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 Mark Wall
Manager & Editor
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GT is it legal, is it fair?
The MP’s expenses debacle in parliament over the last few weeks dovetailed into my thinking on another issue, one which has been on my mind for some time. That is the issue of Council papers.
Council papers are bad for local journalism and for our democratic system.
At a time when independent local papers and journals are under extreme pressure from a reduction in revenue, the free council run papers are now threatening these privately owned and independent papers.
Part of the issue here in Greenwich is the GT is very coy about actually declaring it is a council publication. Many readers would be surprised to discover that it is a totally taxpayer funded publication. One has to look very hard to find the only reference to it being a council produced paper.
In our local case the Greenwich Times or GT has a distribution that dwarfs that of many papers and magazines in the area, and they make no secret of the fact that they are in competition with local titles. The GT recently offered free advertising to businesses in Greenwich, and while there was not a huge take up it does make it difficult for other titles to sell the space they need to survive. The overall effect is undermining private publications and can only serve to force advertising rates down.
The GT claims to be the newspaper campaigning for an even greater Greenwich. But is this true? How does two pages of television scheduling (over 7% of an average publication) make for a better Greenwich? It seems that only 6 pages are actually devoted to council official notices. That leaves a massive 20 pages to deal with matters that are best left to other publications and to develop the relationship between the council and o2 and Carlton Athletic.
The issue is in my mind two fold. First; should taxpayer's money be used in publishing a paper that sees itself in commercial competition with private publications when it is taxpayer funded and can only serve narrow political outcomes. Second; can such a newspaper be objective, one of the jobs of local journalists is to hold local authorities to account and make sure they are acting fairly and honestly.
Local council papers are shielded from reality and the difficult economic conditions and therefore constitute unfair competition. It is only a matter of time before they put other papers and journals out of business and become the only voice in the community.
Figures available tend to indicate what this might be costing the Greenwich taxpayer. The Londoner, which had a cost of £3 million a year was closed by Mayor Boris Johnson and figures from Hackney council, which publishes a fortnightly paper reveal that the 2008-9 budget was £1.56 million. One can only imagine what the weekly GT costs, and with very little advertising revenue, the taxpayer is footing that cost.
Suggestions from the council that the publication was actually saving the council money through not having to pay for statutory notices in local papers are ludicrous.
The second point, the role of independents holding local authorities to account, means that once the last independent closes its door there will be no one in the community reporting in a fair, balanced and independent way. The GT must be biased by its nature, it is impossible to imaging the Editor holding his job if he were to criticise the ruling council. The GT often promotes council policy and even when it does not it would never criticise it. The GT is heavily censored and would never campaign against council decisions, nor investigate councillors or council officers.
Can you imagine, if the only newspaper available to us was a national government run ‘Pravda’ publication, that we would be aware of the current MP’s expenses scandal? Of course not . In the same way in Greenwich we are fast approaching that situation.
It is time to put an end to the GT and re-direct the money being spent on this expensive spin publication to better use, such as planting trees.
Mark Wall
020 8850 4314
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