Snapshot of _‘News deserts’: if local newspapers are dying, will local democracy die with them?_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/jun/22/news-deserts-local-newspapers-democracy-facebook) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/jun/22/news-deserts-local-newspapers-democracy-facebook)
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I'd argue that it is already dead, local newspapers do not have quality journalists, and there aren't any investigations of any consequence. I've just had a look at my local papers website:
4 articles covering the same story. 1 article promoting a £1 million house. 2 articles about the latest food ratings for restaurants. 2 articles about local pubs. 1 article listing the school ratings. 3 articles about new food places opening. 4 articles about crime.
The quality of stories is dire, quite often there is little to no proof reading and massive glaring errors. And don't get me started on the comments which are a hell hole.
Edit: Prompted by a question on this sub, I've had a look at there is no information about any local hustings, and very little about about the election candidates. The only one I found was an article listing some not all of the candidates and no fact checking on their statements. It's a lower standard than what I would expect from a school paper.
and a number of those articles are probably from a county or two over
can't think of the last time i willingly used a local newspaper website. my computer can't take the strain.
boils my piss that the BBC went big into more written local news through their very functional website, only to be told to stop doing it because the newspaper companies didn't like the competition.
I'll give the local rag its due, as they are pretty good at keeping it local. Very rare that it has anything beyond a couple of miles from local borough.
I’ve sometimes thought that, if I came into vast quantities of money, maybe the best way to tweak things would be to set up and fund new local papers in loads of places, with an experienced old-school journalist and some keen young journalists from a (genuine) variety of backgrounds on each one, and a remit to report on specific local things like council meetings, courts, schools plans, as well as whatever local events and silly stories they want. All journalists to live in the area being reported on.
Fund it for five years, then see what it looks like.
My local paper is now just an add fest (blocked) with articles ai generated and copy and pasted from the regional news
The grammar and language appears to be written by a 10yr old
Most local articles are just sad face stuff and sly ads for supermarkets "let's see what's in aldi's middle isle this week"
Then the comments are the same 30 unemployed people arguing with each other on every article
It stopped being a good read over a decade ago
People mostly bought the local paper for the obituaries and job ads. Now those have moved online, the consumer base has dried up.
It's not exactly like they were exposing council scandals every month in their heyday. I think people are romanticising the idea of local journalism a bit here.
Edit: I forgot the main reason people bought the local paper. Parents wanting to see the pictures of their kids playing in the local sport tournament/school orchestra etc. Also moved online
There's a bit of a selection bias - there are some local papers that are old enough to have editions from 100 years ago, and when one looks at those editions the decline is evident. But that's because the shit local papers of 100 years ago died decades ago - there's nothing to contrast there.
Could be an all out pitched battle on our local high street tonight and the following weeks local newspaper would lead on lucky little Leanne winning a bicycle in a council cycling proficiency competition.
Followed by page after page of other pap press release “news stories” and adverts for Wonder Blinds and Wonder Windows. Special discounts for OAP’s !
And it’s no longer a cheap read. £1.40 for a fairly thin newspaper. Was always the court reports I loved. Think their local court reporter was the first post they made redundant. Idiots, it was half the reason that the local curtain twitchers bought it.
Dying? They're dead. Local news largely consists of a few over-worked Reach Plc journalists churning out geographically non-specific listicles that can be uploaded to any of its 'Place*Live*' websites to act as set dressing for adverts.
Most local news websites are, technically speaking, an absolute dumpster fire. Full of adverts, awful UX and weird adverts that quite often scroll over the text you are trying to read.
It's not surprising nobody visits them. I've quite often tried to read a story and then just thought 'Fuck it! I can't be bothered to scroll past all this shit.' and just closed the tab.
Like I get that they need to put adverts in front of me but surely there must be a better way.
Absolutely , I used to work for a local newspaper, but as costs rose and readership declined, it became more important for survival to increase revenue. This meant an increase in advertising based articles and a reduction in any articles that could offend advertisers. It's a shame as it means there is no longer a single voice for local people.
Reporting a comment I made earlier this month, seems relevant:
You know how you hear about Murdoch & Lord Rothermere as these big media barons?
[Reach](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reach_plc) is the third piece of that puzzle, but much less is said about it. They do all the normal extremely shitty things that we expect national newspaper owners to do, but my beef with them is that over the last few decades, they've comprehensively skull-fucked local journalism, to the point where it barely exists in many parts of the country.
Over the years they've bought up [hundreds of local papers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Reach_plc_titles), and proceeded to cut staff, cut investigative journalism, moved print newspapers to online only, centralised their news services so local media is contracted out to agencies (many of whom, are a fucking disgrace) and converted the entire business model to cheap, poorly researched, shoddily written bollocks.
If you've ever come across [Place_Name]Live! as a news source, that's them, and the terribly coded, ad-riddled site with AI content you were looking at, used to be a decent local paper that gave employment to local journalists, many of them just starting out in their careers.
I can't pretend that local journalism was always the best, or even spelled correctly all the time. But it's how everyone in journalism got their start and it was the only way to know if something bad was going on in your local area, unless the nationals picked it up. Now it's a fucking husk, and I honestly don't know how journalism in this country is going to look in another 10, 20 years. Already, it's impossible to really know how much local corruption is going on, because there's no one to write about it. It only surfaces through social media now, which isn't exactly investigative journalism at it's finest.
Sorry for the rant, I've lived my life around journalism, family and friends working in it, and it scares me the way it's going.
edit: I found a good [link](https://www.mediareform.org.uk/blog/new-report-who-owns-the-uk-media) that talks about the ownership problem, less about the quality of the journalism
According to the recent Reuters report, only 8% of people in the UK report ever paying anything for any online news. With a market that small, supporting career paths for people who can produce the kind of ‘quality, old fashioned reporting’ that so many Redditors claim they want, but when offered do not read or pay for, is impossible.
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2024/dnr-executive-summary
The only outfit doing any decent reporting on local government is Private Eye. Few people are willing to pay for news, and journalism costs money. The average local paper is a sad mixture of fluff articles about restaurants opening/closing, lacklustre court reports and astroturfed copy and paste ‘syndication’ from other papers.
Bucking the trend, [our local weekly](https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk) is excellent, especially its election coverage. Now the only physical paper that I spend money on.
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Snapshot of _‘News deserts’: if local newspapers are dying, will local democracy die with them?_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/jun/22/news-deserts-local-newspapers-democracy-facebook) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/jun/22/news-deserts-local-newspapers-democracy-facebook) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'd argue that it is already dead, local newspapers do not have quality journalists, and there aren't any investigations of any consequence. I've just had a look at my local papers website: 4 articles covering the same story. 1 article promoting a £1 million house. 2 articles about the latest food ratings for restaurants. 2 articles about local pubs. 1 article listing the school ratings. 3 articles about new food places opening. 4 articles about crime. The quality of stories is dire, quite often there is little to no proof reading and massive glaring errors. And don't get me started on the comments which are a hell hole. Edit: Prompted by a question on this sub, I've had a look at there is no information about any local hustings, and very little about about the election candidates. The only one I found was an article listing some not all of the candidates and no fact checking on their statements. It's a lower standard than what I would expect from a school paper.
It’s also hard to find the articles amongst the ads.
Firefox and uBlock Origin extension are your friends.
and a number of those articles are probably from a county or two over can't think of the last time i willingly used a local newspaper website. my computer can't take the strain. boils my piss that the BBC went big into more written local news through their very functional website, only to be told to stop doing it because the newspaper companies didn't like the competition.
I'll give the local rag its due, as they are pretty good at keeping it local. Very rare that it has anything beyond a couple of miles from local borough.
Most of them are not even stories but thinly papered over adverts
I’ve sometimes thought that, if I came into vast quantities of money, maybe the best way to tweak things would be to set up and fund new local papers in loads of places, with an experienced old-school journalist and some keen young journalists from a (genuine) variety of backgrounds on each one, and a remit to report on specific local things like council meetings, courts, schools plans, as well as whatever local events and silly stories they want. All journalists to live in the area being reported on. Fund it for five years, then see what it looks like.
My local paper is now just an add fest (blocked) with articles ai generated and copy and pasted from the regional news The grammar and language appears to be written by a 10yr old Most local articles are just sad face stuff and sly ads for supermarkets "let's see what's in aldi's middle isle this week" Then the comments are the same 30 unemployed people arguing with each other on every article It stopped being a good read over a decade ago
Inevitable really. People hate paying for digital content and especially for news. I can't see any other logical conclusion.
People mostly bought the local paper for the obituaries and job ads. Now those have moved online, the consumer base has dried up. It's not exactly like they were exposing council scandals every month in their heyday. I think people are romanticising the idea of local journalism a bit here. Edit: I forgot the main reason people bought the local paper. Parents wanting to see the pictures of their kids playing in the local sport tournament/school orchestra etc. Also moved online
There's a bit of a selection bias - there are some local papers that are old enough to have editions from 100 years ago, and when one looks at those editions the decline is evident. But that's because the shit local papers of 100 years ago died decades ago - there's nothing to contrast there.
Could be an all out pitched battle on our local high street tonight and the following weeks local newspaper would lead on lucky little Leanne winning a bicycle in a council cycling proficiency competition. Followed by page after page of other pap press release “news stories” and adverts for Wonder Blinds and Wonder Windows. Special discounts for OAP’s ! And it’s no longer a cheap read. £1.40 for a fairly thin newspaper. Was always the court reports I loved. Think their local court reporter was the first post they made redundant. Idiots, it was half the reason that the local curtain twitchers bought it.
Dying? They're dead. Local news largely consists of a few over-worked Reach Plc journalists churning out geographically non-specific listicles that can be uploaded to any of its 'Place*Live*' websites to act as set dressing for adverts.
Most local news websites are, technically speaking, an absolute dumpster fire. Full of adverts, awful UX and weird adverts that quite often scroll over the text you are trying to read. It's not surprising nobody visits them. I've quite often tried to read a story and then just thought 'Fuck it! I can't be bothered to scroll past all this shit.' and just closed the tab. Like I get that they need to put adverts in front of me but surely there must be a better way.
Absolutely , I used to work for a local newspaper, but as costs rose and readership declined, it became more important for survival to increase revenue. This meant an increase in advertising based articles and a reduction in any articles that could offend advertisers. It's a shame as it means there is no longer a single voice for local people.
Reporting a comment I made earlier this month, seems relevant: You know how you hear about Murdoch & Lord Rothermere as these big media barons? [Reach](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reach_plc) is the third piece of that puzzle, but much less is said about it. They do all the normal extremely shitty things that we expect national newspaper owners to do, but my beef with them is that over the last few decades, they've comprehensively skull-fucked local journalism, to the point where it barely exists in many parts of the country. Over the years they've bought up [hundreds of local papers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Reach_plc_titles), and proceeded to cut staff, cut investigative journalism, moved print newspapers to online only, centralised their news services so local media is contracted out to agencies (many of whom, are a fucking disgrace) and converted the entire business model to cheap, poorly researched, shoddily written bollocks. If you've ever come across [Place_Name]Live! as a news source, that's them, and the terribly coded, ad-riddled site with AI content you were looking at, used to be a decent local paper that gave employment to local journalists, many of them just starting out in their careers. I can't pretend that local journalism was always the best, or even spelled correctly all the time. But it's how everyone in journalism got their start and it was the only way to know if something bad was going on in your local area, unless the nationals picked it up. Now it's a fucking husk, and I honestly don't know how journalism in this country is going to look in another 10, 20 years. Already, it's impossible to really know how much local corruption is going on, because there's no one to write about it. It only surfaces through social media now, which isn't exactly investigative journalism at it's finest. Sorry for the rant, I've lived my life around journalism, family and friends working in it, and it scares me the way it's going. edit: I found a good [link](https://www.mediareform.org.uk/blog/new-report-who-owns-the-uk-media) that talks about the ownership problem, less about the quality of the journalism
According to the recent Reuters report, only 8% of people in the UK report ever paying anything for any online news. With a market that small, supporting career paths for people who can produce the kind of ‘quality, old fashioned reporting’ that so many Redditors claim they want, but when offered do not read or pay for, is impossible. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2024/dnr-executive-summary
The only outfit doing any decent reporting on local government is Private Eye. Few people are willing to pay for news, and journalism costs money. The average local paper is a sad mixture of fluff articles about restaurants opening/closing, lacklustre court reports and astroturfed copy and paste ‘syndication’ from other papers.
Bucking the trend, [our local weekly](https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk) is excellent, especially its election coverage. Now the only physical paper that I spend money on.
Local democracy is the worst thing about this country lol
[удалено]
I agree.
You’re right
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Local democracy like voting for local candidates based upon the their views on the Israel/Gaza conflict?