The Liverpool Press Corps used to enjoy fearsome reputation.... better known as The Liverpool Pack they were the reporters of national newspapers - aided by the local paper reporters and photographers - who all had offices and at least one reporter in the city.
The Pack is long gone and just a handful of national newspapers staff writers and photographers are now based in the North West.
It is a shame but that is the way of "progress" and with the Echo and other Trinity titles printed in Manchester, there really is very little left of Liverpool's once thriving newspaper industry. And the freelance sector, in which I earn my crust, has not really benefited as many would suggest it may. The appetite for "provincial news" in newsprint continues to wane.
The bright spot on the horizon is the web - news sites like Click Liverpool and Click Lancashire, offer alternatives to the sitting tenants of the news industry, striving to entertain readers while maintaining professional journalistic standards.
What I also find encouraging is the the net is fostering tremendous competition between public relations agencies and company marketeers to get their products and services noticed.
I tend to think social networks like Twitter and Facebook are not the place for commercial promotion or the likes of public health messages. I find those things intrusive into a "private world" and I am sure I am not alone.
So, if the sun is finally starting to set on the golden age of printed newspapers, perhaps there is a new dawn coming in which companies will fight to grab attention - hopefully through the filter of discerning journalists - on news sites. I see indications that it is starting to happen and long may it continue and grow.
I happened across an example of the kind of lengths that PR people in the USE will go to in order to promote a product. (See the picture of the giant bottle of blueberry juice.)
It is strange... what kind of mind thinks that making a giant bottle the size of a jet plane is going to hit the spot and get people talking about the product?
Maybe it is not so strange, since newspapers in the USA are rather dull and this kind of "quirky" story is much more likely to get an airing on the numerous TV stations in the States. And I suppose everything is "big" in America!
Years ago they used to say that America was 10 years ahead of the UK. In the age of the global village I suspect we are more like 10 minutes, perhaps as much as 10 weeks, behind.
It does make you think... Perhaps we can look forward to this kind of scene at Speke Airport....
Erm.... sorry.... "John Lennon International Airport" now it has been bought by a Canadian outfit.
The old Liverpool Press Pack would have dismissed it as "a stunt" and unworthy of attention unless it went wrong.
Anyway, I look forward to seeing something impressive... perhaps a giant hot air balloon in the shape of John Lennon's head floating above the city!
