BBC plan for local reporting might damage local groups, says news executive

Last week we published a post by Ian Carter describing the difficulties local newspaper groups face in competition with both the BBC and social media. In the light of today’s announcement by Tony Hall about a plan for the BBC to appoint 100 local media reporters to “provide impartial reporting on councils and public services”, we asked Ian Carter for a first impression of the BBC’s proposals:

It's an interesting proposal, but it raises many questions.

How would the BBC decide who has access to any such pot of content? And how would the timings work? For instance, would others be able to access the material before the BBC itself had published it?

This is certainly what some people in the local publishing industry have been calling for.

However, it's not necessarily a win-win situation for an independent publisher like us. We have continued to invest in our journalism and we still cover local councils extensively. Potentially, this could actually damage those who have continued to invest by giving other publishers access to the same kind of material at no cost.

I suspect the BBC will also have to overcome its own internal politics to ensure its local newsrooms are fully signed up to the idea.

We are looking forward to hearing more details about how such an initiative would work in practice.