The Ipswich Evening Star newspaper celebrated its 125th birthday back in 2010 – when you think about it, an amazing record of publication, 6 days a week, except for Sundays and bank holidays.
The Star was a highly valued member of the community in its heyday – certainly when I remember it best, 40 or 50 years ago, people in our house made a dash for the letterbox to grab it first. Mum and Grandma wanted to see who’d died – Grandma wanted to outlive all her “old dears” – and I liked to keep an eye on the jobs and local politics.
It was always a little bit sensationalist as a paper, alway using favourite journo words like “fury”, “row” and “anger”, but there was a core of good reporting in there, too – some older writers among the young reporters local rags depended on, looking at local stories with a dispassionate eye that had seen it all before.
Overall, the paper had balance, and a strong editorial stance. It took its local responsibilities seriously, running campaigns about topics which caught the public mood, supporting and sometimes leading local opinion. Above all, The Star used its strength and popularity to keep an eye on every aspect of local life, and in doing so contributed the one thing any local media should provide for its community: bright daylight into potentially dark corners.
The fact of the matter is that without clear public oversight, people like local (and national) politicians can quickly start to behave badly, taking decisions based on factors other than the public good, and sometimes even lining their pockets from positions of power. We’ve seen it dozens, if not hundreds of times. MPs swindling us, their electorate, through their expenses, and local politicians and officials providing inappropriate help to businesses and individuals in return for favours, etc . .
So in the last couple of months, I’ve been quite surprised to see some serious changes. First, the move from 6 days-a-week to 5 days-a-week publication. It isn’t, on its own, a particular problem, but it does mean that publishers Archant must be feeling a sufficient financial and sales draught to want to cut production costs by half a day.
But I was taken aback when I saw the latest edition of something called the Felixstowe Star Advertiser (I think) which was simply filled with readers photos, headed up as “iwitness news“. There were a couple of pages of text, noteably a page from Richard Cornwell, who’s always worth reading . . but the rest – well, a quite fat newspaper filled with the cheapest possible content.
Times must be incredibly hard for our local paper . . more later!
