Thursday, July 30, 2009

Tories propose a local news service

An interesting development from the Tories and its not David Cameron's attempts to get down with the kids on Radio 5 yesterday.

It's proposing the creation of 80 independent cross-platform, ad-funded news companies staffed by professional journalists and community volunteers to fill in the gaps left by the shrinkage of local newspapers and the switch-off of ITV’s local news in 2012.

reports Paid Content

The report has been written by by former Johnston Press chairman Roger Parry,

It would be commercially funded through a mixture of: “Display and (a reduced volume of) classified advertising, sponsorship, product placement, retailing, copy sales, by selling news services to regional and national providers and by providing local media services.”
but as the site rightly says

it is a big question mark whether the market can sustain local news in any format without at least some public subsidy.

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