Wednesday 6th December: We deserve better local news

Good morning! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Esther. Chris and Peter are heading to our Mx3 AI event tomorrow in London - say hello if you’re planning to be there! If you can’t make it, we’ll be doing a podcast and Mx3 will be producing a special report from the event.

It’s nearly time for Media Moments, our annual report looking at the biggest trends which have affected publishers this year. 2023’s edition will explore AI (of course), newsletters, podcasts, DE&I, subscriptions and more. Launching next week, but you can pre-register to get it sent straight to you once we hit ‘Go live’!

There has been a lot of criticism of Reach this year as their brutal cuts have bitten the industry hard. Our own piece on the issues the publisher is facing is still doing the numbers nearly nine months on. This echoes many of the same points, but with a difference: Kate worked at Reach’s Birmingham Mail for 18 months so has a real insider’s view.

Reading this, it’s impossible not to really feel for the journalists working there. “The sound of readers’ anger boiling over is an unpleasant background hum that never goes away,” Kate says. “The journalists… see all those comments. And they feel them personally.” But the story isn’t about the reporters, it’s about a company putting young and inexperienced staff in the firing line every single day because of corporate strategy.

There is a lot to be hopeful for in the local news space, and the Birmingham Dispatch (from Mill Media) sounds like it’s off to a flying start. But it’s hard to see a way out of the spiral of decline for Reach.

Our upcoming annual report, Media Moments 2023, has a whole chapter dedicated to the year in local news. Pre-register here to get sent it as soon as it goes live next week.

The Barclay family is back in control of the Telegraph after outstanding debts have been repaid by Abu Dhabi-backed investment fund Redbird IMI. Future ownership is still uncertain though, as Redbird IMI plans to take ownership of the Telegraph and Spectator titles in a debt-for-equity swap with the Barclay family.

I’m a huge admirer of Flashes & Flames, and here the man behind it, Colin Morrisson, shares his thoughts on everything from AI in publishing to whether there’ll be an advertising renaissance, the current state of media M&A, and what’s next for media entrepreneurs.

I can’t help but cringe reading this. Yes, there are some big numbers. Yes LinkedIn is heavily juicing up the power of its fancy alerts ‘newsletters’ right now. But have we learned nothing about building audiences on social media platforms, especially ones which already have a reputation for deprioritising things when it no longer suits them? (LinkedIn Groups, looking at you here…)

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