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Angry People in Local Newspapers author becomes angry person in his local newspaper

The author of Angry People in Local Newspapers has officially become an angry person in his own local newspaper after the title initially declined to cover his book’s launch.

HTFP reported earlier this week on the print launch of Angry People in Local Newspapers, which BBC journalist Alistair Coleman originally started as a blog nine years ago.

But Alistair was told by the Farnham Herald, based five miles from his home in the Hampshire town of Fleet, that it would not be covering the book’s launch because he “wasn’t local enough”.

Alistair, 52, wrote a tongue-in-cheek piece yesterday evening on the APILN website about the “snub” by the Herald, and pledged to send a photograph of himself looking angry outside the Herald’s office to the paper.

Alistair looking angry outside the offices of the Farnham Herald

Alistair, pictured outside the offices of the Farnham Herald, is FUMING about being snubbed

He said he had been “gobsmacked” to be told by Herald staff that covering Fleet “is a bit of a stretch for us”.

“I’ve had interest from local newspapers all over the country, but to be blanked by the nearest title to my home is a tough one to swallow, he added.

As a result, Alistair vowed to conduct a one-man campaign to encourage the people of Farnham, which is in Surrey, to go out and buy the book.

And this morning he received word that his overnight campaign has been successful, and the book’s launch will now be covered.

He told HTFP: “I’m so pleased that it was all one massive misunderstanding. We’re going to have a feature, run a competition, the whole nine yards. Well played the Herald – a proper local newspaper with a great sense of humour.”

Alistair’s book was published by Penguin Random House on 15 November, priced £9.99.  The Herald has so far not responded to requests for a comment.

4 comments

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  • November 23, 2018 at 4:34 pm
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    Generous of Alistair to call it a misunderstanding.
    I’d call it a complete Colemanballs capitulation by red-faced Herald staff.
    They must have decided it would be massively embarrassing for them to dismiss a town just up the road as ‘not really their patch’, thus making advertisers and readers wonder what the hell they are paying for.

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  • November 24, 2018 at 4:27 pm
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    Red-faced staff? Last I looked, Farnham was in Surrey. So author in Hampshire asks a Surrey newspaper office to review his book. No wonder he was turned away.
    If someone in Hampshire wants something in their local paper, they’re better off approaching the paper that’s in the same county.
    I daresay readers and advertisers are heartened their local paper isn’t using any old content to fill their pages, Regional. It reflects well on the paper’s staff, not leaving them ‘red-faced’. Because there are a lot of ‘local’ papers out there that will use copy from anywhere at all if it will fill a templated shape…

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  • November 26, 2018 at 1:47 pm
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    If it’s not on patch, I don’t see the problem. My paper’s core town lies at the south-eastern boundary of our patch so there are other towns a few miles down the road which we never cover. They’re in a different local authority and their residents look elsewhere for shops and services so we’d be diluting ourselves to stretch that far. More power to the Farnham Herald for not just taking the story in order to fill space, and if they’ve since backtracked then I hope it’s off the back of an advertising / promotional deal.

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  • November 26, 2018 at 4:27 pm
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    Clearly more to this than meets the eye. Is it Alistair’s ‘local paper’ – as he describes it – or isn’t it? If the answer’s no, I take it back,

    By the way, Regional Editor, I think you are being a tad parochial.
    I live in Chester on the Cheshire side of the England/Wales border. Do the city’s local papers venture five miles beyond the city, county and national border? Yes they do. Often!

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