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There is not the slightest doubt that many local newspapers are facing a fight for survival - though, more properly, it is their owners that are in real trouble.
I have discussed some of the reasons for that crisis in previous columns, but I mentioned only in passing one factor that is putting many of them under intense pressure - the phenomenon of papers published by local councils.
They could even prove to be the final straw for some titles that are already dealing with plunging advertising revenue and declining sales.
It is not an exaggeration to say that giveaway council-run newspapers are now threatening the continued existence of several privately owned independent newspapers, both paid-for titles and freesheets.
The Newspaper Society, the local newspapers' trade body, has carried out an audit of 436 local authorities across Britain and discovered that many scores of papers - monthlies, fortnightlies and, increasingly, weeklies - are being published.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in London, as the list of council-run publications illustrates (see below). Many of these papers and/or magazines distribute more than 100,000 copies a time, dwarfing the circulations of local papers in their boroughs.
Some do not seek to hide the fact that they see themselves in competition with commercial titles.
For example, Hammersmith & Fulham's H&F News boasts of being the borough's "leading newspaper, with more readers, more news and more influence than any other paper."
Brent Magazine, with a print run of 108,000 per issue, claims that its "circulation figures far exceed those of all local publications combined".
And Havering's title, Living, is promoted as "the only newspaper that aims to reach all 95,000 households in the borough."
All of these titles take advertising, including the public notices that, by law, councils must have published as widely as possible. Hackney Council's Hackney Today tells its readers that it takes "all sorts of advertisements, including statutory notices and recruitment at extremely competitive rates", and claims to have "the largest reach in the borough of any local paper".
It is probably true. It distributes 108,000 copies a fortnight while the main commercial paper published by the Archant group, the Hackney Gazette, sells 8000 a week.
By far the most bitter battle is being fought in Tower Hamlets, between the council-run East End Life and the Archant-owned East London Advertiser. Both are weeklies. Both carry adverts. But Life is distributed free to 81,000 homes while the Advertiser is bought at 50p an issue by 6800 people. A year ago, it was selling 9000 copies, a circulation fall of more than 20%.
The Advertiser's editor, Malcolm Starbrook, is outraged by what he sees as unfair competition from a paper shielded from the harsh economic conditions that his paper faces because Life is funded by council taxpayers.
Council spokespeople counter that the cost to its residents is minimal, probably no more than £128,000 over the course of a year. According to the council's 2008-9 budget forecast, the cost of producing the paper - including editorial, sales, print and distribution - was £1,560,000, offset by advertising revenue of £1,432,000.
Life employs four full-time staff and three part-time staff and benefits also from a job share. It runs extensive non-council-related editorial and is therefore in direct competition with the ailing Advertiser. Starbrook contests the Tower Hamlets' figures, arguing that the loss to the council is closer to £750,000 if internal advertising recharges are applied at a commercial rate.
But there is no sign of the council relenting. Indeed, it is being seen by other councils as an example to follow. Barking & Dagenham Council will launch The News next month, based largely on Life's experience.
That has alarmed Chris Carter, the editor of the Ilford, Barking & Dagenham Recorder, who regards the launch as "a stab in the back" and estimates that it will cost local papers about £75,000 a year in lost ad revenue. Spokespeople at the councils of Tower Hamlets and Barking shrug off criticism by pointing out that they are merely fulfilling a Government requirement to inform their citizens about what is happening in their boroughs. The majority of their residents were unable to obtain that information because the sales of commercial papers have gradually fallen to such low levels and, arguably, those papers have also reduced public service journalistic coverage, mainly due to editorial cost-cutting.
I have some sympathy with that argument. But I cannot agree with it. Though it sounds very democratic, it is deeply flawed because it ignores the fact that council-run papers are undermining the only publications that hold local power to account.
The central job of local journalists, acting on behalf of the people, is to ensure that local authorities in all their forms - councils, health trusts, educational institutions, policing boards - are acting fairly and honestly.
Council-run papers are, in some respects, no more than "Pravda publications". Even if they do not specifically push council policy - and most do -they certainly do not criticise that policy. They may act as a (heavily censored) forum for critics, but they do not campaign against decisions. Nor, of course, do they investigate councillors or council officers.
They are anti-democratic in both spirit and in practice, and their disappearance will not matter one whit to the public. Note, for example, how little missed has been The Londoner, Ken Livingstone's £1 million-a-year title formerly distributed to three million homes, that was killed off by his mayoral successor, Boris Johnson.
It is time to put all such publications to the sword before they kill off independent local papers.
Councils as publishers
Monthlies:
Barking & Dagenham (a fortnightly from next month)Brent
Camden
City of London,
Ealing
Hounslow
Islington
Lewisham
Redbridge
Fortnightlies:
Greenwich
Hackney
Hammersmith & Fulham
Havering
Lambeth
Newham
Waltham Forest
Weeklies:
Greenwich
Tower Hamlets
Reader views (3)
Waltham Forest Council withdrew its advertising from the local WF Guardian several years ago; this was justified by reference to WF News, the Council's own freesheet, but this is a stomach-turningly sycophantic thing that the locals already call Pravda. It would be quite at home in North Korea. It is not, unsurprisingly, registered as a newspaper at the Post Office, so its legal status is open to challenge as a gazette for public information. 99% of its advertising is from the Council or local quangos, so the Council's claims that it is self-financing are a twisting of the truth. Whether or not the Council was deliberately punishing the local Guardian for its sceptical approach to Council spin, the fact remains that there is now no automatic notification of planning applications anywhere in print.
Mr Burnham's recent suggestion that authorities should 'collaborate' with their local paper sounds not naive but sinister, in the context of our experience in Waltham Forest. The local Guardian, beset by economic problems, and with a small, young but dedicated staff, is a lifeline for local people tired of being lied to by people whose wages they are paying.
- Mdj E10, london uk
Good riddance to the Londoner, it was the most outrageously biased publication and yet gave the impression that is was some how an editorial publication. The Post Office of course wouldn't stop delivering the rag even when you asked...
- Jon, London
East End Life is partisan, featuring photos of happy smiling Labour councilors and endless clap-happy positive stories. You won't find out what's really happening in Tower Hamlets unless you read The Advertiser. The council are lying about it's true cost to residents. Why don't the council simply run it as a news section on their website?
- Alan In Bow, London
