Gallows humour at Press launch

Media entrepreneur Chris Bullivant may have branded regional publisher Trinity Mirror as 'barmy' at the champagne launch of his new Birmingham Press title last Friday - but not all the partygoers were quite as gung-ho.

As our mole at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens event revealed, some of the Press team are already resorting to gallows humour. Here's his special report.

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From Our Own Correspondent

The editor of Chris Bullivant's newly launched paper in Birmingham has revealed the true scarcity of his resources.

Speaking at the launch of The Birmingham Press on Friday at the city’s Botanical Gardens, Tony Lennox told a group of guests how he was hoping his “single laptop doesn’t blow up."

After one or two giggly media types laughed this off, Lennox insisted: “I’m not joking, the entire newspaper – content, pictures, design templates and all – is on a single laptop in my kitchen.

“I keep on waking in a sweat that the bloody thing’s crashed or that someone’s nicked it. If they did there’d be no edition next week.”

One IT-style boffin advised Lennox to acquire an external mini disc-drive as a back-up, which appeared to leave the veteran print hack confused.

“My lads will sort something out, they’ve got a portable CD player for their band,” Lennox assured his audience.

Earlier, Lennox came face-to-face with former Birmingham Post editor Marc Reeves, who had given the Press “six months” to survive.

In typical Lennox fashion, he slapped Reeves on the shoulder and corrected him: “I’d be happy with six weeks, mate!”

Meanwhile, Lennox’s many new freelance writers – most former Post and Mail journalists and many made redundant in the last 18 months – started to tell all and sundry how pleased they were to be back in print.

Until one or two started to compare linage rates, that is...

One stalwart old hack commented they didn’t really mind that it was a pittance, it “was just chuffing to see my byline again”.

This brought a snort from former Post business editor and ex-John Bright Street columnist John Duckers, now penning his Duckers and Diving column for the Press.

Well known for putting his foot in it, Duckers commented loudly: “I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m being paid quite well for my contributions, better than the Post used to pay for my column.”

Several new Press freelancers were seen heading in the direction of formidable NUJ northern organiser Chris Morley (yes, Chris too was supping the bubbles at the launch of Bullivant’s ‘no office, no staff’ newspaper).

Finally, the 150-odd guests at the party heard Bullivant himself, adorned in a three-piece grey pinstriped suit, attempt a triumphant launch speech.

There were many scratched heads as Bullivant meandered on a long description of him and his wife’s hobby of collecting old silver in France.

But he saved the day when everyone realised he was referring to precious trophies like newspapers, and to the skills of the Lennox couple who’d managed to put week one together (Tony’s wife Marsya handled the property copy).

Bullivant, thumbs in his waistcoat, ended with: “You can’t hope for a launch edition to be 100%, but I think it’s already in the 90s and will only get better.”

One cynic was heard to mutter: “Yeah, the 1990s!”, before calling for more Pomagne.

Former Birmingham Mail editor Steve Dyson will be reviewing the Press, alongside Trinity Mirror rival Birmingham Post Lite, on his HTFP blog tomorrow.

Will others follow where Trinity Mirror has led?

A certain amount flak will inevitably be flying in the direction of Trinity Mirror over its decision to take the Birmingham Post weekly. Indeed the NUJ's Chris Morley, who seems to reserve his most colourful invective for matters affecting Trinity Mirror Midlands, has already described it as "the corporate equivalent of self-harm."

But although the move will win the company few friends among journalists, some might applaud Trinity for having bitten the bullet over reducing the frequency of a loss-making title while most other publishers have merely talked about it.

Since the start of the downturn in the autumn of 2008, there have been numerous wild predictions about the industry's future, with claims that up to 650 local titles would close and many regional dailies would become weeklies.

So far, though, only two regional publishers have actually gone down that route - GMG Regional Media by taking the Reading Evening Post twice-weekly, and Trinity Mirror with yesterday's decision.

With a circulation down to 12,076 according to the most recent ABC figures, the Post was always a likely candidate for change of frequency.

Now the deed has finally been done, the big question in the industry will be whether this will prove to be a one-off - or alternatively, whether other publishers will now follow where Trinity and GMG have led.

Speculation mounts over Birmingham dailies

Speculation is mounting in the blogosphere over the future of the Trinity Mirror owned titles in Birmingham.

Nearly two months ago, the company launched a wide-ranging consultation over the future of the Birmingham Post and Mail.

Options under consideration included turning the Post into a weekly title and printing the Mail overnight. It is believed this would save around £1m a year on van runs.

Trinity Mirror is saying nothing officially as yet, but two Birmingham-based blogs are claiming that an announcement on the proposed moves is imminent.

Philip Parkin, operations director of the Birmingham Press Club, writes on his blog that "the coming week promises to be a significant one for The Birmingham Post."

"My spies tell me that this is the week that the announcement about the newspaper’s future is due to be made, with the switch to weekly happening sometime in late November," he says.

Another Birmingham blogger calling himself The Stirrer goes further, saying the announcement will be made today.

"Expect fireworks from newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror in the next 24 hours, with confirmation that the Birmingham Post is going weekly – possibly as early as November 5," he wrote yesterday, claiming staff have already been told that "major changes" on both titles are imminent.

3.30pm UPDATE: It's now official. The Birmingham Post is to go weekly, the Mail is to go to overnight printing, and both their editors have decided to leave. All the details over at HoldtheFrontPage.

Farewell to the Sporting Star

An interesting news item from the regional press has just landed on HoldtheFrontPage's radar.

After 90 years of publishing, the Midlands-based Sporting Star will cease publication at the start of the forthcoming football season.

The Sporting Star is owned by the Midland News Association whose titles include two of the UK's biggest-selling regional dailies - the Wolverhampton-based Express and Star and the Shropshire Star.

The timing is unfortunate for West Mids football lovers as Wolverhampton Wanderers have just been promoted to the big time of the Premier League while another Express and Star club Aston Villa have just enjoyed a very successful season.

For those unfamiliar with this publishing marvel, the Sporting Star and others of its ilk are written and published at breakneck speed, with the vast majority of its content coming from Saturday afternoon football matches.

Its demise signals the end of all 'pinks' in the Midlands after the Coventry Telegraph closed its edition last autumn, while the Birmingham Pink was closed three years ago by owners Trinity Mirror.

Express and Star MD Alan Harris was quoted in the Birmingham Post as saying: ".....unfortunately technology has outstripped its viability.

"First it was terrestrial TV, then it was Teletext, then Sky Sports and obviously now the internet. Also many of the major matches are not played on a Saturday.

"Reluctantly we have decided that the 2009-10 football season will not have the sporting pink."

Good business sense

Difficult times at Trinity Mirror at the moment, with the announcement of nine newspaper closures and job losses yesterday, and accusations from the National Union of Journalists concerning the future of two of its traditional morning papers, the Birmingham Post and Liverpool Daily Post.

The Guardian's Roy Greenslade has published a lengthy post analysing the TM Midlands proposals. Not all journalists will agree with it but it provides a useful counterbalance to the NUJ point of view.

Meanwhile, a correspondent from TM-owned Media Wales emails HTFP to let us know that the company has (in his words) "hit such hard times it is renting out the 5th and 6th floor of its new offices in Cardiff."

We say: good on them. If it helps avoid any further journalist job losses, then renting out unused office space surely makes good business sense. Come to that, there are probably other newspaper publishers who ought to think about doing the same.

Is the NUJ guilty of scaremongering?

Sometimes the decision whether or not to publish a story on HoldtheFrontPage is not necessarily a straightforward one. One such instance was yesterday's press release from the National Union of Journalists claiming that publisher Trinity Mirror plans to axe eight weekly titles in the Midlands and turn the Birmingham Post into a weekly or bi-weekly publication.

If the story is true, a number of journalists' jobs will inevitably be lost, and there is an argument for saying that the NUJ should have kept quiet about this until the people affected had been informed in the usual way.

That said, once it had put out a public statement on the issue, not just to HTFP but to all our competitor media news sites, it became very hard for us to ignore the story.

It generated an interesting debate in the comments section. While most readers thought the NUJ was simply doing its job, a significant minority thought the union had acted irresponsibly, with one accusing it of having "put the fear of God up people."