Evening Argus Protest

[Gwylan]

They've replaced them with juniors and interns who work hard and mean well but dont have the local knowledge to construct many stories or to pull in stories via contacts on a slow news day.

.. And don't have the time to cultivate sources or learn their beats. There's a reason so much copy is PR-generated puff and it's not that the journalists are lazy.

It's sad for the Argus, which isn't that bad for a local paper - I've seen a lot worse - but it's all downhill for it now.

 

[Mr Banana]

The staff are quality, the people who've gone have often been brilliant. Get behind them...go Towers team...

 

[Westdene Seagull]

I see the people running the Argus web site today ( I guess the management ) don't like any comments about the strike at all. They're deleting them all !!!! Talk about sulking

 

[1959]

This is very sad. For all its faults, The Argus is still one of the best local papers going.

The criticism the paper and Andy Naylor get here on NSC is unjustified and completely out of order. If I could put it in stronger terms I would say that the people who slam the Argus and Naylor whenever they can on here are thick ignorant shits who need 1) a good kicking, 2) a history lesson, and 3) a selection of hopeless local papers from around the country so they realise how lucky we are.

If it wasn't for The Argus, and reporters like Andy Naylor and Paul Bracchi back in the mid-90's, we wouldn't have a club to support at all. Albion would have ceased to exist in about 1997. After this move to Southampton, that level and quality of reporting will never be seen again.

Some might not like it, but we all owe the Argus a debt of gratitude.

 

[West Hoathly Seagull]

Probably the rot started when they moved from Robert Street to Hollingbury. These moves, where you move from a city centre address, which is then flogged off for posh housing, to a shed on some industrial estate, supposedly to make it easier to use modern technology, etc, don't always work. You only need to look at the National Trust to see that. They moved from a beautiful Edwardian house by St James's Park to Swindon, and have been going downhill since. By the way, their move has not yielded them a goldmine. Their old headquarters is sitting empty, in an area of prime real estate, with a security guards' notice on it.

 

[clippedgull]

They should get back to their roots! Bring back The Evening Argus!

 

[Boroseagull]

D.I. Roy Grace will breath a sigh of relief! [Peter James novels for the unread!]

 

[Mr Banana]

I see the people running the Argus web site today ( I guess the management ) don't like any comments about the strike at all. They're deleting them all !!!! Talk about sulking

Management appear to have disabled all comments on the website

 

[backson]

D.I. Roy Grace will breath a sigh of relief! [Peter James novels for the unread!]

Good point, is Kevin Spinoza on strike?

 

[The Oldman]

This is very sad. For all its faults, The Argus is still one of the best local papers going.

I agree. The Argus is part of Brighton's History and has served it well. Yes there are silly mistakes and speculation promoted as news but that happens in all newspapers.
The Argus still provides news and information that is not found anywhere else
and up to now has been the only true Sussex based daily news source. BBC local TV and radio being "shared" with other counties.
I'm not sure that the Argus website has done the printed version any favours as it must have robbed the paper of paying customers but that's the way of the modern world I suppose.
I missed my morning Argus today and will tomorrow.

 

[eastlondonseagull]

It's disgraceful that they're farming out Argus subbing to staff in Southampton. Good on the NUJ chapel down there. Strike!

Journalists at the Brighton Argus have voted to go on strike next week over pay and the latest round of redundancies.

The National Union of Journalists said that of the 82.8% of its members who took part in the ballot, 91% voted for a two-day strike.

The strike is scheduled to take place next Thursday and Friday, the final working days for the paper's six news sub-editors.

Their jobs are being made redundant. Their work is to be taken on by three subs in Southampton at the offices of the Southern Daily Echo.

Staff pay has been frozen for two years by the publisher, Newsquest, which is a subsidiary of the giant US newspaper company, Gannett.

Journalists at the Echo were on strike yesterday and today, with another 48-hour strike scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday next week.

One Argus journalist, who asked not to be named, was quoted by the independent Brighton and Hove News website as saying: "It's high time we Argonauts stood up to the disgraceful management which keeps taking from Brighton and not giving anything back....

"The bosses blame difficult trading conditions but meanwhile they boast about making massive profit margins – about 20% – and give the chief executive a £100,000 21% pay rise. Enough is enough."

 

[eastlondonseagull]

This is very sad. For all its faults, The Argus is still one of the best local papers going.

The criticism the paper and Andy Naylor get here on NSC is unjustified and completely out of order. If I could put it in stronger terms I would say that the people who slam the Argus and Naylor whenever they can on here are thick ignorant shits who need 1) a good kicking, 2) a history lesson, and 3) a selection of hopeless local papers from around the country so they realise how lucky we are.

If it wasn't for The Argus, and reporters like Andy Naylor and Paul Bracchi back in the mid-90's, we wouldn't have a club to support at all. Albion would have ceased to exist in about 1997. After this move to Southampton, that level and quality of reporting will never be seen again.

Some might not like it, but we all owe the Argus a debt of gratitude.

(apart from the violence bit)

.

 

[So.CalGull]

Probably the rot started when they moved from Robert Street to Hollingbury. These moves, where you move from a city centre address, which is then flogged off for posh housing, to a shed on some industrial estate, supposedly to make it easier to use modern technology, etc, don't always work. You only need to look at the National Trust to see that.

Sorry to disagree with you but, the move was based on increasing advertising revenue which keeps media such as TV and Newspapers/magazines alive.

The presses in North Street were over 60 years old and could only produce a limited size pagination without colour options. The Hollingbury presses were the best you could get at the time, had two color towers and cost the parent company at the time over 20 million pounds in set up.

Increased pagination, more colour options for the advertisers equals an increase in sales and profits. Newspaper sales actually make up a very small percentage of revenue. (An average full page colour advert costs upto 3,000.)

All papers had to go down the colour path after Today launched and changed the game. After years of congestion with paper deliveries and Argus vans trying to get out and about for North Street. A move was the only option, the North Street building was studied to see if it could accept the new presses, but logistically it was not possible, after the move to Hollingbury, the tonnage of Newsprint a week increased 400%, from a paper delivery every two days in North Street to five trucks a day at Hollingbury.

The company was sold to Gannett (American owners) around 2000 as all employees that had shares were bought back by the company for substantial profit to those that held them.

 

[1959]

(apart from the violence bit)

.

Yes, you're right, and I'm sorry about that bit. It was meant as a joke.

 

[Man of Harveys]

Sorry to disagree with you but, the move was based on increasing advertising revenue which keeps media such as TV and Newspapers/magazines alive.

The presses in North Street were over 60 years old and could only produce a limited size pagination without colour options. The Hollingbury presses were the best you could get at the time, had two color towers and cost the parent company at the time over 20 million pounds in set up.

Increased pagination, more colour options for the advertisers equals an increase in sales and profits. Newspaper sales actually make up a very small percentage of revenue. (An average full page colour advert costs upto 3,000.)

All papers had to go down the colour path after Today launched and changed the game. After years of congestion with paper deliveries and Argus vans trying to get out and about for North Street. A move was the only option, the North Street building was studied to see if it could accept the new presses, but logistically it was not possible, after the move to Hollingbury, the tonnage of Newsprint a week increased 400%, from a paper delivery every two days in North Street to five trucks a day at Hollingbury.

The company was sold to Gannett (American owners) around 2000 as all employees that had shares were bought back by the company for substantial profit to those that held them.

So they should have moved the printing presses to a bleak industrial estate and left the journalists right at the heart of the town. I totally agree with WHS' point; the paper changed there and then and not for the better.

Anyway does all this mean there's a gap in the market for a real local paper?

 

[Gwylan]

So they should have moved the printing presses to a bleak industrial estate and left the journalists right at the heart of the town. I totally agree with WHS' point; the paper changed there and then and not for the better.

Anyway does all this mean there's a gap in the market for a real local paper?

I think the days of the local "paper" are long gone. Whether there's room for a decent, local news website is another question.

I find it staggering that a place the size of B&H can't support a local newspaper (or site) or a true local radio station.

 

[So.CalGull]

So they should have moved the printing presses to a bleak industrial estate and left the journalists right at the heart of the town. I totally agree with WHS' point; the paper changed there and then and not for the better.

They did, above the then new shop at the end of Western Road, Adam Trimingham refused to step foot in Hollingbury as it was a bitch of a bike ride, so he and at least half a dozen local Brighton reporters worked from there, as did all the other satellite offices that were based in each town with a new Argus shop.

The paper is not solely a Brighton based paper, it is a Sussex paper, and up until the change to one edition a day, there were 4 editions a day (LS, CF, NF and FF), with at least 3 county change pages in each edition, with news coming from the reporters from the satellite offices.

You may also be suprised to learn that a lot of the subs on the sub bench do not come through the ranks in the Brighton office, as with many other jobs in the world people transfer from out of town, other parts of the industry in sideways and upwards movements. Even the reporters back in the day would come through Westminster Press's lesser newspapers and aim to get a job in Brighton. (WP had eight divisions across the nation).

 

[Easy 10]

My lad does a paper round delivering the Argus.

Is he about to be laid off ?

 

[So.CalGull]

I think the days of the local "paper" are long gone. Whether there's room for a decent, local news website is another question

And there speaks the real reason. Local papers across the industry are fast becoming a thing of the past. Development in news coverage via TV and more so the Internet have changed the way people take in information. How can a printed piece of news, that is restricted to time and production issues compete with live interactive news providers.

Readership figures for the Argus started dropping in the early 80's the biggest time period for printed papers was the "Grand Bombing" around that time the printed papers maxed out at 120,000 a day, by 1990, before the move to Hoillingbury the figures maxed out daily at 60,000, they spiked after the move then steadily decrease since then.

People do not buy, advertisers do not spend, cost cutting has to take place. Simple business.

 

[Deleted User X18H]

Do you think HB&B is going to be joining his colleagues on the picket line at some point?


Good luck to them BTW, how can a "local newspaper" be produced 80 miles away in Southampton? It's not even in the next county let alone the same one. It would be like having a local TV station based in Southampton.

Oh wait ....

I wasn't there today.......