A former regional daily editor has launched a local news and opinion website covering his old patch.
David Kernek, formerly David Flintham, has started the Bath Telegraph, which will cover community events and comment on issues that he says “tend to be overlooked” by other media organisations.
David edited daily titles the Northern Echo, York daily The Press and the then-Bath Evening Chronicle over the course of his career.
Regular features to appear on the site, to which he says he will contribute two or three times a week, will be ‘Today’s B******s’ and ‘No, it’s Not April 1!’
David, pictured, told HTFP: “I can’t say the Bath Telegraph will provide a comprehensive local news service – my fire engine-chasing days are long since over – but I think there’s a need for a platform that posts info about community events and comment on issues that tend to be overlooked by the newspapers covering the area.
“Issues such as the way the local council operates, and what I call the fake democracy as seen in elections for highly-paid public officials –regional mayors and Police & Crime Commissioners – very few council taxpayers seem to want.
“Much of my career was spent bashing out leader columns, and I find now in semi-retirement that I’m frustrated when I have an opinion – especially about some of the Woke nonsense seen in newspapers and on websites – but no platform on which I can bash it out.
“It’s time I signed on, albeit reluctantly, to the 21st century, though I draw the line at Tweeting.”
David has also published a photographic book depicting life in Bath since 2000.
The book, called ‘Bath: Glamour & Grit – Photographs 2000-2019′, features photographs taken by him over the course of 19 years.
He said: “I spent some of the Lock-In months sifting through the hundreds of photographs I’ve taken in Bath over almost two decades, and selecting those portraying the ways in which the town has changed… not always for the better.
“Topics covered include tourism, employment, buskers, and hen parties, some of them with brief but caustic commentaries.”