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SoE08: Trinity Mirror's Bailey dismisses BBC plans to work with local newspapers

Posted: 11/11/08 By: Laura Oliver
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Screenshot of Trinity Mirror plc website

The BBC's proposals to share expertise with local newspapers as part of its BBC local video plans have been dismissed as 'nonsense', by the CEO of Trinity Mirror, Sly Bailey.

As part of the BBC's proposed £68 million investment in local video across a network of websites covering 60 UK regions it could provide an £800,000 fund for sourcing local video news from external providers.

Speaking to the Society of Editors (SoE) conference today, David Holdsworth, deputy controller of BBC English Regions, said the corporation would look to share expertise, infrastructure and technology with local news providers to enhance their web offering.

Trinity Mirror CEO Sly Bailey dismissed these suggestions, however, arguing that some of the BBC's local online plans had already gone 'beneath the radar' of the BBC Trust further promoting 'unfair competition' for regional media.

A map-based news service has been proposed, for example, which is not subject to the Public Video Test applied to the video scheme, she said.

"Competition law as it applies to newspapers does have to be reviewed because it just ignores the modern, broader media landscape," said Bailey.

"My fear is that by the time this is properly recognised it may be too late. The very things we wish to protect, plurality and diversity, are destroyed by cumbersome, outdated regulation."

However, Bailey's own opposition to the BBC's plans came under attack from delegate Chris Rushton, a former Trinity Mirror editor and now lecturer in journalism and PR at the University of Sunderland, who described the publisher's local sites as 'woeful' and laughed at by those overseas.

"You can't argue it's your patch if you don't use it. You have not invested. You say you're investing now, you have just announced 20 per cent redundancies in Newcastle of editorial staff. How are you going to do that and cover the patch?" he said.

The figure of £68 million, he added, was a 'drop in the ocean' compared to the market capitalisation [company's total value] when Bailey took control of the group.

"How you can stay in your job when you have lost 95 per cent of the market capitalisation, I don't know," he said.

In response Bailey said Trinity Mirror had recruited 100 online journalists in the last year and had won accolades for its local newspaper websites.

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