Your Local Guardian makes headlines over council newspapers (From Staines Guardian)

Your Local Guardian makes headlines over council newspapers

1:20pm Friday 26th March 2010

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The Guardian Series' battle to protect the voice of residents against taxpayer-funded council newspapers is set to hit the TV headlines.

BBC London News is covering the debate over the threat to local and regional newspapers posed by council-produced publications - and asked for our opinion on the issue.

Managing Director of Newsquest South West London and Bucks, Howard Scott, was interviewed for the report.

And he said the issue of local authorities publishing their own papers was a threat not just to the newspaper industry, but to local democracy.

"It's an issue the newspaper industry is lobbying very hard against," he said.

"We have been taking an active part in that, such as the Early Day Motion (EDM) put forward by MP Paul Burstow and the very well-attended Westminster debate in January.

"Local authorities spending council money in this way is an improper use of the public's money and state subsidy of these propaganda sheets is a threat to our industry.

"Secondly, it is a threat to local democracy, as publications such as ours call local councils and politicians to account for their local actions.

"That's something these local authority-produced papers simply do not do.

"The spin they put on local life is very different."

The interview comes after London Mayor Boris Johnson hit out at council-funded publications, calling them a "ludicrous waste of money".

He said: "Council-produced newspapers are a ludicrous waste of money and a very real threat to the democratic process, which is why I instantly scrapped Ken Livingstone's self-serving propaganda sheet, The Londoner, saving £2.9 million of council taxpayers' money a year to be spent on, amongst other things, 10,000 trees.

"We simply cannot afford to find that we've suddenly arrived in a future where independent local newspapers cease to exist and the local council paper is all there is to go on.

"Some of London's independent local papers have been holding the executive to account for over a hundred years and too many of these valuable publications are already closing.

"Without them we face dark days of partial news management."

You can see the full BBC News report during Monday's bulletins.

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