News Shopper may be seeing some changes:
Social media has democratised reporting, and allowed residents to reach large audiences. I wonder if that’s part of the reason for the decline of local newspapers?
Facebook allows you to target ads at local audiences without needing to place an advert in the local paper.
The only thing keeping some of these papers going is money paid by the BBC - which comes from TV license fees!
Very peculiar that the BBC partially funds independent private companies that report news.
I didn’t know this but would make sense. It would ensure there is more rather than less publications ‘testing the truth’, and ensuring a variety of opinions rather than a narrowing brought about by more publications closing.
That’s if you trust the BBC is a neutral non-partisan organisation that fosters plurality of opinion. We have one or two threads in General Politics that call this into question.
But I agree, the more local news sources the better.
I thought we had one or two threads which debate the issue and fall short of any clear conclusions.