Regional publisher Northcliffe Media has confirmed it has exited a Press Association service designed to provide regional newspapers with coverage of Westminster.
As first revealed by HTFP earlier this month, PA is scrapping its Lobby Extra service which covers Parliament for ten regional daily and weekly titles.
It has now emerged that PA wielded the axe after two major regional publishers announced they were pulling out of the service.
Northcliffe Media has confirmed that its daily titles the Bristol Post and Western Daily Press have stopped their subscription to Lobby Extra, while it is understood that Trinity Mirror’s North West Daily Post and Liverpool Post are also due to pull out shortly.
The moves followed a number of other cancellations by titles that previously received the service, including The Argus, Brighton, the Oxford Mail, the Carlisle News and Star and the Swindon Advertiser.
However six daily titles representing four different regional publishing groups continue to receive the service.
The remaining six are the Belfast Telegraph, the Northern Echo, the Southern Daily Echo, the Bradford Telegraph and Argus, the North West Evening Mail and the Oldham Evening Chronicle.
Some of these titles are understood to be highly supportive of the Lobby Extra service and keen to keep it going in some form.
A cross-party group of MPs has criticised the decision to axe the service, claiming it would “serve to increase the perceived remoteness of this House from the constituents that it serves.”
It has so far been signed by 12 MPs including four from the Belfast Telegraph’s patch and three from the area covered by the Bradford T&A.
The Press Association previously issued a statement saying: “We have announced a consultation process in respect to our ‘Lobby extra’ service – which is a tailored service for specific newspapers.
“No decisions have been made and we have no further comment to add at this stage.”
A spokeswoman for Northcliffe Media said: “I can confirm that the subscription stopped as a cost saving measure.”
Trinity Mirror has so far declined to comment.
Sign up for our free daily email bulletin
Follow HTFP on Twitter
Got a story? Email the Editor at
Great opportunity if any of teh Lobby extra journos have a bit of entrepreneurial spirit.
Report this comment
A spokeswoman for Northcliffe Media said: “I can confirm that the subscription stopped as a cost saving measure.”
And they wonder why the circulation of regional newspapers is going down like the proverbial lead balloon. I can understand that the cost of keeping your own lobby staff is prohibitive in the current climate, but to cut the readers off from what their MPs are doing is just ridiculous.
No doubt the service will be replaced by press releases from the aforementioned MPs neatly slotted into the templated page.
Report this comment
“No doubt the service will be replaced by press releases from the aforementioned MPs neatly slotted into the templated page.”
Well said, Lobby Bobby. MPs’ staff have pre-written press releases on hand every time they utter a word in Parliament these days. Local papers gobble them up, scrutiny goes out the window.
Report this comment