Local and Regional News

Corri Wilson Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Corri Wilson (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP)]

I start by saying that I believe local media should be seen as an asset to the communities they serve. They are vital for a healthy democracy, they benefit local businesses, they provide a platform for local campaigns, they hold local politicians to account and they shine a light on some of the important local issues that matter to our constituents.

The local press promote local fund-raising initiatives, highlight local government achievements and failings, and can be found at every gala and every community event. They are the voice of their readers, or listeners, and they act as a watchdog. People trust them and see them as somewhere to go when things goes wrong or when things need to be put right. Essentially, a quality local paper or radio station can supply part of the glue that holds local communities together, giving people a sense of themselves. So the crisis affecting local news is one we need to address urgently.

More than half of all parliamentary constituencies, including my own constituency, do not have a dedicated daily local newspaper. The geography of my constituency means that we benefit from three excellent local weeklies. Each publication focuses on a different part of my constituency, each one caters for the different demographics of their unique area, and each one offers timely and balanced reporting of current events. However, each one faces challenges in what is now an extremely difficult marketplace.

The declining circulation figures of local, regional and national papers across the country have resulted in editorial cuts, job losses and office closures. As more people move online for their news, the decline in the printed press has been partially offset by website growth. However, competition for advertising means that most UK local newspapers are seeing a fall in their overall revenue, and the impact of the BBC’s expansion in online local news coverage is being felt by many local publications.

We have seen job cuts throughout the sector. The National Union of Journalists has highlighted surveys that show that journalists have been put under considerable pressure as a result of staff cuts and mergers. Some journalists have confided that they are being stretched more and more, and consequently mistakes are made and quality suffers.

In such challenging times, many local papers face the choice of shutting up shop or allowing themselves to be subsumed by a larger media group, and, as has been mentioned previously, just four publishers now account for almost three quarters of local newspapers across the UK. In my own constituency, two local papers are owned by Newsquest, one by Johnston Press, and one by Trinity Mirror, with all the tabloid news values that come with that. That brings me to a personal gripe. I do not know about others in this Chamber, but when I arrive in a part of the country that I am unfamiliar with, I turn to the local paper to give me an idea about the area. Local papers are often a great way of finding out what is going on in an area, and what local events and attractions I can visit, and they can provide a taste of what the area is like. So, when a local paper focuses almost exclusively on a combination of crime and incompetence, scandal and conflict, and when it does little more than highlight all the negatives of the community it serves, the effect is to talk the area down. Local people can start to feel negative about their community and the visiting reader is left wondering how quickly they should leave the area.

I recently spoke to a friend who had been considering moving to a new town, but scouting around the local paper left her thinking that underneath the façade of what seemed like a nice enough area there lurked a dark underbelly of crime and corruption. Quality local news reporting should highlight problems, but it should also illustrate what is good about a community and indirectly promote the area to tourists and locals alike. However, if a paper’s ownership has no vested interest in the community it serves and is only concerned with shifting product, it is inevitable that some publications will do more harm than good, and cease to be an asset.

Concern about the steadily increasing amount of news production accounted for by large corporations is nothing new, as it dates back to the rise of press barons in the days of Queen Victoria. Not only did the press barons own chains of newspapers but some of them had no qualms about using their papers to promote their pet cause or to dismiss ideas and people they disagreed with.

However, the rise of multimedia conglomerates that have significant stakes across a range of central communications sectors means that it is no longer just a simple case of owners intervening in editorial decisions or firing personnel who fall foul of their world view. News production is now strongly influenced by commercial strategies, which are built around the overlaps between a company’s different media interests, and there is a growing trend whereby different publications in a group share resources. There is a high degree of co-operation between editorial units and the implementation of group-wide policies on many issues. The general effect of the monopoly of media ownership can be seen in research that concluded that those who work for large chains are less likely to have an attachment to the community in which they work. Editorial staff can be moved around a news group, fliting from one publication to another, and failing to put down roots in any one place. For some, the media organisation takes precedence over the local community.

There is a widespread debate in Scotland about the relationship between the media and democracy, but there is a strong belief that critical and well-supported journalism is essential to a thriving democracy. We need a media environment that values, respects and promotes quality news reporting.

Finally, in a contracting industry the economies of scale take over, but it is the duty of both the free media and the Government to ensure that the local media sector delivers robustly evidenced and well-balanced news. Merging titles and laying off good journalists has an impact on local media’s ability to support democracy and high-quality debate, but we all have a vested interest in supporting this vital sector.