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Weekly publishes 2,000-word tirade against itself on website

A weekly newspaper has published a 2,000-word rant on its website in which a reader accuses its own staff of political bias.

The West Briton, based in Truro, was accused by reader T. Harold Graham of showing favouritism towards the political right and campaigning against calls for a Cornish Assembly.

Mr Graham ended his 2,124-word tirade by calling on readers to boycott the paper, claiming that posters with a “pro-Cornish” point of view are banned from commenting if they “step out of line”.

The Local World-owned title took the decision to publish the letter in full on its site after a meeting between editor Jacqui Walls, news editor Jeff Reines and digitial editor David Thomas.

 

West Briton rant

Explaining the decision to publish the letter, David said: “He’s put a lot of effort into this and it was only fair to give him a chance to have his say.

“It’s always very easy to dismiss these things but we’d though we’d let him share his viewpoint.”

Responding to the accusations of political bias made in the letter, he added: “That couldn’t be further from the truth as far as we’re concerned.

“It accuses us of being biased against the Cornish which, as a newspaper in the heart of Cornwall, would be bizarre and a very strange direction to take.

“There is no political line taken by ourselves and we don’t support any particular political party or group.”

The letter’s publication has attracted more than 60 comments on the West Briton’s website.

David also admitted the paper may consider publishing letters with a similar level of criticism in the futre.

He said: “If we got exactly the same letter again I don’t think we’d publish it but it’s not something we’d say no to immediately.

“We’re here and we’re reporting on all aspects of different things some people wouldn’t want to see, so if some people write in and say things we don’t like it seems unfair to not let them have their say.”

The letter and comments can be read in full here.

40 comments

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  • October 20, 2014 at 7:47 am
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    Bananas decision…until you see the efforts then made by West Briton bosses to get this viewed online – Local World WILL be pleased with those lovely hits!

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  • October 20, 2014 at 8:09 am
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    Is the West Briton twinned with the Derby Telegraph? #justasking

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  • October 20, 2014 at 8:15 am
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    Mr Graham writes: “The current cost of the thing is £1.10 and once you have shaken out the advertising sections, cars and estate agents, you are left with about ten pence worth of real news and that picked up second or third hand from the internet.”

    Isn’t this a fair summary of many regional newspapers?

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  • October 20, 2014 at 8:16 am
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    Tweeted by all and sundry, Facebook pump primed, journos chattering, Ed’s profile heightened, web stats up, local MD pleased, elevated in league table by London bosses. Tick, move on.

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  • October 20, 2014 at 8:48 am
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    What’s left is about 10 pence worth of local news….in common with most punter/reader/ranters, this guy has a pretty warped idea of value-for-money.

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  • October 20, 2014 at 9:01 am
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    Maybe not in this case, but many of us in the trade have come across an editor who has given favourite MPs or local politicians free plugs without responses or even watered down stories critical of them. I know staff on one paper protested so strongly it was stopped. Not sure how justified this particular rant was though.

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  • October 20, 2014 at 9:07 am
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    Well done Digi Dave for taking the stand on this one, but where was the Editor to defend this whacky decision? In Penzance? Out to lunch? Crowdfunding? Away on Government business….?

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  • October 20, 2014 at 9:14 am
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    Pretty insightful lot these West Briton bosses, if you ask me….

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  • October 20, 2014 at 9:18 am
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    I stopped reading the West Briton 4 months ago, for many of the reasons outlined by the readers who commented on this story. It has become a shadow of its former self and, in my opinion, lacks direction, attention to detail and a sense of engagement with its audience. If I need any news from the area I will occasionally dip into their website and search for what I need. Once I have negotiated my way past the pop-up ads, that it.

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  • October 20, 2014 at 9:22 am
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    I think the editor has done a magnificent job since she took over.

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  • October 20, 2014 at 9:27 am
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    Old Chinese proverb say appearances of newspaper editors on public forums, intranets, social media, trade websites and newsletters is normally directly linked to the attention to detail they are actually giving to the quality and news content of their publication. See Paul Dacre.

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  • October 20, 2014 at 9:28 am
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    Agree with you Glee….great paper, great editor – but website could do with the reintroduction of some old fashioned skillsets pretty darn quick!

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  • October 20, 2014 at 9:31 am
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    Sheesh. This is probably the most short-sighted attempt yet to drive up worthless hits so they can temporarily climb the LW daily chart, whilst ignoring the long-term damage to the title’s reputation.
    Any notion that they are doing this in the spirit of transparency and fairness, rather than blindly chasing traffic, is demolished when you see the desperate levels they’ve gone to in order to get people clicking onto the story, Loads of ‘look at us’ tweets to Press Gazette, Guardian, htfp etc. Grow up and find some stories!

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  • October 20, 2014 at 10:09 am
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    Any news on whether the Cornishman will be doing likewise?

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  • October 20, 2014 at 10:10 am
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    Loving your work WB!

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  • October 20, 2014 at 10:33 am
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    Again, somewhere not a million miles from Derry Street an executive management team nods sagely and tells themselves that with activities like this going on, they are right to think they really don’t need the inconvenience of free-thinking, strong editors….

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  • October 20, 2014 at 11:04 am
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    And we laughed when Local World implied that they could successfully use ‘citizen journalists’ to fill their papers. Local World? Different Planet!

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  • October 20, 2014 at 11:18 am
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    Strange thing to do. Disagree with the comments above £1.10 is good value for paper, compare it to a daily costing 55-65p, plenty to read. I don’t work for them before you ask.

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  • October 20, 2014 at 11:23 am
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    Good grief; happy readers NOT! Be very interested to see the West Briton’s ABC performance when Local World next deign to play ball and release them. Might this unhappiness be reflected in purchasing behaviour?

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  • October 20, 2014 at 11:32 am
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    Perhaps when Lisa ‘Red Adair’ Templeton has sorted the Western Morning News on Sunday she can turn her attentions to the West Briton?

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  • October 20, 2014 at 11:57 am
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    When I was an Editor these kind of missives were ten a penny every week. Some colleagues used to term them the ‘green ink brigade’ – perhaps today they are ‘the green keyboard’ brigade. Every time one landed I thought, perhaps for ten seconds, it might be a good idea to publish them. Then, I thought of what it might do for our brand and the Pandora’s Box it might then open. And….important this….I thought of what publication might mean for the contributor themselves. And, so, I never published. Despite the advances in web interaction, social media engagement and customer care practices, has the position changed any? Ask yourself, would Barclays Bank, Williams F1 or Tesco have acted in this manner? No.

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  • October 20, 2014 at 11:59 am
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    Why would you open yourself up to criticism if you do not allow negative comments? And the smart move is not to edit a diatrible as most sane people will get bored and not bother to read on…..

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  • October 20, 2014 at 12:25 pm
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    A newspaper “in the heart of Cornwall”….and registered offshore by its ultimate patent company.

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  • October 20, 2014 at 12:27 pm
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    Who on earth will be bothered to plough through it? Is anybody apart from the author really that interested? Keeps the writer off their backs for a while though. Easy way out.

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  • October 20, 2014 at 12:34 pm
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    ….a newspaper company which states it is “at the heart of Cornwall” and yet has a head office in Kensington, an MD based in Plymouth, is printed in Oxfordshire and has an Editor who hails from Devon. Yep, at the heart of Cornwall all right.

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  • October 20, 2014 at 12:57 pm
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    Frankly, if they’d any guts they would have printed an edited version in the actual paper. Very easy to just throw this up online and, as previous correspondents have said, gets hits any which way. That’s the real currency in Loco World these days. I see their websites are trampling all over poor old Lynda Bellingham’s demise this morning with no local link whatsoever. Classy.

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  • October 20, 2014 at 1:54 pm
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    I stopped reading it during my freelance days! Commissioned to cover an ‘old style’ committal involving a major crime gang, I spent the whole day at court for them on what was supposedly agreed rate.
    Restrictions not lifted, so facts only.
    One whole day- they paid 21 lines at 0.9p per line = 19p!!!
    Cue complaints and pathetic excuses and refusal to pay at other end before I eventually told them their need was obviously greater than mine. I never cashed the cheque, signed by two people, and still have it!

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  • October 20, 2014 at 2:29 pm
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    I don’t see it is wrong to publish a letter knocking the paper. Quite honest.
    Unfortunately an editor is supposed to EDIT and 2,000 words on this subject is about 1,800 words too many, to be generous. A green trainee would have realised this.
    Plus fact it is of NO interest at this length to anyone but the writer and the, er, editor.

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  • October 20, 2014 at 2:32 pm
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    Peter Greenslade, St Agnes: “lacks direction, attention to detail and a sense of engagement with its audience”.
    Well said! However, this is nothing new, and has been going on ever since local newspapers started to rely on graduate trainees who can certainly put a sentence together, but have absolutely no sense of belonging to the audience for whom they write.

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  • October 20, 2014 at 2:57 pm
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    Nice to be popular! Any chance we can count all these HTFP page views towards our targets this week? *winks*

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  • October 20, 2014 at 3:11 pm
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    I’m a regular visitor to Cornwall on holiday and as an ex-newspaper man myself I always take a keen interest in the papers. What I don’t understand is the clear disaprity between the sister titles published by Local World down there. The West Briton is a poor shadow of what I remember it as in the 1990s and yet the Cornish Guardian continues to be a fabulous newsy paper with great features and design. And a Sports section to die for as well!

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  • October 20, 2014 at 3:21 pm
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    Nice to see someone with an axe to grind (again) creates made-up quotes from those of us still working on the newspaper.

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  • October 20, 2014 at 3:23 pm
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    Where do I send my similar rant about The Cornishman?

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  • October 20, 2014 at 3:25 pm
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    Great decision. Brave, honest, fronting up, ground-breaking and attracting headlines. But, enough of our Facebook poll of readers…stop trying to steal my thunder Jacqui!

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  • October 20, 2014 at 3:28 pm
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    “Hello there…..I wonder if you could help me, I got your number from Yellow Pages. Do you stock the out of print book Insightful And Pertinent Critiques Of Dull Newspapers by T. Harold Graham?”

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  • October 20, 2014 at 7:35 pm
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    I learned on my first paper that bias is in the eye of the beholder. It published letters from the main parties’ candidates in a parliamentary election together, each accusing the paper of bias in favour of the others.
    It made them look very stupid.

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  • November 8, 2014 at 2:17 pm
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    How would a person start reading this inside an RSS reader along with other blogs? My brother found your site about Ask. com. I was impressed with this weblog.

    http://noooo.com

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