{"id":96517,"date":"2016-11-21T09:41:04","date_gmt":"2016-11-21T09:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=96517"},"modified":"2016-11-21T09:52:32","modified_gmt":"2016-11-21T09:52:32","slug":"do-local-authorities-relish-the-demise-of-regional-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/do-local-authorities-relish-the-demise-of-regional-press\/","title":{"rendered":"Do local authorities relish the demise of regional press?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\"><strong>Many local authorities view the regional press as a \u201cpain in the arse\u201d and will welcome the demise of the industry <a href=\"http:\/\/www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk\/2016\/news\/councils-hoping-for-pain-in-the-arse-local-press-demise-says-ex-editor\/\"><u>according<\/u><\/a>\u00a0to the former editor of The Northern Echo.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Peter Barron, who edited the title for 17 years, told journalists at <a href=\"http:\/\/northerncorrespondent.com\/shop\/issue-9\/running-out-of-paper\/\"><u>The Northern Correspondent<\/u><\/a>\u00a0an online news website covering issues in the North-East of England: \u201cPlenty of councils are looking forward to the demise of local newspapers because they hold them to account\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey see them as a pain in the arse. There are certainly councils that would love to see the back of the Northern Echo\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The Nothern Correspondent\u2019s article suggests that the days when politicians, council leaders and police chiefs feared the 5pm call from a newspaper editor saying: \u201cWe\u2019re just about to run this story. Do you wish to comment?\u201d are over and this may represent a decline in democratic values as well as hindering law and order.<\/p>\n<p>The article highlights, cases where journalists uncovered documents alleging police authorities kept accusations of child abuse involving high profile individuals within their ranks secret.<\/p>\n<p>Janet Oldham, investigations editor for the Birmingham Mail, who was also interviewed for the article agrees and said: \u201cPolice forces, councils, the NHS and others are investing huge sums to create an image of themselves that isn\u2019t the reality\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere seems to be more press officers at the same time as there are fewer journalists like me to challenge and hold them to account.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>PR professionals and journalists have a funny relationship \u2013 part partnership, part competitor. However, without this competition, without this editorial filter, without this degree of cynicism, PR just becomes advertising or (worse still) propaganda.<\/p>\n<p>The day regional journalism dies is the day that PR dies (or becomes something else). Hopefully we are all better than that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many local authorities view the regional press as a \u201cpain in the arse\u201d and will welcome the demise of the industry according to the former editor of The Northern Echo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":96518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7272,7238],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96517"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96517"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96527,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96517\/revisions\/96527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}