The regional press trade body has challenged Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn to answer five questions on how they would help the industry.

The News Media Association wants the Tory and Labour leaders to commit to implementing the recommendations of the Cairncross Review into the future of news and invest more of the government’s advertising budget into commercial news media.

The NMA has also asked Mr Johnson and Mr Corbyn to answer whether they will undertake media freedom audit on all proposed primary and secondary legislation, “rigorously” enforce the BBC regulatory regime and “support the UK’s system of voluntary press self-regulation”.

The call comes after Mr Johnson conducted interviews with regional titles including the Northern Echo, Teesside Gazette and Coventry Observer.

Speaking to the Echo, he said: “We need local newspapers.

“We’ve been talking about devolution of power and you can’t devolve power if you haven’t got a local newspaper to report what’s going on because you will get corruption, and you need local newspapers if you are to have justice because if you don’t have local newspapers doing court reports then justice is not done as it is not seen to be done, so you’ve got to keep going.”

The series of local press interviews this week followed last week’s criticism by the Mansfield Chad over a “poorly managed visit” to its patch.

Mr Johnson later issued a statement pledging to return to answer questions from the Chad – although he wrongly described the Nottinghamshire town as being in Derbyshire.

Of the incident, Mr Corbyn said: “Every politician should speak to local papers when they can. It’s not only about being held to account but you also learn a lot about the issues facing people.”