A former journalist and a former newspaper editor have joined together to create a play about the problems facing today’s press in an era of social media.
Susan Wear, a journalist for 12 years and currently Director of Corporate Affairs at the Port of Tyne, and Rob Lawson, who was an evening newspaper editor for 16 years, editing both the Shields Gazette and the Sunderland Echo, are the authors of Five Dead No Bodies which will be performed at the Customs House in South Shields from 15 to 18 February.
Their play is about the fictional evening newspaper The Tyneside Times, which is struggling to retain its circulation and relevancy in the era of social media. The editor is passionate about the vital role local newspapers play in communities and will do almost anything to keep the paper afloat.
“The editor believes in good old-fashioned, honest news reporting and as the new fast-moving digital media blurs the line between fact and fiction, it drives him mad,” said Wear. “Not only is his newspaper dying, but nobody seems to care about the truth any more as the Internet takes over. The play reminds us that we really are in danger of losing our local newspapers, and we won’t know what we’ve lost until they’re gone.”
Wear was nominated for North East Writer of the Year in the Journal Culture Awards for her play The Duke in the Cupboard which played at the Customs House in October 2015.
Lawson said, “local papers have been at the heart of communities for generations and, although they may not be seen in the same way that they once were, they still play an important role in calling people and companies to account—and they can still serve as community champions.
“The role of an editor changed hugely between me starting to edit the Gazette in 1997 and leaving the Echo in 2012, and I know things have moved on again since then. Social media has changed the landscape for papers, but the news they produce and the questions they ask are as relevant now as they were generations ago, no matter what channels the news is delivered by.
“Young reporters coming into the profession now need far more skills than I did when I started in the late 1980s, and we try to reflect the changing nature of newsrooms through the characters in the play.”
The play, described as a “comic murder mystery”, will be directed by Scott Young, co-Artistic Director of OddManOut Theatre Company in Darlington.