News at Ten has a pop tonight at reporting the demise of the regional press in the light of the latest Northcliffe job losses, rightly pointing out the potential impact on local democracy, but failing miserably to point out the simple fact that the owners of these big groups, responsible for closing down 53 ‘failing’ newspapers and condemning thousands of hacks to the dole queue, are still making enormous, inflated profits.
It’s very simple: local newspapers are being sacrificed to preserve an unrealistic dividend. If shareholders were only willing to take a smaller return for a couple of years (and for all we know they might be) the massacre of our media could possibly be avoided.
And sadly, if our own kind can’t get that message across to the general public, what hope is there for any of us? We had a prime-time telly slot tonight, and they let us down. Shame on them.
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