Honorary Visiting Professor Mike Sassi to deliver live Business Leaders Lecture

Published: 03/05/2022

Mike will delve into the current and future state of local media to question whether Britain can really level-up without addressing local news first.

The event takes place on Tuesday 10 May 2022 between 5pm – 7pm in Lecture Theatre 5 of the Newton Building. Book your place now.

There are more journalists in Britain than at any point in the last seven years. But all over the country, local newsrooms are closing.

The lecture will explore the impact of local news moving online, as the traditional local newspaper business model collapses and publication of original, local news stories diminishes.

Mike looks to the future of local news to examine whether it can be made commercially viable again. The lecture concludes by looking at shrinking traditional local newsrooms and the problems faced by local news start-ups. He asks: If Government Ministers are serious about their “levelling-up” agenda should they not start with local media.

Mike has had a 34-year career in local media, editing three regional daily newspapers and their websites and spending two decades leading big teams of newsroom journalists. He is a former Editor and Publisher of the Nottingham Post and Nottinghamshire Live.

For ten years Mike was a member of the Editors’ Code of Practice Committee, writing and updating the rules enforced by press regulator the Independent Press Standards Organisation. He now edits a national network of local news websites, as Editorial Director of start-up company Nub News.

In Mike’s role as Honorary Visiting Professor, he has produced 18 episodes of the Nottingham Business School Business Leaders Podcast, interviewing experienced business leaders who are also part of the NTU network.