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Council bosses to advise journalists on content of paper

Two council leaders have been given roles on a new advisory panel set up to help a newly-relaunched weekly newspaper stick to its principles.

Kent on Sunday was relaunched this weekend with a magazine-style front page and more emphasis on in-depth reporting and features.

Part of the relaunch saw the Archant-owned title adopt a set of what it called “guiding principles,” including seeking to celebrate as well as criticise, championing causes important to the wellbeing of the county, and having “an easily understood division between news, comment and advertising.”

The paper has set up a seven-person advisory panel to let it know how far it is keeping up to those aims as well as make suggestions as to future content.

Publisher Simon Irwin said:  “Once we set out our guiding principles, we felt it was a good idea to invite some leading, independently-minded, figures in the county to tell us whether or not they thought we were sticking to them.

“While advising us on our principles, we felt it would be valuable to hear direct from these opinion formers about what issues they felt we should look at in future papers. Obviously these suggestions will be purely advisory but we will consider all of them very seriously.

“We plan to meet the panel face to face at a group meeting once a quarter but we are, of course, open to any individual advice they care to offer us.

“At the same time as setting up the panel we have asked our readers to let us know when they think we are not living up to our principles. We plan to publish the principles in every issue.”

The panel includes the leader Kent County Council, Paul Carter, and the leader of Medway Council, Rodney Chambers.

Other members include the Police and Crime Commissioner for Kent, Ann Barnes, Bishop of Dover the Rt Rev Trevor Wilmott, and representatives of the Chamber of Commerce, the County Agricultural Society and tourism body Visit Kent.

This weekend’s relaunch follows a wholesale redesign by an in-house team, led by chief sub Dave Hobday, with a fresh layout and changed typography.

New features include a picture-led front page, a new-look contents page, revamped arts, food and drink pages and a ‘big story’ feature spread.

The paper, which distributed free, has a print run of more than 40,000 and pagination varies between 56 and 96 pages each week.

Editor Chris Britcher said it was the biggest revamp of the paper, which celebrated its 11th anniversary earlier this month, for many years.

The new-look Kent on Sunday which was unveiled this weekend

He said: “Kent is such a vibrant county. We believe this new, improved look will provide us with a platform to showcase just what it is like to live and work here.

“We are all very excited by the new approach we are taking as we believe it will deliver even greater value to our readers and loyal advertisers.”

Added Simon: “Kent on Sunday is different. It is the only paper that covers the whole of the county. We are distributed in every postcode in Kent.

“We are the only weekend paper in Kent. No other newspaper does what we do. As such, we felt that we should stand out from the crowd more and this new paper does just that.

“We showed dummies of the new paper to existing and prospective advertisers and got an overwhelmingly positive response.

“This weekend, the readers got their chance to pass their verdict. We await the results with interest but, obviously we hope they like it.”

The old KoS front page which has now been replaced by a magazine-style design

30 comments

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  • September 24, 2013 at 7:43 am
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    What a pious and preposterous way to run a ‘newspaper.’ A local newspaper exists to hold the establishment to account – not invite representatives of it to ‘advise on its principles.’ It’s all far too cosy – and a threat to local democracy.

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  • September 24, 2013 at 8:57 am
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    As a Kent journalist, I can assure you Paul Carter won’t be offering anything resembling independent-minded advice.
    That’s not a criticism of Cllr Carter – he’s a politician, and having a political agenda goes with the territory.
    It certainly is a criticism of KOS though – whilst some journalists are fighting to stave of the threat of state interference in the media, here we have one group actually ushering it in. Mind-boggling.
    Oh, and is the panel member Ann Barnes the same Ann Barnes who got a bit of – ahem- negative press over her youth commissioner Paris Brown’s tweets. It certainly is!

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  • September 24, 2013 at 9:33 am
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    So a group of privileged and influential people are to have even more privilege and influence?

    At a time when politicians and institutions like the police have never been held in lower esteem, what do you think KoS readers are going to make of this?

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  • September 24, 2013 at 9:40 am
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    Next step: Ask criminals to write court reports? Perhaps WRI reports leading the pages?

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  • September 24, 2013 at 9:44 am
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    April 1? More like the End of Days…!
    Staggering!!
    What happens come the first: “No. I don’t want that in….!”?

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  • September 24, 2013 at 10:01 am
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    This is unbelievable. It would be bad enough if this kind of thing was foisted on an unwilling media by those politicians and celebrities trying their best to destroy a free press in this country.

    For people to not only accept this kind of thing but to apparently have suggested it defies belief.

    No-one prepared to enter into an arrangement of this kind can call themselves a journalist.

    I agree with the previous quote that no politician worth his or her salt is going to be independent-minded. They have their job to do and so does the media. In the latter case it is holding these people – whether politicians, bishops or businessmen – to account.

    Oops. Sorry. I didn’t read the story carefully enough. It is, after all, a free sheet.

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  • September 24, 2013 at 10:39 am
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    What a load of ********. A panel to make sure the “newspaper” sticks to its principle! Why bother having an editor then?
    This is clearly is yet another sign of disparate publishers doing disparate things to survive.

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  • September 24, 2013 at 11:00 am
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    There is one reason and one reason only to cosy up to the likes of council leaders, and that is to persuade them to spend their advertising budget with your title(s). However, I think such a blatant, obvious approach as outlined above will do more harm than good as hopefully future expenditure will be subject to heavy scrutiny both from opposition councillors and other media,

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  • September 24, 2013 at 12:07 pm
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    Wonderful timing! Nigel Farage on the front of your relaunch edition just as UKIP implodes. I think most people would prefer the old one. At least there’s something you might want to read on the front.

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  • September 24, 2013 at 12:31 pm
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    Panel looks like a gimmick to me which will soon be quietly forgotten.

    The new front looks like a County Life magazine. Are there news stories inside or is it just fluff?

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  • September 24, 2013 at 2:27 pm
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    Is it appropriate for two council leaders to be formally appointed to a panel offering editorial guidance to any publication while presumably being in ultimate control of the authorities’ purse strings?
    Will they need to recuse themselves from any discussions about future advertising spend?
    I agree with the comment above about the probable reasons you would want to have such a cosy relationship with the people you are supposed to hold to account.

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  • September 24, 2013 at 2:32 pm
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    Words fail me…and I can usually talk the hind legs off a……

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  • September 24, 2013 at 2:40 pm
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    A newspaper essentially run by a committee of people with a variety of self-interests that will inevitably conflict with good journalism. You couldn’t make it up.

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  • September 24, 2013 at 2:45 pm
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    Sadly typical of the spineless way local newspapers are run now.

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  • September 24, 2013 at 4:14 pm
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    “No other newspaper does what we do.”

    No, that’s because other local newspapers do it better.

    KOS hasn’t been a proper “newspaper” for years. How can you cover the whole of Kent with three staff journalists? They don’t have the staff to cover local issues, they don’t attend court cases and they don’t attend council meetings. Sounds like they’re replacing re-written press releases and fluff with more fluff…

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  • September 24, 2013 at 4:19 pm
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    Whoever thought this barmy scheme up surely can’t be a journalist. Not one worth their salt that’s for sure.

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  • September 24, 2013 at 4:28 pm
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    The council leaders won’t do anything other than push their own agendas.

    This moronic idea is doomed to fail and I suspect this advisory board will be dissolved pretty quickly.

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  • September 24, 2013 at 5:26 pm
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    In the light of some of the comments on this story, I would like to make the following points:

    1. The panel will not set editorial policy for Kent on Sunday.
    2. All discussions on whether articles follow our guidelines will be after publication.
    3. As always, the decision on what stories to run is the editor’s, whose decision is final.

    The idea behind the panel is to seek external opinion on whether we are following our 10 guiding principles. We have also invited our readers to tell us if we are following our principles.
    The panel includes leading opinion formers in Kent. We will ask them if there are any important issues we should cover as we would ask any well informed person.
    The decision on whether to cover any of these issues is the editor’s and his alone.
    This has always been the intention behind this panel.

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  • September 24, 2013 at 5:41 pm
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    Hi Simon, we know all that. It’s what the story says. Still a very, very bad idea.

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  • September 24, 2013 at 6:19 pm
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    … Do these panel members, KCC, Medway Council, Kent Chamber of Commerce, Visit Kent etc get a discount on their advertising rates with KoS as a result?

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  • September 24, 2013 at 8:23 pm
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    Simon: just a thought, but why haven’t you got trade unionists or health or education professionals on that panel?

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  • September 24, 2013 at 9:09 pm
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    Sounds like an awful idea to me. I recall one editor saying… “I’m the editor, this newspaper is not run by a committee”, which was the right attitude.

    It’s inevitable that the editor will be leaned on not to cover issues which panel members don’t like. A sort of mini-Leveson with all the vested interests that go with it.

    I suppose while the editor is letting the panel dictate (albeit in a gentlemanly fashion) what appears in print, it will give him time to respond to the deluge of letters from readers who also think they can control the content.

    Apart from that, it sounds very patronising to me. Seriously, in 2013 does anyone really think that a council leader, a police and crime commissioner and a bishop are “opinion formers”?

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  • September 24, 2013 at 10:24 pm
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    ‘Call me cynical but’s’ comment feels like an FOI request in waiting.

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  • September 25, 2013 at 12:12 am
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    So, in a nutshell, Simon says he wants a panel to tell him whether or not he and his staff are doing their job they are paid to do.
    Call me old fashioned, but that is the editor’s job.

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  • September 25, 2013 at 7:00 am
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    Stop digging Simon, for goodness’ sake. Your idea is rank and stupid -and so naive as to be frightening. Whether your monitors are required to pronounce before or after publication is irrelevant. The fact that you have invited them to become involved at all is a betrayal of the standards of independence self-respecting local newspapers have tried to set and maintain for decades. Local dignitaries and self-styled ‘opinion formers’ should be wary of their local newspaper – not part of its fabric.

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  • September 25, 2013 at 1:37 pm
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    Simon Irwin describes the panel members as “independently minded”, but two of them are senior Conservatives.

    Paul Carter already dislikes the KM Group’s political editor so what happens if he accuses KoS of breaching one its principles because it contains criticism of Tory-run KCC?

    For the record, I usually vote Tory myself, but would never dream of inviting a politician to go through my newspaper and tell me where I’m going right or wrong.

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  • September 26, 2013 at 11:56 am
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    On a different note; the front page refers to the ‘new phenomenon’ of Parkrun. Parkrun was founded in 2004 and those of us who run have known about it and taken part for some years now. Hardly what you would call new. Check your facts before publishing your story!

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  • September 28, 2013 at 6:56 am
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    This dummy looks strangely like one we produced at the KM around the time of Kent on Sunday’s launch LOL.

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