National World faces strike | Edinburgh newsletter success
Plus we have your news diary for the week ahead.
Good morning and welcome to your daily media news briefing on Monday 4 September, 2023.
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Former Meta employee Michael MacLeod is the latest journalist to quit their day job after launching a paid-for Substack newsletter.
MacLeod is following in the footsteps of Manchester-based Mill Media by finding a market for quality news about his city that compliments established local media.
“Community spirit never really goes away, and neither does people’s need to know," says MacLeod.
Whereas The Mill in Manchester offers in-depth coverage readers can't find elsewhere, The Edinburgh Minute promises to save them time with daily and weekly round-ups of everything that's happening in the Scottish capital.
Meanwhile, the publisher of Edinburgh-based The Scotsman - National World - is facing three days of strike action this month in protest at an offered pay rise of 4.5% and senior reporter salaries which are said by the NUJ to be as low as £23,000.
And our news diary for the week ahead leads off with the UK Parliament back in session from today. Wednesday sees Press Gazette host our Future of Media Technology conference and awards in London. And Friday marks the first anniversary of the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
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New from Press Gazette:
Journalist quits Meta job after Edinburgh-focused Substack takes off
“I don’t want to take people’s traffic. I want to show the breadth of work that’s going on and encourage people to go and read it and subscribe to them. I checked with a couple of people who I know that work at the nationally-owned regionals as to whether this is helping them, and it’s really helping apparently.”
National World journalists vote to strike over pay
National World’s group NUJ chapel said the ballot “marks the first time that a company-wide ballot over pay has been undertaken within this business under any [owner], with our members having reluctantly accepted real-terms pay cuts or pay freezes from their current employer and previous owners for too many years”.
News diary 4 – 10 September: Westminster returns, G20 summit in India
A look ahead at the key events leading the news agenda this week, from the team at Foresight News.
Future of Media Explained podcast
Our podcast is on a summer break (returning soon!) - but you can catch up on everything from paywall strategies to AI in the newsroom here.
News in brief:
Rishi Sunak’s director of communications Amber de Botton, who left ITV News to take up the role, has left the position after less than a year. (Press Gazette)BBC newsreader Clive Myrie has revealed the racism suffered by his own family and how he became comfortable covering race-related stories in a book that The Times says is "infinitely more readable than the average journalism memoir, and decidedly more important too". (The Times)The Guardian has blocked ChatGPT from trawling its content, saying it is "contrary to our terms of service". It joins a number of other publishers who have also blocked the AI tool, though most have not spoken publicly about it. (The Guardian)Channel 4 News anchor Krishnan Guru-Murthy explains why he decided to do Strictly this year: “The last few years have been intense in news... This is an opportunity to do something joyful.” (The Guardian)Previously on Press Gazette:
Sophy Ridge and Trevor Phillips on Sky’s ‘big investment’ in politics
Letters page: Why regional press government ads monopoly should be changed
Regional ABCs: UK daily local newspaper circulation down 20% in first half of 2023
Former editor argues support for local news should be directed outside major publishers
