When 80-year-old Derrick Jones was beaten black and blue by a mugger who ran off with his bus pass and hearing aid, he was left shocked and shaking.
But he was brave enough to have his picture taken by the South Wales Argus to help police trace witnesses who might be able to help them find and arrest his attacker.
The resulting splash in the Newport daily on Friday 6 May sent a shiver down the spine of mum-of-three Mandy Santini, who immediately started planning a fundraising event to raise funds for the former steelworker. 
Miss Santini was moved by the fact that the mugging was the second time in a week Mr Jones had been robbed – the first time losing hundreds of pounds and an expensive watch.
“I read the story in the Argus,” she said in a page seven follow up on Wednesday 11 May, “and I felt I had to do something about it. My grandfather is 85 this weekend and it struck a nerve with me.
“Obviously I can’t catch who did it, but perhaps this will restore a bit of faith for him.”
The reader’s response is a fine example of the way local newspapers can bring people together, reflecting incidents that would otherwise go unreported and therefore largely unnoticed.
I was pleased to see this detailed concentration on crime and the way it affects victims running throughout the Argus:
· ‘Payback time for man’s criminal lifestyle’ was the picture lead on page four of the May 6 edition, telling how a local fraudster had been ordered to pay £20,000 after a Proceeds of Crimes Act prosecution;
· ‘Carer turned thief is jailed for 12 months’ was the picture lead on page five of the same paper, this time detailing a man’s eleven offences against vulnerable people in Newport; and
· ‘Fraudster faces assets hearing’ was the lead with headshot on page eight, reporting police plans to recover money stolen from a local charity by its treasurer, who had been jailed earlier in the week.
Some commentators may moan that local papers concentrate too much on crime, but when done well, with snatch or custody pictures of criminals and thorough reports on the lives they have wrecked, not many stories make such compelling reads.
And who else would go into as much detail if it wasn’t the local newspaper?
There were, of course, other subjects in the Argus on both of the above-mentioned days, with planning, transport, politics, education and charity stories all taking leads in the news pages.
All of them concentrated on local issues, places and named individuals, and I felt that several challenged the powers-that-be over changes planned rather than regurgitating press releases.
But it was the detailed reportage of crime and courts that caught my attention, like the 18-paragraphs devoted to the controversial inquest on page three of the 11 May paper.
‘Jail lax as killing accused took his own life’ was the sort of story that would have soaked up at least a day if not several in terms of scarce reporter resource.
Yet only by having someone there to take down the factual evidence and precise quotes could the Argus have ran such a critical headline and intro.
On Friday 6 May, there were 111 stories on 17 news pages, plus several reviews, previews and multiple listings on 10 pages of TV and ‘Venue’ features, and 30+ reports on eight sports pages. The entire book was 56 pages if you included the 12-page motors section.
Edited by Gerry Keighley since the mid-1990s – surely one of longest-serving daily editors – the Argus sold an average of 23,738 a day in last six months of 2010, down 5.2 pc on 2009 according to the latest ABCs.
The Newsquest-owned South Wales Argus was first published in 1892, and was an evening paper printed in Newport itself until March 2008.
It is now an overnight paper printed in Worcester, although it also boasts an online audience that has grown to 183,000 unique users on its website.
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Good points, Steve. Long live the local and regional press!
Mike Morrissey, Middlesbrough
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