UK government to investigate local council papers?

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on January 21, 2010 at 12:54 PM

The UK government may ask the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to consider the impact of local council newspapers on local commercial newspaper publishers, Print Week and This is Local London report. Or it may not, media commentator Roy Greenslade points out.

Members of parliament from the three main parties last week called for council papers to be culled. Local newspapers have long protested that council papers take away from their falling market share.

Minister for Creative Industries Siôn Simon alluded that the government may ask the OFT to "consider the question of competition and the potential impact on the paid-for newspaper". But a spokesperson from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport called this plan "an option" rather than a pledge, Greenslade says.

Speaking at a debate at Westminster Hall, Liberal Democrat MP Paul Burstow called council-run papers "propaganda masquerading as independent newspapers".

"Just imagine if a beleaguered prime minister were to decide to hire a team of journalists and commentators to turn out a daily newspaper to create a positive image of the Government, talking up its achievements, always on message - all at a huge cost to the taxpayer," he said. "There would be an outcry. Quite rightly so."

"But that is what is happening at a local level."

Burstow criticised the Audit Commission for evaluating whether council publications provide taxpayer value for money, rather than whether they adversely impact the local press.

Labour's Andy Slaughter cited the h&f news, published by the Hammersmith and Fulham Council, as an example of the impact of council papers. It is distributed fortnightly for free to almost 75,000 homes. Sales of the Trinty Mirror-owned Fulham and Hammersmith Chronicle have fallen to just over 1250. Yet this paper has just announced it will go free and increase circulation to 72,000, so it will be interesting to see how that affects local readers' choices.

Greenslade also called for an investigation. "How much evidence does the government need before it looks more closely at the impact of council papers?" he asked. "In June last year the Digital Britain report acknowledged the negative impact on independent local newspapers of local authority newspapers."

"As far as I can see, nothing concrete is being done while everyone - Audit Commission, Ofcom, OFT and, of course, the government - pass the buck," he wrote.

An inquiry into the local newspaper industry in Scotland was launched by the Scottish Parliament in December. Will the rest of the UK follow suit?

Sources: Print Week, This is Local London, The Guardian