Sarah Hartley's roundup of papers investigated so far
Sarah Hartley has rounded up the investigation so far at http://sarahhartley.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/council-coverage-in-local-newspapers-update/
Another day, another local newspaper to analyse. But today’s choice is refreshingly different. After a glut of local Newsquest titles, I looked at the Stratford-upon-Avon Herald, a family-owned newspaper, in broadsheet format.
The fact that the Herald is a bit different to the titles I’ve already covered can perhaps be seen from the 3rd December edition’s page 3 headline:
“Start of the search for Shakespeare’s poo?”
Which is actually the headline for an interesting and intelligent story, but the informal head certainly gets the reader’s attention!
But the main difference between the Herald and the other papers we’ve looked at so far is that the Herald leads with a story about a local council – in this case, Stratford District Council. Not only that, but this story takes up most of page 1, with the only other story on the page also being a local council story.
The main story is about Stratford District Council “grappling” with an “entanglement” of housing issues. The piece explores what these are in some detail, and stresses their importance to the local area. It mentions various council meetings and other public meetings, quotes both local councillors and central government, mentions both town and parish councils, and accuses the district council of “dodging” making a decision.
This is not a piece written by a reporter cowed by local government or believing that he shouldn’t criticise them.
We did wonder whether it is such a detailed and strong piece because of the reporter’s wealth of experience; the article was written by Preston Witts, a veteran reporter with over 25 years journalistic experience, who has worked for both the BBC and ITV and was previously a parliamentary reporter.
Interestingly, a few years ago, Mr Witts, together with his editor, took part in a debate at the Chipping Campden Debating Society, in favour of the motion:
“This house believes that investigative journalism helps safeguard our liberty.”
- which perhaps indicates the paper’s ethos.
The Herald of 3rd December is an 18 page broadsheet with a separate 16 page property supplement (also broadsheet). There are four main news pages, but also half a page entitled “Parish Pump”, which contains news sent in from the surrounding villages (like the Community News section of the Wilts & Gloucs Standard).
The coverage breaks down thus:
Apart from the main story on page 1, the other council stories are listed here:
This doesn’t look like very much, until you look at the other sections of the paper, outside the main news section. For example, the Letters page:
And the Parish Pump village news section is also interesting.
So over 1/4 of the main news pages are given to reports either about councils, or mentioning them, including the lead story. In addition, space is given for smaller parish councils to submit not only the dates of their meetings but also what was discussed in previous meetings, and readers not only submit letters about their councils, but these are given sufficient space in the paper too.
There is a distinct feeling with this edition of the Herald at least, that this local newspaper and its readers recognise the role of local councils and aren’t afraid to write about them.
With a small staff (it appears to have three general reporters working under the news editor), the paper doesn’t ignore small third tier councils, but instead relies on its village contributors to submit information when it can’t cover them itself.
This is a study of the Wiltshire and Gloucestershire Standard; I should point out that due to where I live, I only receive the Cotswold edition of the paper, so I can’t comment on what the main version is like.
Again, this paper is a Newsquest publication, but unlike others I’ve covered, it does attempt to cover the smaller town and parish councils, and not just the first and second tier ones (Wiltshire and Gloucestershire county councils and Cotswold District Council).
Unlike the Cotswold Journal, sister paper to the Evesham Journal, and which contains mainly Evesham news, there is more of an attempt to make the Cotswolds edition of the Standard a standalone publication, rather than a bowdlerized version of an existing paper.
The 3rd December edition of this weekly comprised a 56 page tabloid sized newspaper, with an eight-page broadsheet property pull-out. Due to the difference in sizing, I will take the 56 page main paper as a whole and exclude the property section from my calculations.
The main paper had a main news section of 12 pages, but also had other types of news page – schools and college news (2 pages); business news (1 page); community news (4 pages). There is also a public notices section towards the back of the newspaper. The community news section lists local villages with their volunteers submitting news items for listing.
Council related stories were as follows:
In total, there is 4.25 pages of local council related items in the Wilts & Gloucs Standard, but 1.25 pages of these are found outside the main news section and seen as being of almost minority interest.
Some of these stories seem to be publicity for a specific councillor or ex-councillor; some appear to be from press releases. Only the brief item in the village news mentions a specific council meeting, although it doesn’t report what happened in it.
It does mean that about 1/4 of the Cotswold edition’s main news pages (3 out of 12) at least mention a council or councillor, which sounds positive; but this has to be tempered by the fact that some of the references are brief; or an addition to an existing story; or to satisfy the need for a quick quote. There is little evidence, as far as I can see, of monitoring council meetings or writing more in-depth pieces about local politics.
"share the same news gathering journalists on the ground, and then the stories are chosen and subbed accordingly for each title."In the weekly Witney Gazette of 25 November, there are 40 pages, which breakdown thus:
"I found that there were 35 pages devoted to news on 23/11, 25/11 and 27/11 and of these 6.25 pages were given over to ‘council reporting’.
"Like others I’ve been finding there is little reporting of council meetings, more stories are created from council press releases and then a few quotes from councillors. It’s also not clear when these councillors were saying these quotes, although the councillors title and ward are always attached."
Journopig has added analysis of The Oxford Times to the investigation into 'How much local council coverage is there in your local paper?'
"We counted the equivalent of just three pages of council stories within this 26 page total, using Sarah’s guide to counting up coverage; but we were being generous by including brief mentions of, or quotes by, councils or councillors."We were slightly surprised by the findings, as we had been fairly confident that a newspaper of The Oxford Times’ size and status would contain a good amount of council coverage. Its circulation area includes not only Oxford City Council but also district councils such as West Oxfordshire, Cherwell, South Oxfordshire and Vale Of White Horse – which serve diverse rural areas."But perhaps The Oxford Times assumes that other regional newspapers – such as the daily Oxford Mail, or the weeklies in the district, such as the Banbury Guardian or Witney Gazette – will cover the councils, and leave it to be more arty and intellectual."We’ll be looking at those other regionals in the very near future to see if they really do pick up that council baton. Because if they don’t, then who does make those councils accountable?"
Ray Tindle, whose company acquired the South London Press just over two years ago, has revealed that Tindle Newspapers has lost more than £500,000 since buying the paper. His admission came during a segment on Friday's edition of ITV's London Tonight, which dealt with the subject of council-run newspapers, writes Roy Greenslade. I've posted this Guardian story, partly in order to test the new posterous blog, but also I thought it would be of interest to other members of this group. |
