The importance of a free enquiring press can never be over-stated. Yet up to half of the 1,300 local newspapers in the UK could be closed in five years' time. The Chief Executives of Trinity Mirror and Johnston Press both insist that it is the worst crisis they have ever faced, but the government is refusing to accept there is a problem.
Redundancies are already occurring and with fewer journalists on local papers and in broadcast newsrooms there are fewer reports from the courts, council chambers and other decision making arenas meaning less scrutiny of those who take decisions that affect our lives. In future there will be fewer investigations of local institutions, charities, companies and individuals active in a local area. Less will be known of those who seek public office or support for developments.
Many daily newspapers are being turned into weeklies or merged with other titles to cut costs. Some are closing down altogether. Whereas in the past there were professionally trained journalists building links and working within their communities exposing the actions of elected officials, employees, the police, and breaking stories to the public, much of what now appears in the press has been churned from a press release without a conversation with anyone.
The big challenge facing local media is competition from other forms of media, especially online advertising. Google use a targeted advertising model to poach large and small advertisers from regional newspapers. This obviously reduces the revenue of local media. We too are changing how we buy goods and services by using exchanges that can be based anywhere rather than local businesses.
On the other side of the slate we have the blogosphere, but often this is just the opinion of a writer rather than a news story researched and verified. Rarely does a blog break a story, but for every story broken by a newspaper there will be countless blogs commentating on it.
Local television is also disappearing. ITV, originally a consortium of companies based in the regions, is now having to ditch its local news in a bid to save money.
Should Government intervene to support local media and local journalism? Or should we just sit back and make do with a diet of largely anonymous opinions being passed off as facts? The question I would ask is who gains from the demise of local media. Those in control of decisions, or those subject to them?
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