by Wimb »
07 Jul 2018 11:12
bobby1413 I feel sorry for journalists these days, it must be such a ruthless, thankless and bleak job.
You have images of journalism being things like, rushing out, chasing some information, interviewing people, drafting up an insightful piece ready for the Monday edition. Getting it in just gone 10pm over a glass of whisky and a ciggy.
In reality it is sitting in an office churning out the same articles repeatedly, where half the content is actually links to similar stories, adverts, a google street view image and a screenshot from twitter.
The same articles that GR seem to have are:
10 best burgers in town
Old pubs you've probably forgotten about
10 signs you are from Reading
The cow bridge xxxxxx
The third bridge xxxxxx
Reading Festival
Reading buses xxxxx
Ikea traffic jams
Also LOL that The Oracle won the best Cultural space for Reading.
Today's headline feature article is from Hugh Fort and is entitled "Can you fry an egg on a car bonnet" (ANSWER: no as when he cracked it onto the bonnet it slid off) ... (I sh*t you not)
Pretty much this.
With no actual paper to sell it's all based on ads and ad revenue is based on clicks. Sure, time spent per page helps but cold hard clicks get the cash (and are often easier to churn out).
I've said similar on here before but unless you're actively paying for a product I don't know how you can expect great quality. It would be like looking for professional plumbing advice online and then getting riled up over the fact you weren't getting a full service for free.
Yes, you indirectly contribute to GR, Chronicle etc by visiting the site, however your individual click is worth absolute pittance, especially if you don't click on the ads or watch full videos etc.
Could the quality of local journalism be improved? Absolutely. Is it likely to do so while this funding model exists? Very unlikely.
The best you can hope for is a hungry young journalist with limited financial worries on the way up, or an experienced pro on the way down looking for a part time gig.
On the plus side, I have noticed a very slow shift towards people who will actually back a project even if they don't have to. When I was running TTE, a slowly increasing number of readers/listeners began to chip in via crowd funding. 
