10 Informed Spotlight


Was it a tale of two cities?


Could the death toll caused by the fire at Grenfell Tower have been prevented if local journalists had acted as watchdogs, listening to their readers and holding the council to account? asks David Hencke


Te local residents’ association, the Grenfell Action Group, had been warning of fire safety issues in Grenfell Tower and other blocks of flats since 2013 Yet their concerns were ignored and when their blogs got too critical, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea threatened them with defamation proceedings unless they took down the critical posts. Te reason their concerns went


unreported was entirely due to the state of the local press, according to Grant Feller, a former reporter who worked in the borough. In 1990 there were two newspapers, the Chelsea News and the Kensington News, and a team of 10 reporters chasing news in the borough.


“Today no one is there,” he said. Tere are only two online papers,


Kensington Chelsea and Westminster Today and the Kensington and Chelsea Times. Both are mainly lifestyle and leisure publications. Te KCWT contained just one article on the tower disaster culled from the BBC. Te Kensington and Chelsea Times had one original story by a named reporter on the fire and another story on an appeal for the victims. Te Kensington & Chelsea News now faces closure since its owner went into administration, puting four other west London titles at risk. According to the Press Gazete, London has fewer newspapers per million of population compared to other regions in the country. Te only capital- wide newspaper, Te Standard, edited by George Osborne, is now down to a single print edition and prefers to report the goings-on of the gliterati rather than council flat dwellers. Te London Assembly has held an


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