Dr. Stuart Wilks-Heeg, executive director, Democratic Audit, in letter to MediaGuardian: “As cuts begin to bite hard, there will be a loss of journalistic expertise, closure of local titles, and mounting pressure placed on journalists who manage to retain their jobs. The quality and quantity of reporting on local public services will decline, as will the scope to hold councils and other bodies to account.”
Johann Hari in The Independent: "As the thud of falling newspapers echoes across the Atlantic, we can't afford to dawdle. Good newspapers – for all their flaws and selective vision – are the sinews of representative government. In 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote: "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter." Unless we act now, fast, we may be left with the opposite: a government, but no newspapers left to monitor them. "
Ian Jack in The Guardian: "Other than the people who work for them, who could really care if the Daily Star and the Sunday People vanished tomorrow? The Hexham Courant, the Buteman, the Whitehaven News: in terms of their social and democratic importance, not to mention the beauty of their mastheads, these papers are worth a thousand of them."
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