“There’s a real democratic value in having a local newspaper,” said Martin Moore of the Media Standards Trust. “It’s not just that it allows the community to know what’s going on. It’s also that the presence of a journalist who turns up to council meetings makes local politicians more accountable and keeps tabs on their behaviour.
“As these papers close – or as they’re hollowed out, closing local offices and running news gathering from a hub in a city miles from people’s lives – we’re gradually creating a serious democratic deficit. The number of professional journalists reporting on local news has plummeted in the last decade. There are now areas of the UK where there is virtually no professional news reporting at all.”
Just as well we have Owls and Zorros!
East Devon Watch 