Save the Salford Advertiser?
Some alarming rumours buzzing around that the Salford Advertiser is to cease free home deliveries. Salford Youth council announced the news on its website. Salford Online latched onto the story and so did a number of others. So far local Advertiser journalist Pamela Walsh has been quick to quash this story, however it’s now being reported on the North West media site How-To as well. Salford Youth Council have a copy of the page announcing the end of deliveries, dated last week. I’ve gone back to my copy and can’t see this announcement at all – very odd indeed. Was it sent in error to some homes? Was my copy missing a cover sheet? Is delivery being stopped in certain parts of the city and, if so, which parts?
Just what is going on with the Guardian Media group (who have no press releases to the effect on its website)? People will start to say that there’s no smoke without fire and wonder if a crisis nearly erupted and now is being suppressed. However, I’m sure what local residents will want to know is, after the Advertiser’s campaign to save Hope’s maternity services, do we now need a campaign to save the Salford Advertiser?
10:22 am on January 26th, 2010
They have stopped delivering to our house since before Christmas. It is very sad if it is true.
3:56 pm on January 26th, 2010
Steve,
We didn’t “latch on to” the story. We asked Pamela Welsh what the situation was (via Twitter) and she provided us with an email address to ask for comment from MEN Media. We have received no response to date. We have not published any article or story on this on SalfordOnline.com.
5:22 pm on January 26th, 2010
Shockingly lazy journalistic sensationalism on my part. I hope you’ll forgive.
12:05 am on January 27th, 2010
Yeah, sorry for the pointed reply, just have to be careful with media relations these days.
2:31 am on January 28th, 2010
Steve, you’re article is fact-of-the-matter and not sensationalist in the slightest. People have a right to ask questions.
Tom, didn’t Pamela Welsh (probably under orders from above?) warn you directly via Twitter not to cover it? See the How-two website for the statement from the M.E.N. At least some people have not bowed down to pressure and have had the courage and to have gone through other channels to investigate for themselves – mostly because they care about their local newspapers, not because rivals wish to revel their demise or anything like that.
It is clear the reports by How-to and Salford Youth Council (and now the Salford Star with details of which postcode areas are affected) were not “complete nonsense”.
8:57 pm on January 30th, 2010
It seems the situation is that GMG/MEN are halting some free deliveries of the Salford Advertiser, notably in the M3/M4/M5/M7 postcode areas and only readers in those areas received the “flyer insert” informing them that their free deliveries were ending.
The Advertiser/GMG/MEN have been surprisingly vague – but then who can blame them, it’s hardly good PR!
Incidently, some Prestwich Advertiser readers are reporting the same problem – so this may be a wider “reorganisation” of the paper’s delivery areas across the North West.
4:12 pm on February 28th, 2010
I for 1 did not receive the flyer but I have not received the Advertiser since 26/1 although friends 2 roads either side of mine & the road at the bottom end of mine are still receiving them. People in my road are not aware of this & the allocated shop that we can pay 30p for it is 10 mins walk away.
I contacted the Advertiser through email & was told ‘TOUGH’ more or less. I have also written to the readers letter page but to date my letter has not been published but then I didn’t expect it to as it would not have been good publicity for the Advertiser.
I shouldn’t think that firms that advertise will be very happy about the situation either.
9:31 am on March 1st, 2010
No – it’s a sad state of affairs, and it looks like the staff were kept in the dark too. I guess we’re all hoping that the possibility that we may be coming out of recession (I’m hoping but not taking the chancellor’s word just yet), together with the change in ownership of the paper, may yet result in things getting a little better for the Advertiser and its readers. My understanding is that distribution was cut to areas where the there was least return for advertisers for their expenditure – must be because we’re all counting the pennies at the moment.