What we learnt at the Society of Editors annual conference
The Society Of Editors annual conference packed a punch this week with an agenda which attracted the great and the good to London. Jeremy Clifford sums up the highlights with his whistle-stop tour through the day’s sessions:
It must be an election year when both the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Culture both attend the Society of Editors Conference and deliver a message “We’ve got your back”.
Add to that a message from the Lady Chief Justice, Baroness Carr, that a robust, independent press, and particularly the regional press, is an essential part of the justice system, and the media probably never felt so loved by the State.
Rishi Sunak opened the 25th SoE conference with a defiant message to the media audience. “We are defending democracy” as he referenced the repeal of Section 40 that supports the media in libel case costs when they win, the work the Government is doing on prohibitive strategic lawsuits (SLAPs) and the legislation to support public sector broadcasting as well as the digital markets act.
And closing the conference, almost as this was choreographed, Lucy Frazer, Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport, reiterated the message that democracy needs a strong, independent media, and the Government was there not to interfere but to strengthen.
“This Government will always stand on the side of newspapers and ensure the press is free to speak,” she told the conference. “We’ve got your back.”
So aside from the Government love-in, what else did we learn at the SoE’s 25th anniversary event?
Ian Hislop, celebrated with an award for Outstanding Contribution to Journalism for his 38 years as Editor of Private Eye, must have made old eyes glisten a little when he said there would always be a role for print in people’s lives. Private Eye is the biggest selling news magazine in the UK and shows no sign of the decline in sales that is afflicting the rest of the news industry.
And this was echoed partly by Maria Breslin, Editor of the Liverpool Echo, when she was asked to forecast what life would look like in 10 years time and she confidently predicted there would still be a Liverpool Echo in print.
On a more sombre note, the death toll of journalists in 2023 and also in 2024 was recognised with a one minute’s silence, reflecting on the 78 journalists killed in action in 2023 and already 21 this year.
And the risks journalists face in conflict zones was arguably the most compelling session of the day as Alex Crawford, Rusdhi Abualouf, Christina Lamb and Daneille Sheridan, shared their experiences.
Danielle told how her iphone is full of photographs of dead children and the remains of soldiers as she recorded her first few days in the Ukrainian war zone. And said that nothing can prepare a journalist for the horrors of what they see on the frontline.
The debate brought into sharp perspective what it actually means to defend democracy — a theme referenced by Sunak as he talked about the threats to democracy and how press freedom has seen massive consecutive year-on-year declines in parts of the world.
A fitting theme as Friday, May 3, marks Press Freedom Day.
Outside the global events, familiar themes were discussed — once again the broken relationship between the police and the press — with the Nicola Bulley debacle still very much fresh in people’s minds.
What was of particular interest was the view the police had of journalists operating in social media fields — and X/Twitter described by Andy Marsh, chief exec of the College of Policing as a “cesspit”.
He and head of corporate comms for Essex Police, Robin Punt, both alluded to a collective view that journalists operating on social media did little to instil a sense of trust if they post on those platforms before going through a “newsroom process”.
The underlying message was “Yes, we know we have a problem that we need to fix. Openness and transparency is what is required, but there needs to be trust in the way reporters work and that they need to be operating within police communication policies.” So I guess nothing is really going to change here.
Another debate which is becoming a constant is how to engage with an increasingly disengaged audience and news avoidance.
Gavin Foster, Regional Editor of Newsquest North, talked about how they were trying to create a credible news supply for younger audiences by getting into schools and colleges. It was a theme that was picked up by Pippa Crerar, of The Guardian, who referenced the need for greater media literacy — something which is being discussed at a seminar this week the News Futures Project based at the Media Innovation Studio with the University of Central Lancashire.
The toxicity of news, particularly politics reporting, is a turn-off for audiences. And yet the whole panel acknowledged that the younger generation are incredibly interested in politics, just not how it is currently reported. The Next Gen News report produced by the FT Strategies team, who were at the conference, also identified this. There is a significant gap between what the younger audiences want from their media and how the media is currently serving them — a lesson we ignore at our peril.
A brief interlude from the panel discussions was the keynote speech by Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr, who announced what could be a game-changing initiative to help publishers cover the courts far more easily.
Aside from her announcement of a Transparency Board to scrutinise open justice for all courts and tribunals, she said she was determined to increase public and media access to the courts.
We will see more freely available court listings and documents, and most significantly the desire to expand streaming court cases online to make attendance at hearings easier.
“It will review and challenge the way the justice system works,” She said of the Board. “Justice will not only be done but be seen to be done. Maybe through the careful extension of broadcasting hearings.”
And as the day came to an end, the Editors Panel, comprising Maria Breslin, of the Liverpool Echo, Danny Groom, Mail Online, Dylan Jones, Evening Standard and Jonathan Munro, BBC News, tackled the biggest issues facing their journalism.
Unsurprisingly Trust and the platforms were top of their list. “The biggest challenge is that our trusted journalism is seen. It is the trusted audience that’s important, people who seek us out rather than those who find us via platforms and are not particularly loyal to us,” said Breslin.
She confirmed Reach’s commitment to the pageview model, scale and mass viewership, but added that while it was sustainable, it will need “a little bit of help”, hinting that regulation and laws with teeth to ensure they are fairly compensated for the news that is being used and surfaced by the big platforms.
Groom echoed the thoughts about the pressures on the funding model. “The challenge is finding new revenue streams and finding new ways of presenting our trusted journalism and new audiences.” He referenced significant success with podcasts and added: “The real challenge is not to lose sight of the core product. Investment in journalism and the core product will provide loads of opportunities to innovate and find revenue streams and ultimately new audiences.”
Finally we came to the elephant in the room — how big a threat is the BBC to all of this.
Munro was unapologetic about the way the BBC was changing its business model.
“It is a conscious decision to push our journalism outside of London — that will result in recruitment of other journalists to join the BBC. From our point of view that is a good thing and that enriches the BBC and of course that has consequences.”
Having been invited by panel chair Krishnan Guru-Murthy to say who had a problem with the BBC, the response was surprisingly muted.
Breslin failed to mention the impact BBC expansion was having on the regionals, instead referencing the loss of journalists to the BBC.
Most regional media have signed a letter protesting about the expansion of local BBC into the regions.
It was left to a voice from the audience, Ben Lowry, of the Belfast Newsletter, to deliver the criticism of this policy.
So it was with a degree of irony that the closing remarks predicting how things may be different in 10 years time that Munro said he was backing regional press and journalism that he believed needed and deserved support.
