A paradise lost

The crisis in the regional press started well before the digital revolution hit the nationals. Classified advertising in local papers – cars, houses and jobs – was departing to the internet, and from the 90s consolidation and takeovers were prevalent. Although circulations began to fall, there were still profits to be made in managing decline. Local paper offices in the middle of town could be sold and replaced with ones away from the sources of urban stories; while they were at it, were all those journalists really needed?

Some publishers, however, independents with ownership passed down the generations, resisted takeover bids and continued knowing and serving their local communities. One of the most highly regarded was the CN Group, Cumbria Newspapers, based in Carlisle. Its main paid-for titles were a daily evening paper, the News and Star, and a weekly, The Cumberland News. Year after year, they won awards for their journalism. The company was owned from the late 19th century by the Burgess family. Robin, the most recent Burgess to be chief executive, ran the business from 1985 until 2016. He died in 2019.

Roger Lytollis joined CN in 1995 as a feature writer. His cumbersomely titled book is really two books in one. One is about the life of a local journalist, or more specifically Lytollis’s life as such; the other is an account of the decline and fall of Cumbria Newspapers.

Lytollis grew up in Carlisle, left school at 16, wrote some articles for the Carlisle United magazine, went to university, went to London to do a journalism course but spent most of his time in the pub or watching TV, lost his free bed in a friend’s flat, returned to Carlisle. He was 24. There was no doubt in his mind, he says, that he could make a living by writing about two things: “me and what I thought about stuff.” His book reflects that. CN gave him two days a week as a freelance feature writer and then a staff job.

He did not want to write news and considered himself a feature writer. He quotes his “old-school news editor” as regarding features as “the athlete’s foot and the dandruff of the newsroom”. Lytollis describes his relationship with the sub-editors as “usually one of barely suppressed rage”. He does not approve of photographers or readers who complain. And he loathes vox pops (stopping people on the street for a quote on some topic of the day). How did he survive?

Throughout his time at CN, the existential pressures were growing. CN launched websites and then Facebook pages for its newspapers. Lytollis at first welcomed the fact that most of the newspaper content was not put online. Why would we give our work away?” But this “print first” policy was not maintained. “To most of us this seemed a suicidal policy: give away stories one day and expect people to pay for them the next.”

The Cumberland News lost one third of its circulation in six years, the News and Star 40 per cent. “Our Facebook policy was geared towards increasing ‘engagement’ with readers. As far as I could see, this consisted largely of them telling us that we were crap. Putting a story on Facebook was throwing it to the wolves.”

A recurrent Lytollis theme is awards. He was shortlisted 11 times in 16 years in the North West Media Awards, and each time failed to win. “The idea of winning an award appealed to me far more than was healthy,” he admits. The turning point came with his 12th shortlisting. The category had changed its name from Feature Writer to Best Writer, and Lytollis won. “A trophy saying I was the best writer in the north west: maybe that would save me from the fate that faced all Newsquest feature writers.”

The most powerful, and moving, part of the book is the slow death of a quality independent local newspaper publisher. Lytollis hung in as the inevitable unfolded. Redundancies, price rises, and then, one morning in February 2018, the depleted staff were summoned to the canteen, now defunct, to be told CN was being bought by Newsquest, part of the US publisher Gannett. A few days later, Newsquest’s CEO Henry Faure Walker visited Carlisle and talked of his excitement at buying CN Group. He was asked if there would be redundancies. He said it was likely.

Within weeks, the exodus was under way. Editors, photographers, all but one of the subs were out. Three feature writers, including Lytollis, remained, but were called in and read a company statement proposing to make the feature writers and the entertainment writer redundant, retaining one in the new role of features and entertainment reporter covering the whole of Cumbria. They all decided to leave.

Newsquest said the redundancies meant the company could invest in frontline reporters central to the success of their local news brands. The editorial staff had dropped from 64 to 15. Most of those left were trainees. Lytollis was not among them.

He had been shortlisted for the North West Media Awards for the 13th time. Imagine if he won when he was about to be redundant. “But normal service resumed. I didn’t win.”