance to jumping off the “digital cliff”, but increasingly now the mantra is “online first”. CCTV footage of crime or clips of “puppies chasing squirrels”, more popular with readers, now win editorial priority over “grout” stories which hold public bodies to account and serve the public interest. Whilst the print titles still pay for both iterations, print advertising is rapidly declining and moving online. The publishing financial model is broken. Decades of giving content away has signed print’s death warrant. What is the impact on journalism, communities public interest and local democracy of these rapid and profoundly worrying changes?
