MPs attack council newspapers
MPs this week urged the government to safeguard local newspapers against “unfair competition” from council-funded local papers.
Leading a Westminster Hall debate, Paul Burstow, MP for Sutton and Cheam, cited research by the Newspaper Society in 2009 which found that nine in 10 councils now print their own newspaper. He pointed out that over the past 12 months, around 60 local newspapers have had to close – almost one in 20 titles.
“Not all of that is due to unfair competition from councils, as clearly other factors are also at work, new media being just one example,” Burstow acknowledged. “Cost pressures have forced cuts in journalist staff, potentially compromising local papers' ability to get behind the press releases they are bombarded with from all directions.”
Burstow said many councils have for a long time produced publications that do not compete directly with the local press – they are often magazines that are published less frequently than newspapers and focus on council services.
These can provide a useful service, he suggested. However, “a sinister trend” is emerging in some local government quarters of directly competing with local independent newspapers, “even to the extent of putting them out of business”.
A number of local authorities “are spending large amounts of public money to employ press officers to produce what amounts to little more than propaganda masquerading as newspapers”, Burstow said, adding “it cannot be healthy for local democracy, or indeed for accountability, for the only source of local news to be paid for by the council.”
The Sutton & Cheam MP singled out the impact of East End Life, a newspaper published by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, for criticism. “Without a huge public subsidy, [it] would be dead and buried – it would not be able to run,” he claimed.
Burstow also queried the role played by Greenwich Time, h&f news, which is run by the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and Waltham Forest News. Questionable activities included holding back exclusives for the council paper and withdrawing advertising from local newspapers. He added that the Office of Fair Trading should be called in to investigate, in the event that the current Audit Commission study on local authority papers does not cover their impact on the independent press.
Conservative MP Philip Davies suggested the main difference between what local newspapers do and what local councils do “is that local newspapers hold local councils to account, whereas local council newspapers seem conveniently to concentrate on all the good things that seem to be happening…. They never concentrate on the things that are going wrong in their area.”
Sion Simon, minister of creative industries, said the government would consider – once the Audit Commission has reported – whether to refer the matter to the Office of Fair Trading and ask it, along with Ofcom, to consider the competition issues.
Edward Vaizey, shadow culture secretary, meanwhile promised a review of the code of conduct for publicity in local councils if the party wins the next general election.
