“The old King is dead, long live the new King.”
This corrupted phrase could easily be attributed to the present landscape of the media industry. For decades, and the best part of the last century, print newspapers and magazines were the dominating media outlets. But that is all changing with the economic downturn and the emergence of the internet and social media.
Nowhere is this being more keenly felt than with local and regional newspapers; they are closing down month by month, with people choosing to get their news from free websites.
Some local and regional newspaper barons are partly blaming local councils for their papers' demise. The arguments being that councils are more than ever producing their own free newspapers and magazines, which are edging out the so-called paid for local independent publications.
I don’t buy this argument. It seems that people are just voting with their feet and anyhow excellent local and regional newspapers are surviving. Also, councils have every right to explain to their electorate and communities what are they doing on their behalf and indeed how they are spending taxpayers money.
So, how are councils supposed to respond to this new landscape? Are they supposed to be jumping for joy with the thought of a lack of journalists sitting in the press galleries scrutinising their actions? Well, no, in a healthy democracy, a robust independent media is important. And lo and behold, on the local and regional scene the internet is riding into town to uphold this.
Up and down the country, many websites and social media are being created to fill this apparent gap in local news and discussion.
A lack of local news provision is one of the reasons website editor, Hannah Waldram got involved and has set up the website: www.bournvillage.com.
She comments: “I had an idea of providing some sort of local news service a while back because we have never had a local newspaper in my area. Because it’s my local community, I feel quite strongly about it.”
It’s similar story for blogger, Ross Hawkes, who set up a Lichfield blog in the city that Trinity Mirror closed the local newspaper, Litchfield Post.
How are councils supposed to react to this new emergence? NALC says: “We encourage councils to treat only accredited journalist as journalists. And treat citizen journalists as citizens. But that does not stop citizen journalists making enquiries in the normal way and if they are a local taxpayer, their questions might resonate more than from a journalist from the outside. Plus, there is no reason why media and press releases cannot be available to everyone as they are public documents.”
Furthermore, many local councils are now creating their own websites and from these sites their own off-shoots of social media, such as blogs.
What is the betting, it is only a matter of time before those who created independent websites start complaining about council-owned websites; like they have done about council run newspapers and magazines.
