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Union demands national inquiry into state of local news

nujlogoThe National Union of Journalists is demanding a “short, sharp, national inquiry” into the state of local news as part of a new campaign.

The NUJ has announced the launch of Local News Matters Week, which will begin on 24 March.

As part of the campaign, the union also aims to help local newspapers become community assets in order to give potential new owners, including local co-operatives, the time to put together bids for titles faced with closure.

The week will feature a series of conferences and activities each day around the UK, which the NUJ says will involve journalists from all parts of the local media.

A statement  on the union’s website reads: “Local newspapers, websites and associated apps are read by 40 million people a week and they enjoy a high level of trust from their readers.

“Local journalists are breaking important stories, many with a national significance, and they provide vital and entertaining local information as well as doing their utmost to ensure democratic scrutiny, accountability and encourage an active citizenship.

“Local democracy depends on voters having sufficient information to make decisions. Local businesses depend on advertising, features and reviews for their livelihood.

“Local people depend on having a watchdog which is on their side.”

3 comments

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  • January 27, 2017 at 7:52 am
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    Do they really need a focus week to debate and understand what went wrong with the local press in this country?
    I can save them lots of time and effort
    Greed by the publishers and failure to adapt and progress with a changed news medium and audience.

    New hyper local publishers will come along to fill a gap in the market left by the traditional local news provider if they believe they can provide a news and advertising service and make it profitable, they don’t need an inquiry or debate to tell them, just support, encouragement and financial relief to enable them to do so

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  • January 27, 2017 at 1:43 pm
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    The problem with new hyper local publishers is that, while they may fill a gap in the market, they do not usually have the resource to investigate fully or challenge with authority those areas which a more robust local press could shoulder.
    Also, they have to be more wary than bigger operators about upsetting their local advertisers.
    While I agree with Archie that greed and failure to adapt led to the demise of the local press, we will have a serious democratic deficit if there’s no-one there to “ensure democratic scrutiny, accountability and encourage an active citizenship”.

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  • January 28, 2017 at 5:59 am
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    Fully agree with Archie and also citizens point around the accountability issue however with the clear focus by the larger groups on chasing revenues and copy sales due to huge and out of control overheads, where once the priority was to produce the best local news people would want to buy to read, now it’s all about revenue: attracting and keeping them.
    The larger publishers are no longer best placed any longer to ‘ publish and be damned’ for fear of upsetting the local apple cart and causing fall out by local advertisers,
    It needs a truly independent body unburdened by commercial considerations to fulfil this role (the BBC ?) and that’s no longer the local regional publisher, large or small.

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