A former regional editor has vowed to “fight back” for local newspapers as she prepares to launch her own title.
Sue Briggs, left, will bring out the first edition of The Paper for Bunbury, serving the Cheshire village where she lives, in March.
Sue edited the Knutsford Guardian between 1994 and 2009, when she took voluntary redundancy from Newsquest.
The Paper for Bunbury will be produced monthly and distributed for free. The first edition will come out on 22 March.
Sue told HTFP: “Local newspapers have taken a battering of late. I think it’s time to fight back.”
Initially Sue will be working alone with help from Nick Jones, a freelance photographer who also worked for the Guardian series.
She added: “Many newspaper bosses seem to think that the public can take pictures like the professionals. But they cannot.”
The launch of the new title has been welcomed by Martin Bell, who was MP for Tatton when Sue was editor.
In a letter to The Paper, he wrote: “I am delighted to welcome the birth of The Paper. Long may it flourish. Long may it reflect the local community, revel in the politics of the parish pump, and not be afraid of powerful interests, the pros and cons of planning disputes and whatever else comes along.”
Mr Bell added: “So let’s hear it for The Paper. It will be one of a kind: local, eccentric and a shining light in an under-reported world.”
Sue is the daughter of Don Briggs, a former executive journalist on the Daily Mirror, while her sister Nicola is a former deputy editor of the Daily Express.
She said: “We are a bit like the Dimblebys but less well known.”
“Many newspaper bosses seem to think that the public can take pictures like the professionals. But they cannot.”
Hear hear!
Good luck to Sue and Nick.
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Good luck to sue her team on the launch of the new paper, the future really is in the hands of small indeiendent ex pressers unafraid to go up against the bigger groups, all of whom are in the ropes in their local areas losing readers and advertises week by week so there’s never been a better time to launch.
It’s also a good time to recruit staff with so many talented colleagues unceremoniously dumped yet with the skills and abilities needed for grass roots journalism.
I hope the papers a success and hope they can go more frequently, ideally weekly, to provide a true local news service as a monthly, in my experience,can often lack the immediacy of being seen as a ‘news’ paper rather than a general periodical.
Good wishes again and with regards to “ local papers having taken a battering of late..” it’s only those tired old titles who are going through the motions rather than the new independent titles being launched and welcomed all over.
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It’s good news and good luck to them but a monthly is never going to be a newspaper. On the plus side it sounds like they might be putting together a good viewspaper.
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I’m all for new local papers opening to take on the old dinosaur ones but to call a village monthly a ‘newspaper’ really is pushing it a bit, and to call it a ‘fight back’ is something of an over exaggeration.
Sorry Sue but unless the publication covers news on a more regular basis than once a month it’s more of a local interest publication and not a news paper, nothing wrong with that in itself but it can hardly be seen as fighting back on behalf of local paper.
Good luck anyway
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Well done Sue and Nick, a fine journalist and a talented photographer. We should all wish them the very best of success for their belief that local journalism in print is not dead!
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