The head of editorial development for The Guardian Unlimited alerted last Thursday for the coming closure of The Herald. Neil McIntosh talked to University of Westminster students on the economic crises haunting several newspapers, the importance of blogging and his new job at The Wall Street Journal.
“The Herald is in real trouble,” he said, mentioning Emily Bell’s previous warning on the collapse of five national papers. McIntosh believes The Scotsman doesn’t have a better fate. According to the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, over the last year The Herald had a fall of 8.87 per cent to its 61,948 daily circulation, while The Scotsman dropped its distribution to 49,841, which represents a decrease of 8.35 per cent.
Asked about The Independent, McIntosh replied: "They are losing a lot of jobs and cutting costs. No one is really suspecting it will close but the sales aren't doing anything great at The Independent.” Roy Greenslade wrote recently in his Guardian blog about the “terrible financial mess” The Independent was facing: “It has also failed to attract as large an audience to its website as its rivals, mainly because its short-sighted management refused to read the runes and invest early enough in online development.”
Talking on journalism and blogging, McIntosh was emphatic: “It is a place where you can show what you can do. You can build a reputation even before having a job,” he said. However, The Guardian’s editor added that just blogging is not enough: “A blog should be carefully maintained as your CV, but more regularly updated”.
McIntosh is leaving The Guardian next month to The Wall Street Journal, part of the powerful Murdoch empire. He admits: “Quality journalism is what attracted me to work there in the first time. There is a lot of ambition there”.
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