The closure of the London editorial office of the Scottish newspaper the Sunday Post earlier this month, marked the end of an era, as the last two journalists working in Fleet Street, Gavin Sherriff and Darryl Smith, bade farewell to a place that has long been synonymous with the newspaper and printing industries. The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, Rector of St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street, is de facto chaplain to the British media. In this column she reflects on the role of the press in society.

It was a story that began in the year 1500, when William Caxton’s apprentice, Wynkyn de Worde, relocated his printing press to a site adjacent to St Bride’s Church. Other presses followed suit, and Fleet Street swiftly became the hub of the printing industry in the city. St Bride’s remained at the heart of this development, exercising a distinctive ministry, initially as the Printers’ Church.

In 1702, the first British daily national newspaper, the Daily Courant was launched in Fleet Street; other newspapers were then founded here, and, as the industry developed and broadened over time, so the ministry of St Bride’s evolved in tandem, providing pastoral care and support to journalists as well as printers.

The turbulent days of the Wapping dispute in the 1980s, and the radical changes in technology and working practices that accompanied it, marked the beginning of the end of the old Fleet Street days: one by one, the newspapers moved away, culminating in the departure of Gavin and Darryl on 5 August 2016. Yet, interestingly enough, the ministry of St Bride’s to the media industry remains as active and significant as ever: these days it extends to newspaper proprietors, journalists, photographers, and those working in film and television, social media and for on-line publications.

This is, in part, because the challenges faced by those working within the industry have never been greater. Journalists are under more pressure than ever before: increasing numbers of reporters are working freelance, without the job security or support of a news organisation behind them; and the instantaneous nature of communications in the digital era can make the sheer pace of work hard to manage: as one seasoned political journalist observed to me recently, contrary to all his professional training and instincts, finding sufficient time to check his sources adequately was starting to feel like a luxury rather than a requirement.

For those reporters working in conflict zones the stakes are even higher. The days in which the word “PRESS” on the back of a flak jacket could offer a reporter a measure of protection from gunfire are long gone: today it is more likely to single out the wearer as a target. One of the most significant occasions in the St Bride’s calendar is the annual Journalists’ Commemorative Service. In November 2010 the foreign correspondent Marie Colvin spoke at this event. Fifteen months later she was herself killed in Syria.

The Journalists’ altar at St Bride’s features memorials to journalists who have lost their lives during the course of their work: James Foley, Steven Sotloff, and Kenji Goto, beheaded in Syria, are all commemorated, alongside those murdered in the Charlie Hebdo massacre. In addition, candles are lit each day for the journalist John Cantlie, held hostage in Syria since 2012. The journalistic community is global and inclusive: in 2015, St Bride’s hosted a memorial service for Ammar al Shahbander: an Iraqi Muslim working for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting, who was killed by a car bomb explosion in Baghdad (ironically on the eve of World Press Freedom day).

We need journalists; we need good journalists; and we need to celebrate good journalism. Although the reputation of some sections of the British press has been tarnished in recent years, the need for quality reporting and good investigative journalism, which can give a voice to the voiceless, and tell stories that would otherwise remain untold, has never been more urgent – particularly as press freedom is curtailed in so many parts of the world.

The departure of the last two journalists from Fleet Street on Friday 5 August comes at a time when one of the most exciting, positive and creative developments in the history of communications – the advent of on-line journalism – is rendering the future of print journalism increasingly uncertain. That is a fact of journalistic life. However, one of its more worrying side-effects can all too easily be overlooked. Because not only have we become accustomed to news that is instantly accessible; there is a rising expectation, particularly amongst a generation that has known little else, that news should also be available free of charge. And that is where we enter murky waters.

Because the need for “slow journalism”: the kind of extensive and detailed investigative journalism that can take months to undertake, remains essential to the quality of our press reporting. A case in point would be the exhaustive and time-consuming research which exposed the appalling child abuse scandal in Rotherham, involving as many as 1,400 victims.

That story would never have seen the light of day, had it not been for the readiness of a newspaper editor to grant the journalist Andrew Norfolk, whose painstaking research uncovered that horrific reality, both the time and the resources to make it possible. And that kind of journalism does not come cheap. Nor will advertising revenue alone (which, in any case, can introduce an agenda of its own) provide the solution. Good journalism is a very costly business – but at its best it is worth every single penny.