In Greece, a heroic move to maintain the freedom of the press is about to take place with journalists coming together to publish a paper that has been put out of business by it's owners.
It started in 1970 as a cooperative and moves are underfoot to return it to this again.
It's a heroic struggle but a very important one.
Here we have a situation where the existing local paper, The Evening Mail, throttles opinion that it doesn't like by not publishing comment it disagrees with or even worse, maybe, is being paid not to support.
When ligitamate views aren't expressed, how do we know what the motivation is?
Comment over the article featuring Colin Pickthal's criticism of Sainsbury's proposal for a supermarket at the Beehive, Ulverston is decidedly onesided . Support for Colin Pickthal's views is not being published, giving the impression that nearly everyone is in favour of the supermarket bid.
An alternative voice needs to be found if we are to have a fair decisions on proposals like this.
Furthermore we in Ulverston no longer have a resident journalist but one sat in an office in Barrow who knows little of the town being ignorant of basic geography it when he phoned me to discuss the Stockbridge Lane Car Park issue.
Is it time to ditch the Evening Mail and start our own more balanced
reporting of what is happening in Ulverston? I suggest that people with diverse views get
together and start a local news blog - it's easy to do and could lead to a far
healthier situation for those that live locally.
1 comment:
Geoff I did not read your Guardian link as well lets just say I have issues with The Guardian.
However I will tell you a story about your local paper when I was a teenager it was locally owned it never had good journalists as good journalists were on Fleet St in those days.
However it was a stepping stone for Journalists back in the day Ye Old Cheddar Cheese was the place to be one would hear stories of people that started on provincial papers.
In those days such papers were owned by people for the most part.
your local paper is now owned by a small media company in Carlisle they own 8 or 10 papers and 3 or 4 Radio Stations their interest is money not journalism.
Look at Liberation in France Sartre baby look at who owns it now and weep.
The Media is no longer about informing people it is about money.
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