Beyond the Press Awards
After the champagne corks have popped there is a far more important issue for the future of newspapers, writes Ray Snoddy
There’s something for everyone in the latest Press Awards nominations. Dozens to chose from in no less than 39 different categories: a year in the life of the national newspapers distilled according to merit with some papers trumpeting more than 30 nominations.
From innovation to technology, the environment and diversity to travel, design, showbiz, cartoons and photography. There really is an award category for almost everybody, although as yet there is no Veteran Journalist of the Year to counterbalance the very prestigious Young Journalist of the Year award.
Scars of ancient battles can be seen in the separate categories for pop and broadsheet interviews and scoops of the year. Without the fenced off tabloid walls how can a judge possibly, with any degree of fairness, adjudicate between the work of The Observer on Cambridge Analytica, and the Daily Mirror’s “TV Star Jamie in Spitting Storm.”
Some stories, but very few, manage to operate plausibly on both sides of the culture wall-stories such as “Megan’s Dad Staged Photos.”
Yet one of the most interesting linguistic red lines involve some of the most important categories of all.
How fixed are the differences between scoop, investigation and campaign of the year. Not very at least as far as the nominations are concerned.
Is it a question of time scale. A scoop is a short, sharp hit while an investigation needs patience, obvious commitment and a long memory.
The Guardian’s work on the Windrush scandal looks like a very effective campaign for justice looking back over decades but it’s up for both scoop and investigation of the year. The Times is trying to cross the same barrier with its work on Oxfam workers paying for sex in Haiti.
With the Oscars a single film can sometimes clear the entire shelf.
The press awards seem much more equitable with the gongs spread around the tables.
For what it’s worth the Financial Times should get at least an honourable mention for that most un-FTish of all stories, its exposure of something that has existed in plain view for many years: the sleazy happenings at the President’s Club (now no longer with us).
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For weight and influence The Guardian and the Observer should be slugging it out with Windrush and Cambridge Analytica for top dog – whatever the category is called.
But after the champagne corks have popped there is a far more important issue here for the future of newspapers than awards.
One of the ways forward has to be about campaigning in the public interest in ways that can be communicated. Mobilising the public to make things happen for the good of society that can also enhance the general impact and reputation of newspapers.
Not too many people outside the industry know about, or care, about press awards. Drop the name Cambridge Analytica in any bar outside Westminster, or perhaps Islington, and you are unlikely to get too much informed engagement about issues of online data protection.
The Daily Mail has managed to cut through with a number of well chosen public campaigns that may never win journalistic awards but are hugely beneficial for society. The paper persuaded many thousands of its readers to volunteer to provide back-up support to the staff of the NHS. It was able to bring individuals together in a common cause in a way that leaflets in local libraries or even online postings could scarcely match.
The same paper has persuaded thousands of readers to spend time clearing plastic from beaches and campaigned against single plastic use.
It could even claim “victory” in its campaign to “Turn the Tide on Plastic” by claiming that Environment Secretary Michael Gove has been persuaded to boost recycling by introducing deposit return schemes for plastic containers, cans and glass containers. More than 37,000 have also signed up for its Great British Spring Clean around the same time as the UK is scheduled to depart the European Union.
There are some who would argue that the Daily Mail could have done a far better job in informing its readers of the rather predictable consequences of arguing so vociferously for Brexit. But that would be a rather perfectionist argument and the paper may yet have some explaining to do by the end of next month.
We must recognise merit wherever it is to be found and the battle against unnecessary plastic is one of those campaigns.
By curious coincidence another Brexit-supporting national, the Daily Telegraph has been playing a blinder in trying to curb the worst excesses of the social media giants.
Sustained pressure from the Telegraph, with the help of other newspapers, has apparently persuaded the head of Facebook-owned Instagram, Adam Mosseri, that it did indeed have a duty of care to protect children from self-harm and suicide-promoting material.
In a key admission in an exclusive Telegraph interview Mosseri said that the company had spent 10 years focusing on the good that flows from connecting people while neglecting the risks.
Of course Health Secretary Matt Hancock has had a role to play as has the indefatigable Damian Collins with his latest report but in this case it was the Daily Telegraph wot done it.
Maybe there is even a case for a 40th category in the Press Awards – for public achievement and that could be the most important award of all, for newspapers and society whether you call it a scoop, an investigation or a campaign.