The long-predicted slayer of the local newspaper could now be the knight in shining armour
SOMEWHERE at the back of a musty old cupboard I have a rolled-up copy of the last ever issue of the ‘Free Press’, a Wexford newspaper that wasn’t free at all. For someone with newspaper ink coursing through his veins, that old paper has an intoxicating smell, conjuring memories of clacking old typewriters and sweaty-browed compositors arranging hot metal lettering like newspaper ninjas.
Since the ‘Free Press’ folded many years ago, another Wexford paper has disappeared as well, leaving the ‘People’ as the only ‘proper’ local newspaper in town.
It’s a similar story for the local newspaper industry in other parts of the country, a survival of the fittest, or the most fortunate, depending on your point of view.
The old typewriters and hot metal are long gone but, like its INM Regionals stablemates from Kerry to Sligo and across to Louth, the ‘Wexford People’ has largely resisted the digital tide, partly through dilly-dallying; and partly because print is ‘what we do’.
The thing is, of course, that tide is not for turning.
And so the ‘People’ and its regional cousins are plotting a new course in a two-speed world of digital and print.
This week saw the first salvo with the launch of 16 online ePapers, useless for lining cat litter trays, swatting flies or wrapping chips, but replicas of the newspapers in every other way.
Early subscriber numbers are strong and it’s reassuring to know that digital publishing, the long-predicted slayer of the local newspaper, could now be the knight in shining armour.
This is not only good for the papers but also the towns, villages, parishes and townlands who would be all the poorer without them.
Local newspapers have a connection to local people that runs very deep.
They know what makes a community tick and understand why life’s little struggles and celebrations really are the stuff of headlines.
In the current crisis they have championed those on the frontline and provided a window to town and county from homes we could not leave.
That won’t change in the new digital world. Whether on crinkly newspaper page or shiny tablet screen, the local story is the same, the picture just as interesting.
There’s more to come at INM’s local papers. Energised by the runaway success of bigger sibling independent.ie’s premium digital service, they are destined to go premium in some form online early next year. Print won’t be ignored, but the focus will be on digital. Is this all good news, I hear you ask. If you believe that investing in good journalism is important and that a reliable, trustworthy local press is worth saving, then yes, it is.
Setting sentiment aside, that rolled-up newspaper in the cupboard is a yellowing reminder of what can happen if local newspapers do not move with the times.