Selling the News to it’s rival may be the only way to save it

The news of the News‘ proposed sale has stirred local Labour blogger Councillor Tristan Osborne in to immediately calling for the acquisition to be blocked by the Office of Fair Trading.

“Given Medway, a conurbation of some 220,000 residents is currently only served by two major newspapers; News and Messenger,” he wrote, “it is extremely concerning to note that the KM Group would have an effective monopoly over the area.”

I’m not sure I agree. Granted, a monopoly by a single media company is not always a healthy development, and it is a stronger argument at the moment, given the News International fiasco than it would have been this time last year.

However, contrary to Cllr Osborne’s claims, I do not see much in the way of bias emanating from the Medway Messenger, and I have to admit that I laughed at the absurdity of the following sentence: “it … indeed does raise questions about whether the KM Group will remain impartial and investigative of Conservative Council practices”.

Excuse my French, but bollocks!

Local media has been in financial decline as drastically as national media, with the increasing popularity of online and social media. Many local media organisations have struggled to cope, and various restructuring operations have gone on nationwide, with many titles disappearing.

Over the ten years or so I have been reading the KM Group’s newspapers, they have always remained hot on the heels of the council, eager to expose waste, incompetence and general wrongdoing, whilst encouraging praise for the things that have been done right.

It can take just one critical article for a politician to claim that a newspaper is biased against them, but in local media that is rarely the case.

In practice, partiality by local newspapers will dent their circulation further still and risk their financial sustainability. Taking on several loss-making liabilities is equally as risky, and no media organisiation with good business sense would wish to place themselves under any unnecessary risk.

I can not see the day that the KM Group would ever not challenge the council and, as an independent publisher (free from the eye of a national media organisation), I doubt they would betray their journalistic principles of exposing disgraceful behaviour, as they have a strong history of doing.

To bring in party politics and imply that, all of a sudden, they could be influenced by individual parties is desperate and shameful, and does not encourage good media relations for an ambitious young politician who will spend at least the next four years in the Medway public eye.

I, however, am leaving next month, and can say what I think (not that anything has ever stopped me from doing that before!).

It is generally accepted in my household that the two rivals’ roles have switched, with the Medway Messenger becoming an unmissable read, whilst the News is, with the least of disrespect intended to the journalists themselves (for whom I genuinely have a great deal of respect) as possible, barely worthy as toilet paper, to put it politely.

It has, being frank, been in steady decline in content and standards for years. When Northcliffe Media purchased the titles from Trinity Mirror there was a glimmer of hope, with further hope still coming from the restructuring.

Indeed, and for various reasons, my family has known a few individuals who have worked for the paper and its predecessors in varying roles at various levels. With the exception of one who sadly passed away, the rest are glad they no longer work there.

If the News needs saving, it is from their publishers – and if the KM Group bid is the only option, then it must be jumped upon, for the sake of the title and the journalists who work there.