“The Mail 26th Mar 09 – Hey, big spender: Government set to become biggest advertiser as it blows £400m on promotion and spin”
‘The Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) is to cut 1,000 jobs as the advertising slump continues to hurt newspapers.’
‘ITV has announced it is cutting 600 jobs across its businesses, and plans to make other “significant” savings.’
‘The BBC’s proposals to increase the licence fee with a 2.3% above-inflation rise have been attacked by critics.’
At first glance this appears to be unfortunate for a couple of independents and a bit of good fortune for the BBC (at our expense).
However, this should concern the general public and not just because their licence fees are going up in a recession.
The media, for all their faults, are almost a fourth element to our constitution. They hold the three pillars of our constitution, (the executive, legislature and the judiciary) to account.
But to do this properly they need top flight professional journalists and solid back-up. To fund this they need income. Either from newspaper purchasers or from advertisers. In these straitened times any newspaper raising prices will be committing circulation suicide. Not only that, with the proliferation of free access on-line newspapers competition is hotting up.
This recession is leading to serious cost cutting by those that normally spend a fortune on advertising. A deep, long lasting recession will vastly widen this effect. This does not affect the public sector broadcaster at present. With less money coming in for the independent press where are the cuts to be made? Whether in their front line journalism or behind the scenes staff the end result would be a reduction in journalistic quality. That will apply to both printed and electronic media.
We can expect cheaper freelancers being used, together with a definite move toward more titillating content to fill our increased need for the ‘feel good factor‘. ‘Official’ stories and sources will come under less and less scrutiny. We will then be more reliant on the BBC than we have been for many a decade.
We are now entering uncharted economic and political times. More than ever we are dependent on those in power to make good, long term decisions for our benefit.
This is a time for intense debate fed by the highest quality journalism that can be mustered.
This is not a time for the government to be stepping into the void using our money for spin and propaganda purposes. Remember, they are not advertising flat packed furniture or breakfast cereals.
There is a danger that those decision makers in public and private broadcasting will now tailor their pitch and product to get that government money. Some would say that the BBC doeshis anyway, which makes the private sector so necessary.
Maybe we need more quality and less quantity in broadcasting across the board. With a huge reduction in pay for ‘celebs’ too, money could be diverted to proper investigative journalism.
The BBC and government must also have their spend limited to a proportion of that available to the private sector. Not good for advertisers maybe, but good for democracy.
Originally Posted 26/03/2009
