Town Hall Bugle kills off local papers

According to the Times, "Local authorities are spending nearly £50m a year on propaganda freesheets that peddle a diet of mayoral tea parties, celebrity library openings and the glorious achievements of outsourced dustmen."

You may remember this website asking some questions about our own council rag some eighteen months ago.

"Critics fear that in addition to costing the taxpayer millions, the council-run newspapers carry a more insidious price: the loss of democracy as they drive local newspapers to the wall, silencing the voice of opposition.", says the Times. Mmm perhaps, but luckily there's an increasingly healthy local online community taking up the baton.

The Times continues by explaining that in Doncaster, new directly elected mayor, Peter Davies scrapped the council rag saying: “It is simply council propaganda and an exercise in distorting unpalatable truths.”

Attitudes, concludes the Thundered, are different in Labour-run Haringey.

Read the full story in The Times...........