My post on the Liberal Democrats' broken promise to scrap the Brent Magazine has caused me to reflect on the controversy about local newspapers going out of business as a result of competition from Councils. This is a subject where local MP Andy Slaughter has been campaigning particularly hard.
I can't say I am convinced. I think the local newspapers real problems come from the rise of the Internet, the decline in advertising caused by the recession and perhaps the fragmentation of society which people less interested in local news.
Certainly, in Brent the Brent Magazine was deliberately designed not to rival local newspapers. It only goes out monthly. It doesn't do topical news. The format is very different from a newspaper. All right, it may cannibalise sa small amount of advertising from Archant et al, but most of the advertising is from the Council itself, and required under legislation or obviously sensible. The local newspapers can't really expect the Council to spend more on advertising just as a subsidy to commercial businesses like themselves.
I regret the decline of our local newspapers as much as anyone, not least because it lessens the scrutiny our truly awful local Liberal Democrat / Conservative administration is under. But the solution is for journalism to change its business models; not to try to hold back technological change.
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