Technology: Press cuttings under threat

Jon Lonsdale, MD of tech specialist Octopus, said clippings agencies had to evolve or they would die out: 'Clients don't want to pay a premium for a service they can do themselves in a couple of minutes.'

However, Shereen Qadri, UK director of Press Index, said the Google News service was 'addressing archiving and back-searching, so that's nothing to do with real-time news'.

Karmran Sepehri, MD of The Press Cutting Agency, acknowledged the Google threat, but argued that his clients preferred physical press cuttings to virtual ones.