An editor has backed a rival newspaper’s criticism of the “unfair competition” posed by their local council’s fortnightly newsletter.
As HTFP reported last week, Hackney Citizen founder Keith Magnum has hit out at Hackney Council, claiming the authority was taking away advertising revenues from the local press.
In an open letter to Hackney Mayor Philip Glanville, he said the council’s fortnightly newsletter Hackney Today was making paying for local journalism more difficult.
The government has since announced that it was considering direct action to force the council, along with two other London boroughs, to limit the newsletter to quarterly publication.
The monthly Citizen has now received the backing of Ramzy Alwakeel, pictured above left, who edits Archant weekly the Hackney Gazette.
He told the Citizen: “I hope Hackney Council agrees with me that the existence of a free press is an indispensable asset to public life in Hackney.
“I believe the best way for the town hall to communicate with the people who live here is by working with papers like the Gazette and the Citizen, not competing with them.”
Keith added: “We do not believe that Hackney Council wants to kill off the local press. I take Mayor Philip Glanville at his word when he said on Twitter that he does not believe Hackney Today seeks to compete commercially with us.
“But whether it seeks to do so or not, and what the mayor believes, is irrelevant – this is the effect.”
Mr Glanville has previously defended the council’s policy, arguing it would lose between £100,000 and £150,000 if it did not sell display advertising for the newsletter.
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Interesting. Quite the reverse of this situation exists on my old stomping ground of Hartlepool.
The Hartlepool Mail has all but airbrushed the local council out of its news agenda. This wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the fact that the local council is a totally dysfunctional organisation that huge numbers of the public have lost faith in. The council has featured regularly in Private Eye’s ‘Rotten Boroughs’ but rarely gets coverage in the local rag.
A good example of this was a crown court trial that concluded last week which resulted in a Labour councillor being jailed for stealing charity money. The coverage by The Mail was risible. They failed to even mention in the report that she was a Labour councillor.
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Fair play to the council for producing the newsletter and for keeping tax payers costs down with the advertising. In my view the editor should stick to what he does best and he may sell more papers! No doubt the newspaper is run for commercial gain and the council with public funds… you simply cannot make this rubbish up.
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Harry Blackwood, if local councils fill the voids left by newspapers, who can blame them?
Papers I’ve worked on are shadows of their former selves, thanks to the tactics used by the big bosses more intent on raising their salaries and putting money in the hands of banks and shareholders (mostly banks). Journalism and content that readers were used to and often need is bypassed.
If council’s are doing that job, then why do editors constantly complain? When a local council in a patch covered by one of my former papers in the 1980s introduced listings, for example, we threw everything at our own offer. It wasn’t long before the council scaled back and we kept the advertisers.
But then again, where are all the journalists going to work if council press offices and papers can’t expand?
Certainly not where they should be.
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saddened journo and jim are correct and i go back to my comment last week with regards to local newspapers being ineffective in reaching the communities theyre aiming at as to no longer be the best way for councils or local busienssss to reach local people
If copy sales or readerships were stonger,local coluncils would not have a void to fill,with copy sales on the floor and worsening,editors and owners can bang on as much as they like about unfair trading,competiton and ruining the local press but the faults are of their own making.Lack of quality in the newsrooms due to huge staff reductions,a reliance on readers to supply their own content,coupled with the way people now access news has killed the local press and their complacency in beliveing it to be a passing threat plus their failure to react and invest have brought about the situation the regional press find themselves in.
Councils producing their own news letters wouldnt have an opportunity to do so if the local papers themselves provided a comprehensive news service to the people they are supposed to serve.
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Do you have a choice whether you pay your council tax money for the Council to “decide” they will run a propaganda sheet? Free and independent news is just that and I am very sorry if you labour under the misapprehension it is getting “support” from advertisers for any other reason than they want to be seen a “good light” by the local authority. Never forget it is the Council who encourage that support themselves in their mixed role of enforcement officers and cash cows for all kinds of facilities. The CIoJ made a real stand about this many years ago because it is blatantly unfair competition and how can local newspapers take on more journalists to investigate better stories – including local authority fraud – if they don’t get any local authority advertising and can’t compete for external advertising?
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Liz
Believe me the last thing advertsyeds want is to be ”seen in a good light’by local councils,most hold them in contempt so maybe you should go and seek their views before psssing judgement on what you believe to be their views,
The reason all advertise anywhere these days is to get response,with so few local papers being sold and so few people seeing copies the days of a local weekly being taken seriously as the leading light in the community are long gone,
As for ” …how can local newspapers take on more journalists to investigate better stories..”
It’s nothing to do with ad revenue from councils,its all to do with lack of investment in the print side of the business and greed by the owners believing they can do the same job with less staff.
And when you refer to local papers not getting local authority advertising you really are out of touch , local councils no longer advertise because they are no longer obliged to, previously all had to advertise i their local paper so were held to ransom over costs with an arrogant and monopolistic stance from the local papers of ‘take it or leave it’ knowing full well they had to ‘take it’ as they had no choice.
Now the shackles are off they too are using alternate and more effective mediums in which to promote themselves and teach their audienceand unsurprisingly it’s not in the local rag.
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Well said, South side Johnnie.
Liz, you pay your council tax to be able use council services and to be kept informed about them. Unfortunately, keeping local people informed, especially about council issues, is not something which regional newspapers seem to be able to do as well as they once did. How many council meetings does your local paper cover?
What’s more, the attitude that these are simply ‘propaganda sheets’ (aka ‘town hall Pravdas) is quite ridiculous. Yes, there will be a political steer on the content but the same goes for most newspapers in the land. Red tops, blue tops and, yes, the regionals too, all have a political bias whether they are actively aware of it or not.
Journalists and the public have a right to be aware of ‘local authority fraud’ wherever it happens and people should be held accountable. However, your tone almost suggests that every action a council takes is fraudulent in some way. It’s not and you can’t blame them for trying to promote their ‘good news’ stories in any way possible.
I reckon you’d be fairly hard-pressed to find a ‘good news’ council story anywhere near the front of a local paper or prominently displayed on its website. Quite frankly, it’s a shame for communities that many local newspapers only want to uncover and publish a scandal. It’s vitally important that they do but striking that balance with information which actually helps residents is rarely seen any more.
Finally, let’s be realistic. My local paper sold 35,000 copies a day when I started. It now sells 13,000 a week! You can’t say it’s the same proposition that it once was for readers, advertisers or local organisations. The fact is, council newsletters are more symptomatic of the ailing local press rather than the cause.
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South side,employee x and Oliver have nailed it
Liz you really are way off the mark and need to understand the reality of the situation and more background to why the regional press is in the state it’s in and why and how councils are publishing their own newsletters.then if you have awareness of the business world we live in you will know that no local business can afford to pay hard earned advertising money just to curry favour particularly with a council, when the majority I speak to have no regard for but recognise and appreciate their ability to reach their potential customers as opposed to the local paper who reaches so few.
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Good to see all the points of view aired and some pats on the back. I clearly know nothing as I was a trainee and then qualified reporter on a local and regional newspaper and now work on the community side and for a professional body part-time who has hundreds of other regional reporters – and some national ones – who seem to feel quite strongly that spending mandatory council tax on propaganda sheets is not a useful way forward. Yes of course there are other economic pressures on newspapers, not least the social media, but I am still out there are fighting for journalists and supporting two editors who have first hand experience of the point I am making.
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Liz, we all want newspapers to do well, to increase the number of journalists working on titles, to increase advertising revenue and sales in print and numbers online.
But the reality is the industry chiefs in charge of the newspaper groups are working against this. It has nothing to down with Town Hall Pravdas.
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“But whether it seeks to do so or not, and what the mayor believes, is irrelevant – this is the effect.”
PROOF?
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