Oi, Rusbridger - take ' em camping!

A week into our Guardian subscription and I have a message for the good newspaper folk at the Scott Trust: "You've missed a trick!"
Me and Claire plumped for the pre-October subscription "sale" because we knew it'd save us cash ... and because we love the paper. It's quality, it's fun and it airs opinions that are always carefully thought through and argued. It's so good, in fact, that we plunged all the way in and now have vouchers for every day of the week.
The recent sales pitch that hooked us in was prolonged, intense, colourful and thoroughly credible. But it wasn't without its faults.
And here's why the newspaper sales manager needs a good talking to. Not once in the pitch did he or she flag up the bounteous beauty of picking up a morning paper once again.
With just five editions under my Pepe Jeans belt I've managed to enjoy more early morning birdsong than even that time in the mid-80s when Beast and Browny suggested: "Let's spend a couple of nights kipping under canvas in the foothills of Pen-y-ghent - either side of torturing ourselves with the Three Peaks Walk."
This season's black 7am autumn skies are necklaced by seafront streetlights around Swansea Bay. Even better, at that time the world hasn't yet been sullied afresh by humankind in the gas-guzzlers that plummet down Wimmerfield Drive towards another day of office oblivion.
So thanks, Guardian, for enlivening each day with nature, a refreshing complement to your prose and pictures. But do yourselves a favour before the next big sales push ... send the subscription marketeers on a camping weekend somewhere remote.

Heartstrings and headlines

The story of the out-of-work Welsh journalist may not tug at the heartstrings and it's unlikely to hit the headlines. A cocktail of inhuman old stereotypes and distant mega-media managements in self-preservation mode will ensure the lack of furore.
Yet the work sector in which these (mainly) hardworking, modestly paid professionals operate is undergoing a revolution. It's difficult to predict who the winners will be. Or whether there'll be any.
Radical times call for radical thinking and that's what's been occupying the minds of a working party from the National Union of Journalists' Swansea and District branch.
For two months the group has been considering options with one common aim: creating work for freelance and out-of-work journalists based in south-west Wales.
Experts have been consulted, gatherings of interested individuals called, miles clocked, coffees consumed and valued new acquaintances made. Those in the know from the worlds of business start-ups, the co-operative movement and the community regeneration sector have been encouragingly helpful and supportive.
Now - crucially - a marketplace has been identified, trading principles agreed and options for business models are on the table. It may well be that this is an opportunity not to be missed.
It's also time for the union to hand over the reins to a team of members who are passionate about going it alone (with the branch's wholehearted backing and support, of course) and who will take the project forward.
As cliches go, it's now or never - the idea, the marketplace and the professional assistance awaits. All that's needed now is hard work, vision and a great dollop of the teamwork ethic.

Let's get together To find out more, to get involved, to get energised and to start generating work meet up on Monday, October 12, from 6-7pm in the Swansea Yacht Club, close to the maritime quarter's Dylan Thomas Centre.

Details Andy Pearson - 07758 745 240, andy@hopestreetmedia.co.uk

Trinity's unholy outlook

Bad news has been a feature of newspapers since the industry began - it sells papers don't you know.
Today, the fact that the doom-laden messages now focus on the news business itself was brought into sharp focus. Trinity Mirror - a margin-hungry nationwide PLC which recently announced an operating profit of almost £50m - has announced the closure of South Wales twin titles the Neath and Port Talbot Guardians.
It'll mean the loss of 15 jobs, a fight by National Union of Journalists members to highlight their heartfelt concerns for print's future ... and the drastic diminution of the crucial local information network for two great Welsh towns.
Neath (population around 47,000) and Port Talbot (35,000) deserve better than the cold, distant relationships offered to them by regional dailies the Western Mail and the South Wales Evening Post. They've enjoyed the warmth of the Guardians for 80 years; the journals have been a cornerstone of their communities.
Which non-Establishment enterprises will now hold in close check the tax-heavy goings-on at the local council and in the courts? Which media will genuinely celebrate the next rugby trophy won by Neath RFC, Aberavon RFC - or by the neighbourhood under-11s? How many ticket sales will be lost at the local cinema, theatres and operatic society presentations? When the hospital wants to publicise news of new visiting hours, the politicians of their surgeries and the police of their Pact meetings - what effect will the loss of the Guardians have?
The demise of the Neath and Port Talbot Guardians - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8273676.stm - is alarming. And they won't be the last local rags to go in these trying times; if you live in a smallish town with a tidy looking weekly newspaper please look after it, support it, buy it.
Good luck to anyone in line to lose their job, best wishes to the Trinity Mirror journalists fighting their corner and all strength to any ... body energetic enough to work hard to rebuild the crucial local media network in those two great Welsh towns.
As newspaper-loving townsfolk are denied their own local papers, here's where Trinity Mirror stood in their latest half-yearly financial report (June 2009) - group revenue £383m, digital revenue £18.6m, operating profit £49.1million.
Have a word, someone!

Making journalism pay - Wales listens

The Wales Council of the NUJ (National Union of Journalists) meets tomorrow and one item under discussion will be an effort by the Swansea branch to explore new ways of making journalism pay.
The background is diminishing employment opportunities in the traditional media; the opportunity is the fast-evolving new media landscape and technology. Wherever it's leading, we want to reach that destination.
Working at Parc y Scarlets as a rugby PR guy, I won't make the Cardiff meeting - but good people in the form of Ken Smith and Mike Burrows will be there fighting our branch's corner. It'd be good to get positive feedback and offers of support and guidance from the council as the Swansea case won't be an isolated one. Newspapers, radio stations and TV channels all over the UK are shedding jobs so something needs to be done to retain and use the skills these jettisoned journos have.
Things are changing dramatically and many regions, cities and towns may soon find themselves in a professional journalism desert. The powers that be and the holders of our public purse strings will find themselves protected by a clogged up information filtration system. Worse, the public will lose a lively tier of entertainment and independent news.
Swansea are looking at the possibility of being a catalyst in the creation of a multi-media thoroughly modern news agency. A working party is looking at key areas such as governmental aid for young businesses, partnerships with academia, tie-ups and with cooperative and development trust movements and, of course, links with like-minded union groups and activists.
I hope the union's Wales Council give a great deal of honest and open thought to what Ken and Mike have to report.