Charles on… anything that comes along

Last week I went to the leaving party for a number of old - well, long-time - friends who were leaving The Independent on its first, and perhaps last, voluntary redundancy scheme. In all eight of them were going, representing more than 60 years’ cumulative experience working on the paper; quite a few had been there longer than 10 years. The people who were going included Barrie Clement (whose name the subs could never get right: he appeared as Barry or Barrie, Clement or Clements, in random variations) whose carefully fostered contacts gave him the exclusive of Jo Moore’s “good day to bury bad news” email of September 11 (scoop of the year, 2001), and Terry Kirby, who wrote about corruption in the West Midlands crime squad. Reporters like that don’t grow on trees.

The payoffs were massive - as in six-figure massive. The leaving pages - versions of the front page of the paper, with daft stories spoofing the person leaving - went on and on. (One departee, Louise Jury, has neatly swerved into a job at the Evening Standard, which has to be some sort of salute-worthy achievement.)

Long faces among those remaining. Understandably. Losing those people means writing a cheque and waving goodbye to people who know exactly how to find out things that matter, who have the experience of working on a national paper for years. It means that when something big breaks such as, oh, the end of a year-long terrorist trial, your ability to write in-depth, sensible, point-out-the-failings coverage is severely limited. “I saw the newslist today and it only had three names on. They were writing everything,” one person said to me.

Another said to me “What’s the difference between working at the Indie and the Guardian, then?”

“Two things,” I replied. “More people and more money.”

Things weren’t helped when the editor, Simon Kelner, made his opening remarks. “I was walking around the newsroom this week thinking, blimey, people are still here after 6 o’clock, and writing away! They must have loads of exclusives! Then I looked, and discovered they’re all writing leaving pages!”

Ouch. Ever heard people wince audibly? I did. Then he added to it, describing something as being “as confusing as one of Steve Connor’s [multi-award winning science editor] splashes [front-page leads].” Good thing Steve wasn’t there to hear that, I think.

The problems with the paper were neatly summed up by Jason Bennetto, who had been there from, I think, the start. He unravelled a list of “things I won’t miss about working at The Independent” and “things I will miss”.

“Things I won’t miss,” he said. “1. Using Lotus Notes.” (God yes. See, it’s not just me.) “2. Having my exclusive story knocked off the front page by a picture of a butterfly.” There were plenty more, but those were the key ones. And things he’d miss? The people he worked with, and “Working on a breaking news story.”

Not long after I joined in 1995, the Indie had a summer redundancy sweep which was short and vicious. People complained then that the staffing was being cut to the bone. Well, in those days there were two health correspondents, a social services correspondent, a science writer, technology writer, another science writer, religious affairs writer, transport writer, labour writer, environment writer.. and they were all different people. Now there’s a health writer, science writer, environment writer. Nobody’s doing religion, technology, transport, labour. It’s not just cut to the bone; it’s down to the heart and lungs, kept going in some sort of vat with the brain possibly attached.

There were lots of brave words about how the paper will go on and how it has something special. But the reality is that even though many of the people still working there turned up, they were pretty much outnumbered by those who used to work and had come along to wave off old - dammit - long-time friends. There were the long-departed news editors, transport writers, science/technology writers (ahem), and if you included The Departed themselves then surely more than half of those present were not employed by the paper they’d come to wave at.

One has to wonder quite what the Indie’s purpose in life now is. It’s got the smallest circulation and smallest staff. It can hire new people - hell, its cost base has been cut back by hundreds of thousands of pounds - but is new blood actually what is needed? Or a new brain? One wonders if the time for new blood didn’t pass a while ago, some time after the Iraq invasion was declared “won”, meaning that the tide of anti-war sentiment that The Indie had risen on receded like a wave on the beach and left the paper gasping like a fish left among the flotsam.

Now, to mangle the metaphor, it’s a beachcomber ambling across the sands, darting from one shiny thing to the next, never sure where it wants to go, if anywhere. There is an environmental agenda, sure, driven by Mike McCarthy [a good friend, whom I sat beside for many years], but where else is the Indie sticking up for things? It’s trying to co-opt bank charges, sure, and then there was packaging; but this proves the point. It’s beachcombing, looking for any little thing to hold to the light and say “See? Isn’t it fascinating?” True, that is the way of all news media, but you can generally detect some sort of philosophy behind it if you watch for long enough. The Indie can’t keep covering all the things in depth that you need to for a national agenda; relying on the Press Association feed is hardly a replacement for specialists. Except what the specialists write doesn’t matter; it’s all about the latest gew-gaw on Sky News, BBC 24, and so on.

When did the Indie last break a story that got followed by the rest of the media? The Times had the 1997 budget and the pension advice; the Guardian had the cash-for-honours detail the BBC was banned from broadcasting; the FT had the accusations about “Stalinist” Gordon Brown. The Telegraph had Michael Grade’s move. All found by specialists beavering away inside their specialisms.

And it’s about to get worse too. This month the Indie’s news editor, Danny Groom, who came from the Observer in 2003, is heading off to the Daily Mail to edit (or news edit? It wasn’t clear) its website. That’s quite a statement by the Mail. I think Danny will thrive (and be amazed at the reousrce available) once he’s got over the amazement of passing stuff and seeing it appear at once.

Meanwhile the Indie will hire in some more people (one hopes) and they’ll try to figure it all out. Accidental link: if you want to read what it feels like for a junior reporter trying to work out where the institutional memory all went, see Meranda’s blog; she’s just started working at a paper in Lafayette, Indiana (no, it’s nothing to do with the Indie). Read her post, and how it feels coming in:

The reporter who covered my beat was gone before I even interviewed. Every contact I’ve made has been my own. I spend a great deal of time scanning our archives looking for these bits before heading to meetings or off to interviews. I don’t think anyone realizes how badly I want to have that knowledge. I just don’t — yet.

I really want to know. And I need someone to teach me, or more specificly, to be patient when I ask what comes across as a dumb question but that I legitimately need to know.

It’s hard to realize, or I guess the better word is remember, that I am not just new to this community. I’m new to this beat, and I’m new to doing this on a daily basis. I’ve been here three and a half months, which seems both like a long time and also like just a blip in the scheme of things.

The point is in one of her closing paragraphs:

The problem is, the industry is also letting those keepers of institutional knowledge, who’ve been at it as long as I’ve been alive, go in record numbers. The LA Times and the Chicago Tribune are laying off or letting go (or whatever their PR-speak is) hundreds of people, to add to the thousands who’ve already left nearly every other paper. Those are the people who know how events tie together, how year flows into year. They know to perk their ears up when they hear a certain name. They can brief a new comer like me on why something matters without having to search the (hard to navigate) archive for every trivial matter.

The Indie lost its memory the other week. When it happens to a person, you call it amnesia; if it becomes part of how they are, you might make worse diagnoses, and wonder if they’re long for this world. I wonder too.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Gorkana catches my attention: Roy Greenslade leaving Guardian.. (4 October 2005; score: 44.13%)
• Ouch.. that's gotta hurt: departing reporter calls Telegraph execs "Gollums" (17 November 2007; score: 38.06%)
• Ken Livingstone not exactly going gentle into, well, anything (14 July 2008; score: 37.16%)