What will we lose if regional newspapers are killed off?

Roy Greenslade
25 Mar 2009

Across Britain, the news about newspapers gets more depressing by the day. The companies that publish regional and local papers are suffering unprecedented declines in revenue because advertising has plunged as if from a cliff ledge. Titles are closing down. Journalists are being laid off in alarming numbers. Costs are being pared to the bone. There is increasing concern aired on both sides of the divide, by both publishers and the National Union of Journalists, that the main victim of this crisis will be democracy itself.

If local papers disappear, so the argument runs, people will inevitably suffer because power will not be held to account. There will be no check on councils, no scrutiny of the police force, no coverage of the courts, no reports of hospital conditions, no analysis of local education affairs and, of course, no forum for public complaint about such matters.

In the absence of an "objective" and "impartial" paper, ill-founded gossip will thrive. Society will be the loser. Two quotes spring to mind. The first comes from a former Los Angeles Times reporter, Joe Mathews, during a lament for the American newspaper industry, which is facing similar problems to those in Britain.

He wrote: "Much of the carnage of the ongoing media industry can't be measured or seen: corruption undiscovered, events not witnessed, tips about problems that never reach anyone's ears because those ears have left the newsroom. With fewer watchdogs, you get less barking. How can we know what we'll never know?"

That final sentence reminded me of the second quote, the famous one by former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, about there being "known knowns things we know we know" and "known unknowns, things we know we don't know" and also "unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know".

The problem with stating that the closure of a local paper threatens democracy is that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to prove. But it would be crazy to wait around for it to occur in order to investigate the aftermath. The risk is too great.

In spite of the lack of proof, we need to convince the public - including politicians - of some of those known unknowns. For example, local papers monitor all the outposts of central government, the satellite services that make a huge difference to people's lives, such as National Health Service trusts, schools and police authorities. They may not do it with enough vigour to please all the people, but it is clear that the very existence of a local paper ensures the audience within its circulation area has a forum in which to point to inadequacies and incompetence.

Local councils, some of which are desperately trying to supplant independent papers by launching their own, also require proper and continuous external scrutiny. Even with journalists observing their activities, some councillors and council staff get up to no good.

Imagine what might happen if there were no examination whatsoever. The same holds true for law and order. Members of the judiciary have informed senior newspaper executives that they are concerned about important court cases going unreported.

At the other end of the spectrum, the routine reporting of burglaries or road accidents is hugely important to people concerned about safety in their communities. Then there is the positive stuff, from the campaigning to save a sub-post office or a hospital's accident and emergency department to the simple, but welcome, recording of achievements by children, whether it be on the sports field or in raising money in charity events. We could live without that, of course, but life would be poorer without it.

And we cannot know, of course, about the unknown unknowns, the knock-on effects of a vanished local paper. Rightly, it will be pointed out that in many towns and cities only a fraction of the population actually buy and read local papers. That is true. But I believe the non-readers, though they may remain blissfully unaware of it, benefit from the existence of their "local rag".

Their services are all the better because journalists, even in the current straitened circumstances, are keeping watch on the various authorities and institutions in their patch. Rightly also, people will point out that newsprint is giving way to the internet. Why should we worry about the fate of papers because online journalism will do a similar job and, maybe, even better?

I would have more faith in that argument if I could point to the growth of news outlets with the expertise, not to mention the volume of audience, to challenge authority with as much credibility as established local papers. In truth, this is where too many publishers have let themselves, and their readers, down. With some honourable exceptions, they have failed to create good enough online content to woo the coming generation of digital natives.

I fear that if newsprint papers go, their (mostly) pathetic websites will vanish with them. So what is to be done if publishers go to the wall? Should we dare to consider the previously unimaginable possibility of a public subsidy to support a nationwide network of local titles?

Is it feasible to create a BBC-like public service body perhaps under the aegis of the Press Association national news agency?

No? Fair enough. But has anyone got any other idea?