Church and Media : The Evangelical Alliance Interviews Local Media Publisher Duncan Williams

Forum for Change Culture Footprint

Meet Duncan Williams Media Entrepreneur

Welcome to Culture Footprint, featuring one of the people of God making a difference in the world today, aiming to be an inspiring presence and telling the story of Christ in the culture. Interviewed by Marijke Hoek for the Evangelical alliance.

Duncan Williams is a Director on the board of Independent News Ltd. Buying up formerly loss making regional newspapers, fast tracking them into profit, Duncan has gained a portfolio of titles launched specifically at improving communication within local communities. He was born in Plymouth. His grandfather was a local vicar in Cornwall. He likes old creaky films (Cliffhanger Serials from the 1930s and ‘40s, George Formby or Will Hay comedies and Hammer horror films), travel, meeting new people, understanding cultures and belief systems. He has a lifelong passion for the sea and if possible would like to run his media 'empire' from a boat; "Just like a James Bond villain”, jokes his family.

As a child what did you want to be when you grew up? A Pirate or a Timelord. How did you get involved in the media? I edited my school magazine and continued to write in my spare time. I attended Launceston College , won a place at London International Film School and continued studying media or communications technology at Merton College ; London Electronics College and London University . University of Life , though, is where I got the most results... I started work as a 'runner' for Goldcrest films in Soho at £80 per week. Went on to get a slightly better paid job in advertising, writing copy and scripts.  As the press started to pioneer their digital presence I was offered a job on a national newspaper and magazine title.    I learnt how advertising funded much of modern media, built a healthy book of contacts and realised that this same funding source could be approached to invest in positive media publishing... What is the power of a good story? A good story does as it says on the tin; It reports a truthful, inspiring message. Maybe sheds a little light on some gloom...  or draws attention to somebody or something worthwhile.  The story's power lies in the fact that through its reporting it seeks to encourages more of the same... Does good news sell?  Put it this way, if you were a newspaper advertiser would you want to promote your product or service next to an article about something dark and negative or positive and uplifting? Positive wins through.  Even in reporting a tragic story the reader demands a point and purpose to the retelling. It's human nature to want a good motive to override a bad one; it's what best assists group survival. Can entrepreneurship create a better world? During this period of time, with the economy as bad as it is, real entrepreneurs are vital to the world economy. This is reflected in the huge interest shown in programmes like Dragon's Den, American Inventor, The Apprentice and now even The Young Apprentice.  Entrepreneurs have an unshakable faith in the future; they have positive ideas and inspire others.  They create jobs and are a hub for economic growth. What is your most treasured possession? My left hand.  I nearly lost it, along with all my fingers, following a gory incident some years ago. Fortunately, after a lot of surgery, the fingers were sewn back together and the mangled mitt was saved.  They are all now present and just about correct... and appreciated that much more by me! Martin Luther King Jr had a dream for society. What is yours? Often whatever society fixates upon it tends to get more of.  So by offering a more positive media I genuinely believe we get a more positive society.  When all focus is placed relentlessly upon the negative, true vision, faith and hope all get eroded. A new pair of glasses can remind people that the world can still be a very beautiful place even in the most difficult of times.  Modern media can be that powerful. What is the greatest challenge you face in media enterprise? Balancing ethics, readership sales and advertiser revenue to produce long term profitability. What do you invest in the next generation? Training, time and experience. Interns from universities such as Oxford , London and Plymouth have all been integral to bringing in new talent, helping to keep our titles fresh and current. One lucky graduate even got a placement reporting at the recent Cannes Film Festival. What is your most/least green credential? I try and walk, where practical, everywhere. In fact, as my journalists will tell you, many an editorial meeting is held 'on the hoof' with me striding from one meeting onto the next, often held streets away.    However, my least green credential is my liking for McDonald's cheese burgers, so I sometimes stop off along the way... How can the media increase wellbeing in society over the next decade? Marginalised elements of society often find it hard to access or express views in the mainstream media.  Broadly speaking there is a trade in sensationalism and death. A tragic killing gets a mass of column inches and airtime, whereas the celebration of a human life gets far less.  A birthday of a 100 year old citizen deserves as much, if not more attention, than the gleeful reporting of yet more doom and gloom.  Coverage should always aim to be personal and real.  Profiles of people should aim to help readers identify and feel a part of the story rather than apart from it.  Ten years of revised media attitudes could have a remarkably beneficial effect upon society. Tell us a joke... A local news vendor was standing on the corner with a stack of papers, yelling: "Read all about it. Fifty people swindled! Fifty people swindled!" Curious, a man walked over, bought a paper, and checked the front page. Finding nothing, the man said, "There's nothing in here about fifty people being swindled." The news vendor ignored him and went on, calling out, "Read all about it. Fifty-one people swindled!"

Capello Press conference, why Fab must STAY

A personal commentary by the sport's favourite journalist FRANK WORRALL


Have just watched Capello on SkySports News for his final Press conference in South Africa - and have changed my opinion on him...

I know I said yesterday that he should go...but nowt is set in stone, is it?

Now I believe he should STAY. He looked to me like a man who had learned many lessons - yes, he agrees we should build with young players and I am sure he will weed out the deadwood and the stirrers. He looked contrite and even humble...the great Capello humbled! Whatever next...

But the main reason he should stay (apart from those 12 million smackers which, rather than being used to pay him off could be employed to more useful benefit like opening up the national centre for excellence in Burton) is that here is a man who had a point to prove.

For the first time in a distinguished career Fabio Capello is being viewed as a FLOP. He has the ideal motive to make England great again - to salvage his own rep - so give him two years to do it.

Two years to give us a team we can be proud of. A young team playing with vibrancy, urgency and passion for the shirt.

I believe it is a win-win situation if we keep him.

You can read more Frankie Worrall at; www.FrankWorrall.com


Copyright (c) 2010, Independent News Ltd.

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Bail out Britain - all parties to the pump! - a political perspective by William Briggs

A bookmaker taking bets on what would be the main pull-quote from David Cameron’s first speech as Prime Minister would have given long odds against the phrase “This will not be a marriage of convenience” being the phrase which the media picked up and analysed at length. As inspiring opening statements by newly-elected leaders go, it doesn’t compete with minor examples of the genre such as John Major’s “I want to see us build a country that is at ease with itself”, let alone FDR’s “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”, but it does acknowledge a current political reality. After four weeks of going out of his way to “agree with Nick” while also arguing that Nick’s policies on Europe and Trident would leave Britain a defenseless backwater, the sudden agreement between Liberals and Conservatives needed to be addressed in a way which disarmed cynicism.

The coalition may last the full five years or end prematurely amid calls for a snap election and accusations from each party about the other being unfit to govern. Either way, the coalition was forced on the two parties by an inconclusive election result that gave life to the theory that the electorate, disillusioned by the political class as a whole, voted the way they did because they positively wanted a two-party government. The ‘New Politics’ which began on May 11th, intended to be open-hearted and free from sleaze, was created amid great public goodwill and will need to maintain its central spirit of cooperation to maintain it. Not, then, a marriage of convenience but certainly a settling down between two singletons who had planned to remain bachelors for a lot longer. The first soundbite of the new government also meant that the headlines in the event of the coalition breaking up could be predicted years in advance - “Cameron and Clegg: the Messy Divorce”, “Clegg - ‘I’m Leaving You. It’s Over’”, etc.

Prior to his becoming Prime Minister, the debate around David Cameron centered on what kind of Conservative he would be when he took office. (And on whether he should be addressed as ‘Dave’ to remind people how matey he is or ‘David’ to remind people that he is fifth cousin to the Queen). Now, the debate centers on how his moderate conservatism will survive during a period when future short-term diagnoses for the British economy range from double-dip recession at worst to minimal growth at best.

On becoming Party leader, Cameron was widely believed to be a simple reincarnation of the worst, shallow aspects of Tony Blair, who just happened to be leading the opposing party. The Cameron persona at the time was that of a moderately handsome, moderately viewed politician, with a history in PR (to match Blair’s schooling in amateur drama and early attempts at being a rock star), with a nice young family, and an interest in the environment somewhat anomalous for a Tory. Over the course of five years he has not yet won unconditional support or affection from the public, but a more subtle political personality has emerged, as noted by both supporters and opponents.

The Labour left, and the majority of the left-wing press, welcomed Cameron’s election as leader in 2005 as the return of the Eton-educated Toff to the top of the Tory party, assuming that, in time, simple class antagonism would turn the public against him. So far that has not happened. Cartoonists may find it impossible to portray Cameron wearing anything other than top-hat and tails but so far the attack has been largely affectionate. That situation will change if the economy collapses further and the contrast between David and Samantha Cameron’s family fortune, which the Sunday Times Rich List estimates at £30 million plus, and the income of the average voter diverges even further. But for the moment the poshest Prime Minister since Sir Alec Douglas-Home appears to be safe from a class-war backlash and even to have tapped into the some of the ancient British love for the aristocracy.

The Right-wing media have had a harder time knowing what to do with their new man in Downing Street. Right-wing columnists such as Peter Hitchens have reacted to Cameronism as the final straw that has driven them away from the party altogether. Tory romantics such as Andrew Roberts have accused him of directly ripping his shtick from Harold Macmillan, i.e. using his privileged background as a cloaking device under which to push the country further to the left. To some extent this accusation is true. 2010 saw the first deliberately moderate, One Nation, Conservative election campaign in a generation. The result of this, when added to the unpopularity of the sitting government, was very nearly a full majority. In terms of social and foreign policy, Cameron has done much toward his stated aim of ‘detoxifying the Tory brand’ and in doing so has distanced himself from the more confrontational excesses of Thatcherism. Sections of his own party have offered mild rebellion over what they see as unnecessarily progressive policies on education, gay marriage and Europe. The general idea of the natural party of government sharing power with its opponents has also provoked rumbles of discontent. Far better to go it alone with in a minority government and gain support from the Ulster Unionists and whatever parts of the opposition have enough common sense to support us, say some constituency parties and members of the 1922 Committee.

The silencing of the Liberals and the defeat of Labour has created the unusual possibility for the new Prime Minister that at first his most effective opposition will come from internal dissent. The two most notable features of Cameron’s first few weeks at Prime Minister's Questions were the body language between himself and Nick Clegg (supportive but cautious and tense, as one might expect), and questions from Conservative backbenchers enquiring whether the coalition would care to start acting like a right-wing government (repeal the Human Rights Act, reform the House of Lords, hold a ‘bonfire of the QUANGOs’ etc). Internal opposition is likely to dog Cameron in one form or another, as it does every party leader, and it is not yet entirely clear what his various self definitions (a "liberal Conservative", "not a deeply ideological person”, "a modern, compassionate conservative") actually mean in practice. But the fact remains that no other viable candidate for national leader currently exists and, for the time being, for any Conservative, or for that matter Liberal, serious about the idea of power, Cameron’s leadership is the only game in town.

Barring electoral reform re-emerging as a popular issue as it did during the election campaign, it is the state of the economy that is likely to dictate the amicability between the two coalition partners and the popularity of the government as a whole. At the time of writing, the program of tax-increases and public spending cuts, conceded as a necessity by all three main parties, is just beginning. (The term used to take the sting out of this is ‘fiscal adjustment’. Get used to hearing it.) The first sign of the new spirit of fiscal conservatism came with the announcement of the new Cabinet. As with Margaret Thatcher’s first government, Ministers keen on reductions in public spending were placed in key positions, such as Iain Duncan Smith at Work and Pensions and Liam Fox at Defence and, briefly, David Laws as Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Vince Cable’s admission, after only three days in government, that he would in fact have to go against his party’s manifesto pledge and oversee large cuts in public spending, officially because of the effect of the Greek crisis on the European economy as a whole, also acted as handy public neutering of the leading Liberal seen as having the finest mind in the government.

The fiscal adjustment process will obviously be unpleasant but, in another contrast with early Thatcherism, the government looks set to acknowledge the potential pain they will cause. Chancellor George Osborne has set out £6.2bn of cuts on what he calls "wasteful spending"; there will also be £20bn cut in welfare and pensions over the next five years and a public sector pay freeze for those earning more than £18’000 a year which is likely to extend into 2011. Amongst the talks of painful cuts and rises in VAT to pay off spiraling national debt, the Coalition has also signaled that it will be interventionist where necessary. The earliest sign of this was the announcement that a £20 million grant awarded by the previous government to Nissan’s Sunderland plant to develop the next generation of electric cars will still be honored The early weeks of the coalition also saw the unusual sight of Conservative ministers talking about the need for government to stimulate industry and manufacturing. This may prove to be a simple political gimmick. No British politician has spoken in favour of denuding the manufacturing base but plenty have done so. It will be interesting to see what the promise amounts to, particularly in the North East and North West, traditionally anti-Conservative areas where the need for manufacturing jobs is great but support for the new government is low.

Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition, meanwhile, are determined to engage in a civilized post-defeat, leadership election which will be a “chance to help shape Britain’s progressive future” according to interim Leader Harriet Harman. Four former cabinet ministers - Ed Balls, Andy Burnham and David & Ed Miliband - and one feisty backbencher - Diane Abbott - will fight for the future of the people’s party over the course of a fifteen week contest. Historically, the script for Labour leadership races consisted of a series of dirty tricks and deep ideological divides, conducted in confrontational and public way which scared many voters away from the party for a generation. Post-New Labour, lessons appear to have been learnt about keeping rows private and, so far, the atmosphere between the candidates has been competitive but collegial. The central question of the process will be how the party can reposition itself against a Coalition which now occupies much of the ground between the centre-right and centre-left of British politics. It remains to be seen whether or not for Labour 2010, like 1992, could be considered a good election to have lost, thus avoiding being in power during an inevitable period of government unpopularity. According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, outgoing Chancellor Alistair Darling's prediction of 3% economic growth for 2010 were wildly optimistic and minimal or negative growth for the year is a real possibility. Far better to have created that situation than to have to deal with it. The ultimate irony, the electorate returning to Labour because the new government cannot deal with the mess that Brown and co. created, may be the best hope they have of avoiding an extended period in the wilderness.



Copyright (c) 2010, Independent News Ltd.

From the darker side of Grub Street to the lighter side of positive publishing: Profile of a Media Career...

Duncan Williams, tabloid dirt digger turned positive media guru : An article by Liz Hunter for theMediaNet.org

Duncan Williams has seen the very worst of the media world. Working as a tabloid ‘dirt-digger’ in the late 90s he spent his days seeking out celebrity stories in a culture where bribery, blackmail and stealing rubbish was the norm. Even born again Christian Jonathan Aitken once phoned to call him "a lying, underhanded s++t!." Now, though, Duncan owns his own ethical publishing company with a keen vision of building up struggling local and regional titles, and helping them to keep giving a voice to communities who are often drowned out in the noise of globalisation. He deliberately employs a proportion of ex-offenders and those recovering from addiction - and insists on a strongly positive editorial policy. In a nightmare market, the company is going from strength to strength. So how did he get from one to the other?

Duncan’s first contact with the media was through editing his school magazine, which he quickly renamed Bronco after a notorious brand of toilet roll. Writing gave him and his rebellious school friends a chance to let off steam, and he was hooked. At age 17 he moved from the West Country to London to attend film school, and went on to have a career in new media and film advertising throughout the 90s boom years. It was a destructive environment, with a heavy drinking culture, but even then Duncan says “writing was really a form of prayer, a way of getting in touch with my real myself when I couldn’t always express things well verbally".

A move into print at the end of the decade proved lucrative - whilst selling advertising for a series of high profile London magazine titles, Duncan realised that the real money was in sensationalist news and set himself up as a freelance investigator for all the major tabloids.

Kept on retainer, he would be given a brief by an editor and set about finding, or creating, a story about them. One well read middle England title, he recalls, would particularly like tittle tattle about society women and would pay very handsomely for insider gossip. It’s wasn’t just journalists that are paid by the papers - behind the staff whose names appear on by-lines there is a huge network of contacts receiving a monthly fee for feeding in stories, from celebrities’ close 'friends' to hairdressers and even doctors. It was not unusual to see suitcases of cash changing hands. Duncan had regular dealings with ‘Benji the Binman’ who made his fortune hunting for scandal in rubbish, and would also employ covert surveillance. Even if all that failed it didn’t mean the story was dead. “I clearly remember one day seeing a front cover of renown Sunday tabloid, a story about Robbie Williams, and knowing that 90% of it was distorted from fact, because I had engineered most of these embellishments. Robbie went on to sue and win a large out of court settlement, but most of the time, for the papers, it was worth it”. As several recent revelations about tabloid reporting practice confirm, he doesn’t think much has changed.

"Today, one rewarding amend for me, " says Duncan. " Is that I am able to commission the very celebrity targets of my past life to write positive pieces for my own publications. Obviously, celebrities have feelings too... and fortunately forgiveness is often one of them!"

Duncan says that there was no blinding light epiphany for him, just a realisation over several years that his life had “bottomed out”. He sought help with his heavy drinking and excessive lifestyle, and became a committed Catholic Christian. Not long after he made the decision to use all the money he had made to set up his own independent news company. With the support of some old tabloid colleagues, angel investors and some big hearted celebrities, this step forward seems to have worked out.

Duncan thinks it’s the most exciting time to be in papers, and that the laments over the death of journalism are misguided. Change is inevitable, but not disastrous, and can be a chance for good. There are huge opportunities for those who want to be influential people of integrity. He was able to buy shares in several large media companies after the price had dropped by 90% last year and is now on the board of five of these; “There are huge opportunities for those who want to be influential people of integrity. The digital revolution will eventually provide far more readers for local titles once they’ve embraced new platforms; Things like Kindle and the iPad provide an amazing way to get positive, ethical stories out there, and we’re showing that there is an audience for it.”

The titles owned by Duncan, and his group of positive independent news companies, are trying to make a stand against the “propaganda of negativity” that he thinks so shapes our thinking. Like many of us, and even having seen the very darkest side to the media, he passionately believes it can be a force for good.