Henry Porter, who trained on the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo, mourns the death of local newspapers in an article in The Observer today.
He writes: "All news starts off local. Without reporters dropping into a court case, pestering the manager of an NHS trust, sitting through an inquest or badgering the local bobbies, democracy and accountability in Britain would not be possible.
"Local news, effectively local newspapers and their websites, is essential to our society and don't let anyone tell you that the propaganda rags produced by local councils are a substitute for independent newspapers that can run campaigns, concentrate their fire on a council or simply cover the local sheepdog trials.
"The web might give you the cinema times but it won't tell you which planning official is in bed with a supermarket chain - unless that story has appeared in a paper - and it doesn't provide anything like the sense of community you find in, say, a paper like the News and Star in Carlisle."
What?
ReplyDelete"The web might give you the cinema times but it won't tell you which planning official is in bed with a supermarket chain - unless that story has appeared in a paper"
Yes it will. Local community bloggers will.
"And it doesn't provide anything like the sense of community you find in, say, a paper like the News and Star in Carlisle."
Disagree. Comment sections ferment community. Which are a lot more in depth and interactive than a 'letters' page in a newspaper.