A chill wind blows through local reporting

An interesting debate today, amid the snow and ice at Westminster, about the demise of local newspapers.

The bad weather has hugely boosted interest in local news, with South Today hitting a fifteen year record number of viewers last week. Local radio lists of school closures and traffic reports became essential listening, with BBC Berkshire, Oxford and Solent performing a vital role.

But local newspapers are under threat because of the internet. When people can get their news free through Google why would they pay to buy a paper? And with falling readership advertising has slid from £2.8 billion to £2 billion per year.

The result is a loss of a vital local conversation. The debate heard how local court reporting is disappearing - replaced by syndicated celebrity tittle-tattle. Properly balanced and researched accounts of council debates are being replaced by propaganda free-sheets funded by local taxpayers.

The Isle Of Wight Conservative MP Andrew Turner praised local reporting, the established weekly County Press, as well as sharp new competition from new media who work to professional standards like Ventnor Blog.

But he drew attention in the debate to the way that other local newspapers are owned.

Multi-national conglomerates have bought up what were once small local enterprises.
As a result the meagre monthly advertising budgets of local traders aren't re-invested in the community, boosing a sense of place, but syphoned off for shareholders' dividends.

Oxfordshire's Ed Vaizey is another Tory drawing up plans for a better way to run the local press. They'd like to see the Government's plans for local news news consortia to produce ITV regional news taken forward across the country.

But to do that they'll have to prove that people will pay for good quality local news, even when there's no local weather story to drag the readers in.

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