Viva Brighton Issue #52 June 2017

INTERVIEW
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Adam Trimingham
Argus legend
There was a time, well within living memory,
when the Argus was so ambitious and wellstaffed
that they’d even send reporters to
meetings of Peacehaven Parish Council.
They’d have journalists at every local courtroom,
to cover every case. They could do
that kind of thing; they were regularly selling
about 110,000 copies a day, Adam Trimingham
recalls. People cared enough about what
the Argus wrote that sometimes, as a court
reporter, “I would be offered bribes or threats
of violence to keep cases out [of the paper].
But we never did.”
There were two other Brighton newspapers
back then, weekly titles which sold well, but
“I think the Argus in particular was essential
reading. Everyone read the Argus. Some
people even got two editions a day... It covered
everything - every court case, all the councils.
There was always a reporter everywhere, and
the reporter would stay to the end of any
meeting. This was just accepted; the Argus was
the news.”
No local paper, surely, could ever be this
mighty nowadays; it wouldn’t get the circulation,
and it couldn’t afford the staff. Trimingham
says he doesn’t know exactly how many
journalists the Argus employs nowadays, but
“it does an amazing job really, considering
how few reporters there are.” He argues that
in some respects the paper is better than it
was decades ago, citing its design, appearance,
and number of feature articles. In terms of the
overall-industry picture, though, ‘the Sage of
Sussex’ is less bullish.
Are local newspapers in decline? I think
they have declined tremendously. And if you
look at local papers now, they’re a shadow of
what they were. Most weeklies have only got
one paid-for reporter... Whereas at one time
they’d all have had considerable staffs; the
Sussex Express at Lewes would have about 20
reporters. Now I doubt if it’s got more than
two. And if you look at them they’re rather
empty, with a lot of stuff contributed from
press releases…
What effect does all that have on civic
life? Well, it’s very difficult, because people expected
the papers, for many years, to sort of be
their eyes and ears. Sussex Council meetings,
there was a sort of guarantee that things would
be above board. The fact you had a reporter
in court meant that he or she was seeing that
justice was being done. I rather regret the fact
that that’s gone, and I don’t think it’ll ever
come back. But there’s nothing that can be
done about it.
Is it solely down to the internet? No, there
are other factors. Papers were very indulgent
when they had the power, and they didn’t
invest in putting out more editions and that
sort of thing, and getting more people in the
habit of reading newspapers. And I think the
print unions were very greedy, and managements
were very greedy; a lot of money and
time and effort was wasted. So it was suicide as
well as murder.
Was it difficult to predict the effect the
internet would have? Having seen off other
competitors, including other newspapers, radio
and television, I think the powers that be that
ran these papers thought they were pretty well
able to cope with anything. But the internet
took everyone by surprise, not just them.
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