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Relax ad rules to keep hyperlocals afloat


I was interested to read Paul Breeden’s comments about trying to get government and public sector ads in hyperlocals and weeklies (Turning to the NUJ, June/July pages 10-11) and Josiah Mortimer’s feature (pages 14 and 15) on state support for the media. For eight years, I’ve edited south-west London


hyperlocal The Good Life, covering the Surbiton area. Our print run (11,500) is four times that of the local weekly, which does receive public sector advertising. I approached the Cabinet Office to ask that the roll-out of


government ads continues to trickle down the chain to us, and was referred to the government’s media booking agency. It said that as The Good Life isn’t printed every week, it doesn’t qualify for public sector advertising. It seems that frequency of publication is the only yardstick – even if that’s at variance with Michael Gove’s comments in April about supporting local papers. I’ve appealed for help from the two MPs whose


constituencies my paper covers – foreign secretary Dominic Raab and Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey – asking them to vouch for my paper, and to try to get this rigid rule relaxed so that influential hyperlocals can stay afloat too. I’ve also written to Michael Gove asking him to expand government advertising to support hyperlocals at a time when so much business advertising has collapsed. Full marks to Kingston Council, however, which does


recognise the issue, knows The Good Life is doing its bit to publicise local volunteering efforts and services during the pandemic, and has supported the paper with advertising. I just wish the Government would do the same.


Tim Harrison Editor, The Good Life


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Cummings saga shows risk of creeping censorship I was perplexed by the reaction to the media coverage of the Dominic Cummings saga. Maybe it’s fair to argue that


Cummings’ actions should not have received the amount of coverage they did, but we should always stand by the media’s right to scrutinise the


20 | theJournalist


behaviour of those who unarguably wield considerable power and influence. With the facts of the case so disputed and Cummings hardly forthcoming with information, we would know nothing about any of this without the forensic work of journalists who brought it into the open where it belongs. We quickly move into dangerous territory when the argument evolves


into claims a story shouldn’t be covered at all by the free press. We’ve all shouted ‘this isn’t news’ but


several of his defenders too quickly opined that journalists shouldn’t be interested at all in the ‘Cummings and goings’ of the prime minister’s most senior adviser. This suggestion borders alarmingly on censorship and Boris Johnson


Email to: journalist@nuj.org.uk Post to: The Journalist 72 Acton Street, London WC1X 9NB Tweet to: @mschrisbuckley


legitimised this with his orchestrated ‘move on’ message. If you’re not interested in a news story then ignore it. The news is not created solely for you and disagreeing with something doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be published at all. Dan Peters London Magazine Branch


Covid-19 hypocrisy brings journalism into disrepute In the spring, we saw journalists, film crews and photographers door-stepping Dominic Cummings and accusing him of breaching the coronavirus lockdown regulations. None were observing the social distancing rules, thereby also breaching them. The NUJ guidance on ethical journalism while reporting on the pandemic states: ‘Journalists and photographers will be expected to comply with public health guidelines, for example keeping two metres away from others.’ Journalists are not above the law. Nor


are they immune to Covid-19. The NUJ advice is sound. Nobody wants a journalist to contract Covid-19 and die. It cannot be right for journalists to


make allegations of crime and misconduct on the one hand while committing the same offence on the other. Such hypocrisy is unethical and unacceptable. It serves only to risk lives and bring journalism into disrepute. Tim Hicks North Yorks Enquirer


Sports pages illustrate decline of weekly papers The few remaining readers don’t realise why their regional weekly newspaper is largely not worth reading now. Martin Shipton describes how many papers “have no dedicated reporting staff – or, indeed, staff of any kind” (Digital news shift is diluting democracy, April-May). I was a subeditor on the South Wales


Echo, now part of Reach (formerly Trinity Mirror), then editor of one of the Valleys weeklies in the same group more than 20 years ago. Sports


DENIS CARRIER


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