A weekly newspaper has launched a new campaign help a town move on from a child sexual exploitation scandal which has tainted the area.
The Rotherham Advertiser launched its #LoveRotherham campaign with a 20-page supplement, pictured below, in Friday’s paper to highlight good news about the patch.
It follows the child abuse scandal in Rotherham which hit the headlines last year after being exposed by Times journalist Andrew Norfolk.
Now the Advertiser has launched its campaign to highlight the positive work being done in the town, to try to help it put the grooming story behind it.
An independent inquiry found that widespread organised child sexual exploitation took place in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013 and estimated that at least 1,400 children had been abused.
Last year, Advertiser editor Andrew Mosley denied having felt a sense of “shame” over not having broken the story, saying that the Times’ scoop had “opened doors” to his paper in its subsequent attempts to hold the authorities to account.
Said Andrew: “This paper has highlighted some unsavoury goings-on in this town and people are quick to point out that there is a lot of negative news. Yes there is, but we would not be doing our job if we did not report it.
“Equally, the same applies if we do not feature all the good that goes on across the borough — and there is plenty of it.
“Unfortunately, the name Rotherham has become synonymous across the country — if not the world — with the awful child sexual exploitation scandal and there will undoubtedly be more revelations to come.
“Eventually though, a place has to attempt to move on. Obviously, it should never forget what has happened and must strive to support victims, learn from mistakes, raise awareness, put more preventative measures in place and make sure the perpetrators are caught and brought to justice. But it should, at the same time, also work to improve itself in other areas and show off what it does well.”
The paper’s supplement includes columnists from the worlds of business, education, sport and politics including Rotherham United chairman Tony Stewart and Rotherham MP Sarah Champion, alongside articles about town centre trade, regeneration work on the High Street and community work by volunteers and charities.
The supplement has brought in more than £12,000 in advertising and also includes a council-sponsored competition in which readers can vote for their favourite town centre traders.
The Advertiser will run its campaign over the next few months and is asking readers to tell the title what they love about Rotherham.
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In the 2011 census, an awful lot of people in Rotherham said they were Christians (66 per cent). But 22.5 per cent of the population said emphatically they were not, and that is before other religions are taken into account. Given this easily available demographic information, I would question the decision to put a rather dull Christian church picture on the front cover of a supplement that is meant to appeal across the board. At least a quarter of the population, probably a lot more, might be thinking “a fairly grim-looking church with nothing else going on and no people – what has this to do with me?” I would have liked to have seen more imagination and less legacy thinking to pull people in from all cultures and beliefs (and those with none), not just those with establishment Christian associations.
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Good point well made Idle Rich. A paper’s all about its community. And a community is all about its people.
That said at least the RA is trying to do something positive.
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Couldn’t agree more. Heavily backed by the council as well which has a vested interest here. The paper would be better of keeping its distance from the Town Hall until the whole mess is sorted out once and for all, but presumably that would be the 12 grand down the drain.
A lazy attempt to put lipstick on a particularly unattractive pig.
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So the supplement brought in £12,000 of advertising (what paper wouldn’t say not to that?) and is heavily subbed by a council (that was laid waste and told a pack of lies, forcing workers to go on anti-racism courses when they were trying to report sex-abusers).It’s not something you can easily ‘Go Foward’ from not when there is whole lot more to come out. i”ve heard it’s going to take a decade to deal with.
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Is it really time to “move on?”
Is the editor really sure his “nothing to see here” attitude isn’t an insult to the abused children and their families?
The Advertiser didn’t exactly cover itself in glory at the time the grooming scandal broke.
It’s not exactly doing so now, either.
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£12 grand could go to child protection charities?
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If the paper had been doing its job in the first place, they would have broken the story… Instead they are running this tripe.
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It’s pretty harsh to have a go at the Rotherham Advertiser for not uncovering the grooming scandal. If they are like every other local weekly newspaper I know they won’t have any staff/resources to carry out the time-consuming, in-depth reportage required for this sort of thing.
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Bluestringer, you accuse the editor of having a “nothing to see here” attitude – have you read his comments at all, specifically these:
“Obviously, it should never forget what has happened and must strive to support victims, learn from mistakes, raise awareness, put more preventative measures in place and make sure the perpetrators are caught and brought to justice.”
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