An Oral History Society Special Interest Group
Press and Journalism
A group seeking to preserve people’s past and current experiences of local and regional print journalism through oral history interviews.
Context
Over the past decade, the number of local and weekly newspapers in the UK has declined by nearly a third, to fewer than 1,000. Hardly a week goes by without an announcement of further cuts and closures. Yet it’s not just people’s jobs that are at risk. Without trained journalists, who is holding public and private organisations to account? Who is getting to the bottom of issues that affect local communities? Who is keeping the general public – us – informed about what’s going on in our neighbourhoods, villages, towns or cities? Social media and AI-generated content bombards us, but how much can we truly rely on either of those two sources? As a reporter in the Sky TV series The Paper says of his Ohio daily: “I’m not sure if it’s even a real paper. It’s local ads and a few articles of clickbait with some sports scores on the cover.”
As newspapers continue to close, experts pinpoint issues of ‘democratic deficit’, ‘news deserts’, the loss of community cohesion, evaporation of civic trust and, with newspaper buildings reinvented as apartments, the loss of a ‘hub’ that people can visit to report an issue they want highlighted or investigated.
A group of us – academics, journalists, oral historians – have begun to conduct interviews with current and ex-journalists in our own local areas, with a view to creating individual archives of memories, thoughts and experiences of newspaper life. The British Library’s National Life Stories collection includes an Oral History of the British Press. Our aim is to complement that with collections of recordings that will eventually be stored in local archives.
Newspaper archives themselves – cuttings, photographs and complete bound copies of the papers – are under threat. No longer stored in newspaper offices, some have simply been thrown away. Others are housed in self-storage facilities, with a question mark over their survival. If they were to go, so would part of the social history of the locality itself.
What is the Press and Journalism Special Interest Group?
We are a group of journalists, academics and oral historians seeking to preserve people’s past and current experiences of local and regional print journalism through interviews with current and former print journalists, photographers, newsdesk secretaries, copytakers, printers, compositors, street newspaper-sellers, paper-boys and -girls, archivists… Anyone, in fact, who has had – or still has – close connection with their local newspaper, in whatever capacity.
The SIG’s purpose is to
- Bring together members of the OHS with an interest in and/or experience of local print journalism, to encourage collaborations and outcomes (website, books, articles, etc)
- Encourage more members to participate in conducting similar interviews in their own localities
- Explore funding opportunities for expenses incurred in the interview process, and ultimately to create a website to record people’s past and present experiences of local journalism
- Establish a directory of such projects to increase awareness of the research and the reasons behind it
- Create a network of oral history practitioners conducting – and, possibly, subsequently analysing and archiving – the interviews
- Create opportunities for people to share knowledge and skills
Memories of Birkenhead’s local newspapers
Stephen Kelly is a writer and broadcaster whose career in journalism started with the left-wing Tribune newspaper before he moved on to Granada Television and then into full-time writing. He has authored over 20 books
Where have all the local newspapers gone?
An industry that was once a part of every home in the UK is disappearing. While some may have only used the local newspaper to line the cat litter tray, those of us over the
Stop Press! A New SIG!
As local newspapers across Britain continue to decline, three oral historians have come together to capture the memories and continuing experiences of local and regional journalists across England.
For more information or to join the group, please contact Clare Jenkins.
