No news is bad news when it comes to local journalism

City Matters, Fleet Street’s local newspaper, went out of business last week.

So what? The City of London Corporation now joins several London boroughs that no longer have dedicated journalists covering them. This is part of a nationwide collapse that

• appears to have aided the rise of the far right;
• hurts sports teams and community events; and
• allows councils and public bodies to escape scrutiny.

Counting the cost. Roughly 300 local papers have closed in the UK since 2005, and two-thirds of regional journalists have lost their jobs in that time. At least 38 ‘news deserts’ across the country have left 7 per cent of the population without publications in their area.

Ancient history now. This is a long way from the turn of the 20th century, when there were nearly 2,000 “provincial papers” and 472 published in London.

What it does. Steven Barnett from Westminster University warns that the absence of local journalism today makes it easy for “people to foment anxiety in local Facebook groups and street WhatsApp groups”. According to King’s College London, the net result is

• partisan online news;
• polarised political behaviour;
• less local engagement and political participation;
• reduced attendance at local sports teams and events; and
• little oversight over and accountability of councils and their actions.

Case in point. Merthyr Tydfil in the Welsh Valleys offers a cautionary tale. In 2017 a popular Facebook group beset with misinformation helped to overthrow the local council. Two former administrators of the group won seats as independents.

Case of City. Although City Matters had only three full-time members of staff, advertising and sponsorship revenue was not enough to meet rising business and print costs. The managing director, Nick Chapman, told Printweek that “market conditions” had changed.

Power stays. The regional newspapers still going are often filleted publications with a mixed record when it comes to helpful coverage. The Labour incumbent in Dagenham and Rainham won their seat with a slender majority in 2019 after no local articles mentioned rival candidates.

AI slop v beat reporters. Local UK papers have been using AI to write news since 2013. Giants such as Reach PLC, National World and Newsquest use the technology to restyle stories from other titles, generate social content and even write court reports.

The risk. One journalist recently told the Sheffield Tribune that an AI court report identified the victim of a sexual assault, in breach of her legal anonymity. This shouldn’t be surprising. BBC research on chatbots asked questions about the news found that

• 51 per cent of answers had “significant issues”;
• 19 per cent that cited BBC content fabricated facts; and
• 13 per cent altered quotes or used quotes not in the original article.

Special responsibility. The use of AI risks eroding the faith that people in the UK still have in smaller publications. A 2022 poll found that more than 80 per cent of Brits trust the news and information they see in their local media, a seven-point rise from 2018.

Taking advantage… are new publications that have stepped into the vacuum. London has The Londoner, The London Spy, The London Minute and London Centric. All four are lean online publications that rely on subscriptions. But none, in a city of nine million people, are hyperlocal.