please empty your brain below
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My local Newsquest publication (Hendon and Finchley Times) now covers Borehamwood as well, indeed there's as much local news from Borehamwood (which isn't even in London) as there is from the borough of Barnet
Mikey C | 18.11.19 - 8:23 a.m. | #
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In fact its only a been two weeks since the Sutton and Croydon Guardian was retitled.
dg writes: Updated, thanks.
What really irritates me is the letter page where you get anonymous contributions spouting why one particular policy would be good for their area (e.g. 20mph zone across Surrey) then identical letters in neighbouring editions around the same time - I have a habit of picking them up to compare content on my travels.
Ken | 18.11.19 - 8:29 a.m. | #
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In theory there's a local TV station - London Live - but I gave up trying to watch it when the signal got so weak the tuner wouldn't find it any more.
Alex McKenna | 18.11.19 - 9:08 a.m. | #
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Uxbridge Gazette still going as a freebie, but difficult to find and not very informative. Hillingdon Times online only as far as I know, and seems to contain mainly news about Watford. Problem is their loss of advertising revenue, so can't afford to employ proper journalists any more.
BBC London News has also been downgraded, especially online.
So there is no longer any real local news source, which is detrimental to local democracy.
Keith | 18.11.19 - 9:22 a.m. | #
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Boroughs without an Archant or Newsquest title:
• Hammersmith and Fulham
• Hounslow
• Kensington and Chelsea
• Southwark
• Westminster
Southwark has the independent Southwark News, a rare survivor.
But Trinity Mirror closed the print editions of its Chronicle series a few years ago, leaving hundreds of thousands of west Londoners without a weekly local paper.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 18.11.19 - 9:27 a.m. | #
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My wife was a reporter on the Croydon Guardian a few years back. At the time, they averaged six reporters per paper. And now they have one reporter covering three papers' worth of local area.
It's pure cost-cutting and asset-stripping by Newsquest; firstly they moved sub-editing into a central hub, away from any relevant local knowledge which could come in handy. Private Eye has documented the cock-ups this has caused over the years.
Then they gradually stopped replacing reporters when they moved onto nationals or other areas. This meant the coverage gradually worsened, and advertising also ebbed.
It's a vicious circle, and it seems in the case of Newsquest to be driven by a short-term attempt to retain pretty decent profit margins. They didn't/don't seem to realise that a small profit is still worthwhile investing in, never mind the consequences for local democracy/coverage.
Not that I particularly have a full solution!
gooneruk | Homepage | 18.11.19 - 9:29 a.m. | #
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The Guardian has rapidly gone downhill and is not even worth picking up. I used to look on their website, but that is even worse - poor journalism and each page full of dubious click-bait ads.
Worse, is the large amount of cookies that the site wants permission for and then adds them anyway, even though the Guardian cookie option is turned off.
On the cookie options list at the time, each cookie had to be turned off (individually). Looking at it today, this has now changed to five blocks which can be turned off. However, cookies from the Guardian site (36 of them) are already loaded before you are given the option and, even though they are then turned off, further cookies are added (almost another 60) just by looking at 2 of the Guardian article pages (not ads).
Rogmi | 18.11.19 - 10:20 a.m. | #
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I moved into my borough nearly 7.5 years ago and can count the number of times the Harrow Times has been delivered on the fingers of one hand - and that was mostly in the first few months!
I have seen copies lying around in supermarkets etc, but rarely want something else to lug home with my already heavy shopping!
We do get a magazine delivered every once in a while (every other month perhaps?) which I do read when it comes.
Mostly what I see now is what pops up in my social media!
Cornish Cockney | 18.11.19 - 10:54 a.m. | #
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What is the point of local rags these days? The're so dumbed down as to be almost worthless. Their sole purpose seems to be to provide entries for 'Angry People in Local Papers' on FB.
Adrian | 18.11.19 - 11:05 a.m. | #
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I think that the production of high quality local news is, sadly, no longer viable commercially in a lot of areas.
My local newspaper is one of the better ones and yet it is still one I would never buy and quality is deteriorating. It is still an essential online read, but the website is full of intrusive ads.
The only solution I can think of is for the BBC to pick up the slack, or for some other part-publicly funded service to exist. If it's not the BBC, then it can still have some advertising revenue.
Local news is an essential service which does need some public subsidy I'm afraid.
E | 18.11.19 - 11:22 a.m. | #
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Typical sloppy reporting in the Surrey Comet last summer - a photo accompanied an article about a protest held last June outside the council offices. What the picture actually showed were Christmas shoppers queuing at a bus stop outside the offices of a completely different council (Borough instead of County).
timbo | 18.11.19 - 11:28 a.m. | #
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Print media really has declined. The tabloids have always been rubbish, but in the broadsheets the Independent has disappeared (in print-form) whilst the Telegraph has really gone downhill - turned into a Brexit propaganda outlet, leaving the FT (good but niche), Times and Guardian, which still have their moments but suffer increasingly from sloppy journalism.
If I want to read some proper journalism I buy Private Eye. The satire can be hit and miss but their journalistic integrity and rigour is really appreciated in this day and age.
There is some good work being done by local bloggers on covering local stories and keeping local authorities to account, though they tend to have a v narrow focus (e.g. TrialbyJeory blog did some excellent work on exposing the corrupt dealings of Lutfur Rahman in Tower Hamlets, but covered this to near exclusion of everything else) and can have more of a partisan agenda than say regional printed media would typically have.
pah | 18.11.19 - 12:05 p.m. | #
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If you want Croydon (and Sutton) local news you'd be better off going on the Inside Croydon website which is written to a professional standard and has investigative journalism, something which many local newspapers now lack due to cost cutting. Local politicians of all colours generally hate it so the people running the site must be doing something right.
https://insidecroydon.com
milliem | 18.11.19 - 1:23 p.m. | #
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I live in Tottenham but haven't seen a paper edition of the Tottenham/Wood Green Independent for a long time now, only the combined Enfield and Haringey Independent, which carries both sets of news. Latest edition has 9 items from Enfield, 3 from Haringey, one concerning both boroughs. The public notices can be useful.
There is also the Community Press group, which has I think 4 local papers in N London that come out monthly. There is a handy feature on each website that gives a map showing where the print edition is available.
Bob L-S | 18.11.19 - 1:47 p.m. | #
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Honestly, there's more news in the Nisa/small chain supermarket marketing sheet that gets delivered by Mr Postie than is in the supposedly 'local' (sic) newspaper.
B | 18.11.19 - 2:10 p.m. | #
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In the Barnet area, the Newsquest "Barnet Borough Times" now covers the first 3 editions in your table
Hendon, Finchley, Barnet, Edgware, Mill Hill and Borehamwood.
dg writes: Updated, thanks.
Mikey C | 18.11.19 - 2:15 p.m. | #
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I get most of whats going on via our local residents association on Facebook. I do not have a facebook account but can read it all right there on their publicly accessible page.
mikeH | 18.11.19 - 2:17 p.m. | #
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The "Camden New Journal" is still a decent read, and the "South London Press" isn't bad either. Neither are part of the big groups, and it shows.
Mikey C | 18.11.19 - 2:17 p.m. | #
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Unfortunately our local paper The Ruchmond and Twickenham Times is poorly produced and full of errors and spelling mistakes. Few stories are about the local area and are sometimes about Merton and Wandsworth. The Middlesex Chronicle is a much better paper covering the Hounslow area which I believe is still being published. I had heard that it is a legal requirement for Council's to publish their planing applications and road closure notices in a local paper for residents to read. If so that seems to be the only thing these so-called local papers are useful for.
Tones | 18.11.19 - 2:35 p.m. | #
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"Unfortunately our local paper The Ruchmond and Twickenham Times is poorly produced and full of errors and spelling mistakes."
haha
Peter | 18.11.19 - 3:09 p.m. | #
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I don't live in London anymore, but when I lived there the "Camden New Journal" was very substantially a cut above pretty much every other local paper I've ever seen in the UK, let alone free ones. Sometimes a bit mad? Yes, that too. But always informative and always characterful - reflecting well the communities it serves. Last time I read it (earlier this year), it had slimmed down a bit, but was still a quality publication.
Obviously it wasn't published by the likes of Archant or Newsquest. It seems a bit harsh to describe them as asset-strippers, given the very difficult market for local papers, but they sure are not doing anything to innovate or excel, in either their print or online editions.
Dominic H | 18.11.19 - 4:43 p.m. | #
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I have just been reading this weeks "Richmond and Twickenham Times" -free or 65p where sold!.
It does still contain local news but nothing like 55 years ago when it was published by the Dimblbey Press, (of Richard Dimbleby's family) had offices in Richmond and Twickenham and was printed in Richmond, King Street.
Several reporters back then and a theatre and film critic.
The "Middlesex Chronicle" I think has gone, there is a free Feltham or Hounslow Chronicle which seems to cover much of South West London.
The London Live TV channel part of the Evening Standard does not have much local news.
I always like to read local papers and always try and get one if I travel around the UK.
Sorry to see their decline.
John | 18.11.19 - 5:31 p.m. | #
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It's pretty common that we have the BBC funded "Local Democracy Reporter" turn up to Planning Committee - I guess this kind of funding is the only way that local democracy will be scrutinised, given the decline in local newspapers.
I guess with such a London centric country, we're never going to get "national" newspapers with a local focus like in major US cities - LA Times, Chicago Tribune, New York Times etc.
James Scantlebury | 18.11.19 - 8:59 p.m. | #
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I’m not sure I agree with the comment on US papers. The NY Times and Washington Post have an interesting balance of local, national and world news, but others (the Chicago Tribune, SF Chronicle) seem to be almost entirely locally focused, with a page or so on doings in Washington and hardly anything about the rest of the world unless it directly affects the city involved. Local, yes; but not really national or international in the way our broadsheets are. I’ll let others decide whether this is good or bad.
Baldassaro | 19.11.19 - 6:36 a.m. | #
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You might like to take a look at the Camden New Journal, but nicer to pick up a copy on Thursdays in the borough of Camden. It's a proper local newspaper and very interesting, with some excellent reviews and arts coverage as well as news. It is independently run. I am not quite sure how they manage to keep going,but wonder if companies like Newsquest are actually trying to produce a proper newspaper at all.
JA Woolf | 20.11.19 - 10:24 p.m. | #
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If each newspaper produced a monthly edition that was a facsimile of an edition from yesteryear, I expect people might not mind paying £5-£10 to see all the old reporting and advertisements plus some modern commentary here and there.
The Ham and High was founded in 1872 for example.
Many people got lots of news from local papers before the 1990s
Alex4D | Homepage | 21.11.19 - 11:00 a.m. | #
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