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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
The impact of decline
Changes in the function of regional media can have an effect on democracy on
national, regional and local democracy (Bakker, 1998; The Netherlands Press Fund,
2004; Jenkins, 2006; SCP, 2006; Allan, 2007; Committee on Innovation and Future of
the Press, 2009, Currah, 2009). The Dutch Committee on Innovation and Future of
the Press (2009) stated in its review:
… the impact in the region [is] heavier felt since there are no alternative institutions
that can play the necessary role of the press in the democracy. (p. 6)
When regional news publishers lose the battle for survival, other losses occur as well.
Currah (2009) says about the risk of such a news gap: ‘when a city loses an
established paper it loses far more than a tax-paying business and employer. It also
loses an institution’s memory […] an institution that is equipped to raise the profile of
a community, inform citizens and campaign on issues of local relevance’ (p. 7).
In the Netherlands, the effects of declining regional news coverage have yet to be
investigated on a large scale. Currah (2009) reviewed what he calls ‘the crisis in local
and regional news in Great-Brittan’. However, local and regional newspapers in
Great-Britain still make a combined turnover of 4 billion pounds and only few of them
manage to make a profit. Due to the smaller market, in terms of advertisers as well as
consumer potential, regional news media are more vulnerable when traditional
sources of revenue (for example car, property and job adverts) decline. Currah claims
that it is not the quality of the news that is to blame for the decline in readership.
Rather, the current recession combined with a structural shift in media consumption
are to blame here, as consumers and advertisers migrate to the web. According to
Currah, three problems are significant in this respect (p. 3):
The digital generation tends to skim and view, rather than read and explore
News consumers expect Internet news to be free
Advertisers expect a big and well-defined audience that they can reach for as
little money as possible.
But, making news is a costly business, while online news consumption proves to be
difficult to define in terms of marketing profitability (G. Bakker 2007). At the same
time, Currah argues, ’publishers of news, especially at a local and regional scale, are
struggling to win a share of audience attention in a market that is increasingly
dominated by a handful of web platforms, notably Google’ (p. 3).
Most so-called Cebuco regions (predetermined distribution areas) in the Netherlands
have only one regional newspaper left. If the remaining newspaper also vanishes, an
increasing number of regions in the Netherlands will have no newspapers at all. See
figure 1.
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