Triumph for news that's fit to print

Those who sniffed when the Telegraph bought that pirate Westminster disc seem to have contracted swine flu and retired to a darkened bedroom with Speaker Martin. Simply, it's been a bit of blast, material skilfully excavated, honed and projected: every day a new target and a new range of dodgy MP dealings hit square on. So bully for editor Will Lewis, three cheers for the Barclays' chequebook and one extra hurrah for Tony Gallagher, the paper's news supremo, who could just be edging further up the queue to be next editor of the Daily Mail

But there's also a more profound point here. Could the Telegraph, or any other paper, have scored anything like this impact by using its (very successful) website alone? How much do big headlines on paper still count? You only have to ask the question to see the residual value of presses thundering on.

The paper paid cash for a mountain of raw information on disc. All of that could be put online in an instant, the full murky Monty.

If the information had been released in July, as slyly intended, its sheer critical mass, spread across many newspapers, would have worn out a welcome after two days maximum. The Mirror could have highlighted Tory moats and chandeliers; the Express could have torn into Luton MPs living in Southampton. No-score draws and incipient exhaustion all round.

But because 10 or 11 pages of print, carefully aimed, moved the story on selectively, offering something fresh for TV (and competing papers) to chase after at the end of every Newsnight, so the same tale and the selfsame disc seemed inexhaustibly shocking as Paxman's lip curled time and again.

Impact - and sales - come from media interplay, not going it alone. Newspaper exclusives take off when TV the night before gets excited because the Daily Whatsitsname has got a scoop. Blogs - take the Damian McBride fiasco - need press and television for glory in the second phase. TV investigations by themselves can't hit the spot if the press sits on its hands. And the net, by itself, is a back-up medium when a deluge of Commons sleaze starts falling.

You want loads of detail and piles of archive stuff? You can forage around websites pretty fruitfully and sound off in a spate of furious blogs. But It's not one or the other. Just everything and the kitchen sink - with print (93,000 copies up on day one, and maintaining clear gains through the week) bringing in the money that justifies the investment in the first place and helps pay for the big team of reporters who made it all possible. A flipping virtuous circle, in short: something wiping away the grime here and now, day by day, when journalism and every available medium matter.

BBC reduces its Euro vision

The BBC can't get rid of 88.5 news reporters quietly; getting rid of reporters isn't exactly licence fee lore. But there goes the full-time staff posting to Paris (replaced by a contract stringer), and there goes more manpower in Moscow, Brussels and eastern Europe.

A funny old start to the European election season, you may think. Who will report what the new batch of MEPs have to say when they get to Strasbourg? Who'll have the weight to replace Mark Mardell as he departs to be North American editor? And isn't it just a little odd to see coverage going where the website and television sales imperatives point: to the US in particular?

The point of the licence fee is that it underpins necessary coverage of a necessary world: the union we belong to. At least give us back that 0.5 of a reporter.

Licensing a web money-maker

Just because Rupert Murdoch, says something is about to happen doesn't mean it will. So after a pretty twittery week, for Fleet Street concentrate on the reality of making punters pay to read newspapers on the net. You can do it if you've got exclusive specialist content (Mr M's Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times). You can mix and match what's automatically available and what requires a few euros on top (like Le Monde). You can wax enthusiastic about micro-payments as you flick from web page to page with a cash register chinking out there in cyberspace (like the Journal last week).

But when the paper is, say, the Times, surrounded by £52m in red ink, then obeying the word of Rupert gets much, much harder - not to say totally intractable while the BBC continues to put out much the same service for free.

Except that BBC websites aren't free. They cost £151m a year, a fat sum carved out of the £142. 50p you'll pay to turn your TV on this year. And the corporation, in its macro might, puts micro wheezes to flight. To stand a chance, any answer has to be big (like the BBC).

Suppose papers that belong to the NPA (Fleet Street's trade association) got together and charged a flat annual fee to people flitting from one news site to the next. Suppose members of the Newspaper Society - those struggling local papers - did the same for all news in the sticks. Put that cash, collected by broadband server, into two pots. Dish it out at the end of the year geared to the number of site hits recorded. And, under the great umbrella where one fee covers all, let individual papers introduce what extras they wish.

In short, meet the dire web competition by not tearing each other to pieces as usual.

Standard needs more than sunny side up

Sorry, but let's trudge to the glum march of history. In April 1969, the London Evening Standard sold 591,311 copies a day, and the London Evening News 1.1m. In 1984, with the News dead, it sold 490,138. Last month it had slithered to 263,312, of which 120,553 copies were handed out free. It's in the same basket as almost every big city evening paper, stuck with changing work patterns, distribution nightmares, 24-hour news channels as well as the net and, in London's case, a million or so competitors slopping around free.

All of which sets the context for Alexander Lebedev's hopefully improved Standard (editor Geordie Greig). Yes, it's more colourful, with a lighter design feel and a generally sunnier disposition. Yes, it seems to enjoy serving London, to be able to come up with bright features ideas. Yes, there's a palpable zest and ambition on display for as long as Lebedev's roubles last.

Does that mean it can shrug off the death march of history? Will everything depend on whether Geordie or his Associated predecessor wins a war of increasingly sour words? It shouldn't, because Veronica Wadley toiled valiantly in the chair and the Mail group gave her Standard its best shot. Turning all that around will take more than a grin, especially with the Mail and London Lite still wielding sharp elbows in the atrium they share with the Standard.

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