Is H&F News using our taxes to destroy independent newspapers? (Hammersmith and Fulham Liberal Democrats)

Hammersmith and Fulham Liberal Democrats <info@hflibdems.org.uk>

Is H&F News using our taxes to destroy independent newspapers?

August 2, 2009 10:40 PM

Hammersmith and Fulham's Conservative controlled council has been accused of using council-taxpayer funds to drive independent local newspapers out of business, so that the only source of local news becomes the propaganda arm of the ruling party.

Liberal Democrats in the Hammersmith and Fulham have long complained that the only political stories covered in H&F News are good-news stores featuring the Conservatives. Now an article by Andrew Gilligan in the Evening Standard (27 July) highlights a bigger problem, the threat to the existence of an independent local press, with all the consequences that implies for scrutiny of our democratically elected local authority.

In our Borough, for example, the only paper willing to scrutinise the activities of H&F Council, the Hammersmith and Fulham Chronicle, now has a tiny circulation, as the 75,000 copies of H&F News, (production and distribution costs massively subsidised by you and me) have hollowed out its advertising base.

Meanwhile Councillors claim that the paper is a Council newspaper, not a Conservative Party propaganda sheet, despite the fact that it is almost impossible to find any articles critical of our local Tory party in the paper, or any balance in coverage of controversial issues such as the "super-sewer" and the council's policy on redevelopment of local council estates.

Those who fear for the health of our local democracy once there is no independent media are urged to protest. Merlene Emerson, spokeswoman for Hammersmith and Fulham Liberal Democrats appeals "please join me in demanding that either the editorship of H&F News be made independent of the Council, or that the Council be prohibited from using tax payers money in the production of their blatantly Tory paper"