A chip on the shoulder
During a recent conference, Enterprise Nation, at the Lowry Hotel, a panel debate provoked irritation. The panel brought together various representatives of the London-based media, chaired by Matthew Gwyther, the poised editor of Management Today.
As inevitably happens in situations such as this, the subject of southern bias came up. Why weren't the London media up in our neck of the woods more often, covering our business stories in the so-called national press?
The short answer, from the business editor of the Sunday Express, was that here is no bias and anyone who thinks so "should lose the chip on the shoulder". He then went on to say he didn't care where a business was from, but as far as he was concerned, "virtually every company has a head office in London" anyway. Bias? Couldn't sum it up better myself, Mr Parsley.
That the Sunday Express is far from being the first paper to turn to for business news should mitigate the petulance of his outburst. And perhaps businesses in the regions that are still getting the hang of selling their stories effectively to the media should use it as a clarion call and get themselves in the fray.
The worst accusation you can throw at the London media is they are lazy - why spend three (or five or ten) hours on a train to get a story when you can fill your pages with the hot gossip the guy in the next office building told you? That they reflect bias in places like the City is also a problem: when London hacks sneered about the chances of Boots finding a half-decent CEO willing to move to Nottingham, they were reporting the point made by an anonymous adviser, perhaps over lunch. And with almost every story about Morrison's making a bid for Safeway inevitably referring to flat caps and whippets, can these people actually be trusted to tell our stories?
Of course, an obvious plug for the efforts we make on behalf of the region's business at Insider - and its sister publications in the Midlands and Yorkshire - can be inserted here. It's true that some London media are worse, some are better. But our research into the region's fastest-growing companies (p23) is unique, informative and indicative of the region's economy. And our cover feature on the region's games industry (p36) - a story of frustrated hopes, perhaps, rather than untainted success - also informs about the companies that continue to thrive despite the neglect of the too-powerful South East.
And it's the whole of the region that we cover, not just the urban Liverpool-Manchester-Chester triangle. Which is why we are pleased to introduce our new columnist, Steve Brauner (p13), editor of the North West Evening Mail in Barrow and a former editor of Insider. If we haven't done so already, he should get some tongues wagging. And if we keep it up, maybe the people who get a nosebleed when they leave EC2 will start listening.
Erikka Askeland, deputy editor
Michael Taylor is away.
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