Marc Reeves

Why 'business as usual' is a fatal response to Birmingham's riots

2011-08-24T09:23:00.002+01:00

Image by marcreeves via Flickr There have been riots in Birmingham at regular intervals throughout my life, and I’m sick of it. It's like a simmering pot that occasionally boils over, but instead of taking it off the flame, we just force the lid down ever tighter. I grew up in Handsworth and saw the impact of the 1981 riots at first hand. I reported on the 1985 Handsworth troubles as a cub

Jeremy Hunt's field of TV dreams

2011-08-23T10:20:00.002+01:00

Image via WikipediaThis was published originally on TheBusinessDesk.com on August 19. I republish it here for archhival purposes. THIS week I found myself chairing the first ‘Local TV Summit’ organised by the government as part of culture secretary Jeremy Hunt’s mission to get a TV station in every town and city in the UK. Hunt has set his DCMS civil servants a pretty ambitious goal of creating

Talk on social media to Martineau seminar

2011-07-20T12:17:00.001+01:00

Image via CrunchBase I was invited to speak this week at an event on social media organised by Birmingham law firm Martineau. This is what I said. Social media throws into exceptionally sharp relief what will be seen as the death throes of traditional media. And by traditional I’m not referring solely – if at all – to the decline of print. I’m not talking about the physical format of the

TheBusinessDesk.com really means business

2010-08-02T08:27:00.000+01:00

No apologies for this shameless plug for the web business I work for - TheBusinessDesk.com - because it's a big day for us as we launch new features which in my view take us to a whole new level. We've just added a new shares & markets channel, which for our business and financially-focused readership is a significant addition to the existing diet of company and economic news from their regions.

Speech to News:Rewired, June 2010

2010-06-26T09:09:00.000+01:00

I spoke at the News:Rewired conference on June 26, 2010. I'm still cogitating over what I heard from other speakers at this very well organised and focussed event, and will post on what I conclude later. For the time being, here's the text of my speech, which a couple of Tweeters called brutal. If that's how it came across, I'm truly sorry: I was aiming for 'passionate. I’ve three main points

Speaking truth to power: my speech to the CBI

2010-06-06T12:12:00.003+01:00

On Thursday this week (June 10), I’ve been invited to speak at the Senior Executive Lunch of the West Midlands CBI. I’ve been asked to talk about “Tomorrow’s news today - changes to regional media and what the future holds for news journalism.” It’s a well-worn theme and I’ve spoken on this at many events before, but mostly to media-dominated audiences. In front of an audience of very senior

Why the NUJ needs to get real on Bullivant

2010-04-23T09:41:00.000+01:00

The ever-credulous NUJ removed its head from the sand just long enough this week to hail Chris Bullivant as the saviour of journalism and the Robin Hood of the newspaper industry. As reported by Jon Slattery and others, NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear said: “The launch of the Birmingham Press this week is a vote of confidence in the city as a news centre where the skills of writers,

Meet the Pollyanna editor

2010-04-14T09:53:00.000+01:00

I'm an eternal optimist, but even I can't share the sunny outlook presented by this New Zealand editor, as reported by Roy Greenslade. "Newspaper companies are effectively reinventing themselves in the digital age and are now providing a compelling, integrated experience for readers and advertisers alike." That's all right, then. Read the full post here SKGNDGUK7XW4

Media mayhem in the Midlands

2010-04-09T14:47:00.002+01:00

THERE’S a lot of activity in the West Midlands medialand at the moment, much of it a microcosm of what’s going on in the sector across the UK and beyond. I wonderered, then, if I could draw any conclusions about the future shape of the media by looking at a snapshot of what’s happening now. What follows is a pretty incoherent collection of thoughts, and I apologise in advance for my

New business models for news: the Great Wild Goose Chase

2010-01-31T16:22:00.001Z

I liked Salon co-founder Scott Rosenburg's challenge to journalists. Don't start from the premise that a newsroom is there to be preserved, and then look for the business model to support it. It should be the other way round, he says, and he's dead right: "Journalists who set out on the Great Business Model Hunt are trying to figure out how to support a newsroom. This is entirely understandable.

What the collapse of the Third Reich tells us about Apple's IPad and newspapers

2010-01-31T10:25:00.000Z

This first appeared on my blog for Drum Magazine on January 30, 2010 It's clearly a somewhat inappropriate metaphor, but I can't get the image out of my head of forlorn Nazi soldiers in March 1945 waiting in vain for the Fuhrer's secret weapon to turn the course of the war and secure the destiny of the 1000-year Reich. But I can think of no clearer parallel to the desperation shown by so

Independently Funded News Consortia

2010-01-08T12:37:00.003Z

I'm delighted to have been appointed to sit on the panel to help the UK Government select the consortia to run the Independently Funded News Consortia pilots. You can read more here and here. Of course it wouldn't be at all appropriate for me to comment on the process or my involvement in it on this blog or elsewhere, so please forgive the 'radio silence' on this issue from now on.

Going the extra mile

2010-01-04T17:31:00.000Z

At a bit of a loose end at the weekend, I thought I would see if there was any mileage in an idea I'd been mulling for a while. I recently moved to Harborne, a suburb of Birmingham, and was surprised that the district was one of the few in the city without a healthy local community blog. Seeing as I've become a bit of an advocate for these kind of ground-level digital endeavours, and am very

Three things I'll miss about newspapers - and three things I won't

2010-01-01T20:34:00.000Z

This was first published on January 1, 2010 on my blog for The Drum. In my last post, I discussed why I was leaving newspapers after 25 years. I thought I'd allow myself one more nostalgic post before this blog returns to what I hope will be its main purpose - discussing what's new in the world of media from the point of view of someone who's trying to make it as an entrepreneur, digital

Paid content or community: business models for the regional press

2009-12-30T14:35:00.004Z

As an addendum to my previous post, I thought I'd publish a speech I gave at Warwick Business School in October 2009. It was part of a debate snappily titled 'Does Business News no Longer make for Good Business?' Please note I made the speech just before it was announced that the Birmingham Post was going from daily to weekly publishing, and I would be stepping down as editor. I've been asked to

Why I won't be a newspaper journalist on January 1

2009-12-24T07:06:00.002Z

This was originally published on my blog for The Drum on December 23, 2009 On New Year's Day 2010, I will for the first time in 25 years not be employed by a newspaper publisher. No-one is more surprised than me that for a quarter of a century I've made a living variously as a reporter, sub editor, deputy editor, editor, editorial director, publishing director and assistant managing director

Why the Birmingham Post must change

2009-12-16T13:02:00.003Z

This was originally posted on my Birmingham Post blog on August 25, 2009 I have just announced to my staff that Trinity Mirror was starting a consultation process with them over the future of the Birmingham Post, the title I have edited for more than three years. There are two options for change on the table - each a response to the fact that the Midlands region of Trinity Mirror will lose £6

A new era for the Birmingham Post

2009-12-16T09:38:00.006Z

This was originally published on my Birmingham Post blog on October 20, 2009 In three weeks' time, the last daily edition of the printed version of the Birmingham Post will roll off our presses in Erdington, marking the end of a publishing tradition that stretches back more than 150 years. But it also marks a rebirth, as the Post starts a new chapter in its evolution as a multimedia brand and its

When business and boffins collide at #warwickem

2009-06-04T06:32:00.005+01:00

I've been asked to chair the first event for Warwick University's Exciting Minds programme next month - and I can't wait to see what comes out of this highly intriguing event. The premise is simple: put Warwick's finest academic brains together with business innovators, light the blue touchpaper, stand back, and see what happens. It's certainly not a symposium, or a series of presentations

Twitterdads of the world unite

2009-05-31T17:42:00.001+01:00

I just love the title of an event I've been asked to speak at on June 11 at Fazeley Studios. My Dad's on Twitter ... But He Doesn't Know Why is described as a 'collaborative mindmap event', which brings to my mind the kind of freaky happenings the Pink Floyd used to hold at the UFO club a million years ago. Unfortunately, instead of Arnold Layne, you'll get me and three far better qualified