Paid content or community: business models for the regional press

• As an addendum to my previous post, I thought I'd publish a speech I gave at Warwick Business School in October 2009. It was part of a debate snappily titled 'Does Business News no Longer make for Good Business?' Please note I made the speech just before it was announced that the Birmingham Post was going from daily to weekly publishing, and I would be stepping down as editor.

I've been asked to talk today about the challenges facing the Post and other parts of the media - particularly the printed media, and how we're coping in this digital age.

At the risk of delivering an economics lecture, I hope you'll allow me to share with you the internal workings of the regional publishing business, and particularly address the hot topic of

Why I won't be a newspaper journalist on January 1

• This was originally published on my blog for The Drum on December 23, 2009
  

On New Year's Day 2010, I will for the first time in 25 years not be employed by a newspaper publisher.

No-one is more surprised than me that for a quarter of a century I've made a living variously as a reporter, sub editor, deputy editor, editor, editorial director, publishing director and assistant managing director at various newspaper gigs around the UK.

In other words, it's about bloody time I got myself a proper job.

Why the Birmingham Post must change

This was originally posted on my Birmingham Post blog on August 25, 2009
I have just announced to my staff that Trinity Mirror was starting a consultation process with them over the future of the Birmingham Post, the title I have edited for more than three years.
There are two options for change on the table - each a response to the fact that the Midlands region of Trinity Mirror will lose £6 million next year unless some radical action is taken now. The Post as a key title must play its part in plugging that profit gap, and I'll get to the two options later.

A new era for the Birmingham Post

This was originally published on my Birmingham Post blog on October 20, 2009
In three weeks' time, the last daily edition of the printed version of the Birmingham Post will roll off our presses in Erdington, marking the end of a publishing tradition that stretches back more than 150 years.
But it also marks a rebirth, as the Post starts a new chapter in its evolution as a multimedia brand and its new life as a must-read weekly title.