Five minute’s walk from the FWD office in old London town is Devonshire Row – a narrow paved street running between Devonshire Square and Liverpool Street railway station. All along the row are small shops – cafés, barbers, an electrical retailer and a card shop. But it’s just one of these shops I want to tell you about: a small plate-glass fronted outlet roughly in the middle of the lane.  Why my interest in this shop? Because what’s happened to this small and rather ordinary retail outlet over the last year is a microcosm of how the recession has affected the City of London and its workers.

Early last year, the shop was taken over by a company called Nought260 – a retailer of upmarket new and used cars. The shop window was plastered with pictures of high performance vehicles that were perfect for the City dealers and traders who filed past daily. At their desks inside sat keen-as-mustard sales people ready to extol the virtues of the latest Ferrari or Masarati. Exactly the sort of shop one would expect to find in the heart of London’s financial district with its bonus culture and cash-rich execs.

Today, 12 months and a global economic meltdown later, the shop is now Bob’s Book Exchange – a sparsely decorated emporium where one can swap one’s dog-eared paperback and pick up something new to read on the train ride home for a couple of quid.

How’s that for a nifty way summing up all that’s happened to the City over the last year.

Written by Adrian Beeby

Even the toughest editor needs some lovin'

Attending the leaving drinks of a national journalist I know well, it struck me that I seem to have been present at quite a view of these farewell soirees recently. It’s also notable that the mood among many of the journalists I chat to is rather depressed at the moment. Of the journos attending last night’s bash, many were already ex-journos, having moved into PR or investment writing, while those still reporting muttered about the pressure they were under and their uncertain future.

Fair to say that what was once the UK’s most sought-after career is rapidly becoming a bit of a well of despondency. So why the bleak mood among our friends in the media? There are a number of reasons.

First, the impact of the recession. This is hitting advertising spend, which is the lifeblood of both consumer and business media. As a result, publishers are cutting pay, reducing the rates they pay freelancers, and making redundancies. In some cases, magazines have already folded or have gone online only. The mortgage sector has seen a swathe of closures, while last month Business Insurance Europe went the way of that great publishing house in the sky. Even the Press Gazette, the voice of British journalism, was shut down this month as economically unsustainable.

Second, the impact of online media. Google, the global search engine giant, has stolen much of the traditional media’s advertising revenue by launching its Adwords programme – and rightly so. For classified-style ads, Adwords is extremely cost effective and its impact is measurable right down to the individual click. Online news content also tends to be offered free of charge. An entire generation has grown us believing that news should be both free and on their computer. Why by a newspaper when you can read one for free on the net? Subscriptions, unsurprising, are dropping year on year with some predicting the demise of the traditional newspaper is imminent.

So perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that journalists are feeling uncharacteristically subdued right now. One journalist Sally Whittle, author of the blog Getting Ink, recently ruminated in one of her posts about whether she could, hand on heart, recommend a career in journalism anymore.

So the next time you’re scowling at some dodgy headline or moaning at inaccurate reporting, spare a thought for our down-heartened friends in the traditional media. Tory leader David Cameron came up with the idea of hugging a hoodie; maybe we should be thinking about hugging a hack. Well, maybe a metaphorical shoulder rub at least.

And remember: Superman’s alter ego Clark Kent was a journalist.

Clark never felt completely at ease in his new role as online showbiz editor

Written by Adrian Beeby