Forum Topic

PETITION AGAINST HF NEWS

Dear All,The Fulham Chronicle has launched a campaign to rid our borough of the council-run propoganda sheet, h&f news. In short, we do not agree that tax-payers money is being used to run a biased publication run by government spin doctors. We would be grateful if you added your name to the petition. To do so, and find out more, visit www.fulhamchronicle.co.uk/campaigns. Please pass this on to as many people in the borough as you can.Adam Courtney, reporter

Adam Courtney ● 5488d13 Comments

This from the PA media summary this morning:"A Guardian report said the Government will this week ‘confirm a crackdown’ on council-run publications in a move to protect media groups who say revenues and readership are affected by the titles. The guidelines on council-run newspapers and magazines will reportedly be announced by communities and local government secretary Eric Pickles, effectively banning councils from using taxpayers’ money to fund them. Pickles, who earlier pledged to ban the "weekly town hall Pravdas", will announce rules only allowing councils to publish four free titles a year, the Guardian claimed. And ‘a senior political source’ added: "All content must be totally straight and fair. These publications are not the place for opinion or commentary."

Sara Nathan ● 5301d

A useful reminder of what happened. The good news is that this is now all in the past and today we have a proper local newspaper again. There is now no decent reason for the Council to continue publishing their own paper instead of spending the money on our local services.

Ben Coleman ● 5467d

The problem is that this arose from lack of investment from Trinity Mirror. The primary revenue source for local newspapers is the Council and other local government bodies who are obliged to use local papers for public notices.This guaranteed source of revenue was attractive to big media groups like Trinity who bought up lots of local titles, consolidated them and cut costs aggressively. This meant that the quality of the newspapers sank as did their readership.The Council had little choice but to set up their own newspaper if they wanted to communicate with local people. By transferring public notices and planning notifications from Trinity in house they making these forms of communication more effective.There is clearly a problem with the content of H&F News and guidelines should be in place to ensure Council are not allowed to put out propaganda and there is also a major issue with them involving themselves in something which competes with the commercial sector on an unequal basis but Trinity are just at much at fault for this situation arising as the Council.

Andy Jones ● 5467d

There are a number of reasons for signing this petition - mine is that h&f news promotes the Council administration's view - and only their view. Anybody who has tried to include a news item, or even a letter which appears to be at odds with administration policy, just gets ignored, even though we are all ultimately paying for the paper, and even though a free press is the bedrock of our society. H&f news is a well produced paper but it cleaves to its masters and, although this is no criticism of its editor who has little choice in the matter, it is extraordinary that a chairman of a Commons Select Committee - himself a Conservative MP - quite rightly calls it political propaganda - and still it is being produced.It will not be mentioning any councillors in the run-up to the elections, but business as usual may well resume later on.This is the situation and even though you may well feel that Trinity Mirror brought it upon itself, and its reasons for aiming arrows at h&f news are commercially influenced, it is still doing us a service by shining a light upon the paper.

Rosemary Pettit ● 5470d

Sorry? Isn't the new paper just that: an investment in local journalism and the media? Now that we have a decent local paper again, it isn't the council's job to skew the market by using taxpayers' money which should be spent on local services  to subsidise its own paper. That's not free market competition as I understand it. And for anybody, even the Chronicle, to complain about this anti-competitive skewing of the market isn't whingeing but entirely proper. I say again, I have no financial interest in the Chronicle - but I do think we should be celebrating the fact that it exists. The time is well overdue for the Council to stop wasting £700,000 on a propaganda sheet and to spend our local tax dollars instead on better services (such as restoring home helps). That's the substantive issue and I hope that signing the petition will help us get there quicker.

Ben Coleman ● 5484d

I'm not signing anything promoted by Trinity Mirror for their own ends:Big boys who could have chosen to invest in local journalism and media but would rather whinge about the competition.

Sara Nathan ● 5484d

Andy and SaraThe Council would never agree to this sensible idea unless forced to do it. That's where the petition comes in. It is just a way for the public to express that they think the current situation - taxpayers' money going on a biased publication - isn't right.  If enough of us do it, we can get some change. That's why it'd be really helpful if you and everyone else signed it.

Ben Coleman ● 5484d

I am with Sara on this issue. Trinity Mirror should have not left a gap in the market by under investing in their product for years. The readership of their local newspapers became so low that the Council clearly had little option but to launch their own title. Although this site and the others in the borough do an admirable job with a thin resource base and probably had a bigger readership than the local Chronicle before it went free they still cover only a tiny fraction of the borough. The problem is that there is so little regulation of how these public sector newspapers operate. One possible solution is for the Councils to be made to fund a trust which would run a paper with an independent editorial board.

Andy Jones ● 5484d

And if you have no financial interest in the matter, then your views are surely worth hearing - I have no brief for H&F at all - just don't like to see self-interested campaigns masquerading as missions run on behalf of the public.

Sara Nathan ● 5484d

Sarah, it's not H&F's job to undermine the free press and it's not in local people's interest to allow their money to be spent on doing this (btw, I have absolutely no financial interest in the Chronicle). The H&F paper trumpets the local council with endless photos of Tory councillors. The Chronicle carries views from all parties. The council's paper is propaganda and the other is balanced news. It can't be right to spend our council tax on this rather than on essential services such as meals on wheels, which have been slashed (something you'd only ever read about in the Chronicle, btw).

Ben Coleman ● 5484d

Actually what he saying is not that he agrees that tax payers money is etc but that it SHOULDN'T be. For a professional writer, that's a bit basic isn't it?

Sara Nathan ● 5487d

"In short, we do not agree that tax-payers money is being used to run a biased publication run by government spin doctors." Sorry, but not sure what you are saying.

Vivienne James ● 5487d

Self-interested or what?Presumably your paper is worried about the share of advertising that the council free-sheet takes.It might be a worthwhile campaign if it came from someone with nothing but public interest to gain from doing down the council's organ.

Sara Nathan ● 5488d