The Independent may go free in London, and may merge some of its operations with the Evening Standard, the Financial Times reported. Evgeny Lebedev, son of Alexander and chairman of Independent Print, told the FT that he was considering a range of strategies to make the newspaper profitable.

The Lebedevs bought the Independent in March, having acquired London's The Evening Standard at the start of last year. The FT noted that the Independent and its Sunday partner, the Independent on Sunday, have the lowest circulation among the UK quality dailies, and Lebedev told the FT that "we will have to do something. The Independent can't stay in its present form because it will continue losing money."

The Evening Standard went free in October 2009, and Lebedev told the FT that the new model was paying off. Two free London papers closed last summer, leaving the way free for the ES. If the Independent followed suit it would be in the same area, within London's M25. Lebedev also mentioned the possibility of "finding synergies between the two papers" but said that a full merger of the papers would be unlikely.

The London Evening Standard will launch a mobile application later this month, aiming to connect its content with social media, Media Guardian reported today. The newspaper's print version is also now being sold again, after dropping its cover price in October.

The new mobile app will be available later this month across all major smartphone platforms, according to a press release from Handmark, the company that built the app. However, no detail was provided as to whether the app will be paid, or supported by advertising. It will deliver the newspaper in a simple, easy-to-navigate format and the "content within the mobile application will be refreshed automatically and available for offline reading."

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The Paris-based citizen photojournalism agency Citizenside has partnered with Metro International to launch a new website for citizen reporting.

The site, MetroReporter, allows readers to upload and share their news photos and video. All contributions are vetted by editors before being posted. If they are published in print or on Metro's primary site, the member is paid between €10 and €70. Membership of MetroReporter is free and Metro has agreed to purchase and publish user contributions on a regular basis. This means that an international publication has plans to regularly pay its audience to contribute content, rather than expecting user-generated content to be free.
MetroReporter is part of the MetroFrance site, exposing it to the publication's high traffic. This is a pilot project in France and there are plans to establish similar sites in seven other countries.

There's more fuel for the debate over council-run newspapers in the UK today, with one local newspaper revealing that its council-supported rival costs taxpayers almost £28,000 a month.

In the town of Salford, near Manchester, the council magazine Life in Salford competes with newspapers the Salford Star and Salford Advertiser. The Salford Star filed a freedom of information request to determine the cost of producing the council magazine. It determined that the council spends £27,797 per month, or an average of £333,564 per year.

By contrast, outside advertising income for the paper totaled just over £19,000 for eight issues.
The Star points out that ten months after the Council withdrew thousands of pounds of advertising from the Salford Advertiser, the local paper is no longer being delivered for free to homes in its local area. It is available at a cost from local newsagents.

The article said: "We would argue that Salford Council spending £333,564 of Salford residents' council tax on its own publication has profound implications for democracy and accountability. While the Salford Star and the Salford Advertiser are only available free online, an estimated two thirds of Salford's population do not have access to the internet."