The newspaper is dying, shouting about "responsible publishers" and "conscientious advertisers" doesn't change a thing

It's an old joke that the point of journalism is to fill in the gaps between the adverts. And there has always been a tension, sometimes even a conflict, between the newsroom and the ad sales teams that mostly pay the wages of those journalists. Every paper will have a story of how an advertiser pulled copy because of a story, every editor will have witnessed a raging red-faced sales director screaming how that 'scoop' meant that he's lost thousands in sales - "I was that close to a long-term deal" the SD will shout while the editor waffles about journalistic integrity.

Journalists don't like advertising despite (or maybe because of) working in a business that's dependent on those ads for its existence. Journalists also don't like competition for that advertising (especially from things they don't consider to be media let alone journalism). Here in a classic of self-importance is James Mitchinson, the editor of struggling newspaper, The Yorkshire Post:

"I have long been convinced that the indiscriminate nature of the programmatic advertising business model makes it vulnerable to exploitation. It has caused a race to the bottom, with some publishers – not all – and editors gaming the business model with their commissioning decisions, rather than thinking about what is in the public interest."

There are some suppositions here that are worth noting. We get an attack on the advertising business model and Mitcheson talks about "...outlets that seek to commoditise audiences in order to exploit an indiscriminate paymaster..." on the presumption that advertising decisions are in any way indiscriminate when any ad man will tell you that the opposite is true. And it's hard to accept without a wry smile the suggestion that "quality" newspapers just do "honest journalism" and haven't ever been bottom feeders.

We get the sense in Mitchinson's comments, the use of terms like "conscientious advertisers" and "responsible publishers", that he seeks to divide publishing into good and bad - we can see some of his targets clearly in this part of the commentary: "...the hateful, partisan, agenda-driven Goliaths who think nothing of demonising immigrants, legitimising domestic abuse and scandalising the courts...". But who is Mitcheson, or even a "responsible publishers' network", to say what content the public should or shouldn't consume? And why, since Mitchinson thinks the power is in their hands, should advertisers trash their marketing models to suit what a group of essentially self-interested publishers decide is "responsible" or "conscientious"?

What Mitchinson, and so many others, fail to realise is this journalism they lay claim to ("...public interest journalism; journalism done for the betterment of the communities it serves...") only exists so long as people - directly or through advertising choices - continue to consume the product, the content, those editors put before them. And, right now, the eyes of the majority are turned away from local papers like the Yorkshire Post because it offers little they want. Even those "agenda-driven Goliaths" that Mitcheson hates so much are losing customers, struggling to keep advertisers and wondering how much longer their business model ('producing content to get people to see the advertisements') can continue.

It's unclear, other than seeking to create what in other business contexts would be an illegal cartel, what Mitcheson wants to achieve. We hear of "public interest" (as if that's something that can be defined glibly by a bunch of newspaper editors) and "editorial principles" (as if editorial strategies should should ignore economics) but the telling comment lies at the end: "...improve the whole of the internet and make a wholesome contribution to society."

Mitcheson, like most of the traditional media, is fearful of how platforms like Facebook and Google have changed the way in which people consume news (plus, of course, how the advertisers have shifted spending from black and white copy in the Yorkshire Post to animated and engaging promotions online). To counter this, the fearful journalists have created a bogeyman built from fake news, targeted advertising and "toxic" content which they wave at each other, at the government and at the public in the manner of an old fire-and-brimstone preacher threatening his elderly, half-asleep congregation with eternal damnation.

Dying industries, and traditional, especially local, news journalism is a dying industry (and has been for at least two decades), always look to cartels, regulation and the heavy hand of government to protect then in their dotage. This doesn't better the "...communities it serves and therefore society as a whole..." but is seeking moral enforcement in the cause of economic interest, the very thing Mitcheson claims his crusade is directed against. The problem is that this strategy, while it might stave off the last day, doesn't begin to resolve the problem with the regional paper business model. The Yorkshire Post is neither fish nor fowl - not a local paper and not a national paper - has a daily circulation not much over 10,000, and competes for advertising with national and local competitotrs as well as with other advertising platforms such as Facebook and YouTube (or the advertisers own carefully curated website promoted via Google).

Mitcheson wants advertisers to deliberately buy less impactful and effective advertising so as to privilege his particular view of "responsible" journalism but completely fails to make a case beyond the purely emotive "I want to help make the change; protect quality journalism; improve the whole of the internet and make a wholesome contribution to society". It's not for Mitcheson and a few mates to define quality journalism, dictate what is or isn't good on the Internet, or what constitutes wholesomeness in society.

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