Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre highlighted the plight of the local press suffering "swingeing cuts" when he appeared before the Leveson inquiry yesterday and said regional journalists were often paid a "pittance".
Dacre claimed there were several illuminating paradoxes in the current furore over the press.
He told the inquiry: "Paradox number one is that the political class's current obsession with clamping down on the press is contiguous with the depressing fact that the newspaper industry is in a sick financial state.
"Several of our quality papers are losing awesome amounts of money. More worrying, Britain's proud provincial and local press – currently subject to closures, mergers and swingeing cuts – is arguably facing the severest challenges.
"This diminishes our democracy. Courts go uncovered. Councils aren't held to account. And the corrupt go unchallenged. That is a democratic deficit that in itself is worthy of an inquiry."
He added: "I'd also today like to persuade you that there are thousands of decent journalists in Britain who don't hack phones, don't bribe policemen and who work long anti-social hours for modest recompense – and if they're in the regional press often for a pittance – because they passionately believe that their papers give voice to the voiceless and expose the misdeeds of the rich, the powerful and the pompous."
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